By Seth Fera-Schanes

Another weekend and another opportunity to escape the city for a few hours.  If you don’t have a car (which is most of us) Metro North makes these trips very accessible.

If you look at a Google Map of the Hudson River there are a lot of towns and historic points of interest you should make the time to visit.

I decided to visit the Rockefeller Estate (also known as Kykuit) one weekend.  Full disclosure, I knew you needed tickets but didn’t buy them online.  So when I showed up and they were sold out, I wasn’t allowed to join the tour.  Lesson learned to pay attention to the rules for future visits.  This article is about my second trip to the estate….

Guided tours are required to visit the house and you will leave from the ticketing station/gift store on a bus.  Your tour guide will give you some background information as you make the 10 minute drive up the hill to the property.  There are 4 tours to choose from and I picked the classic for $25 which provided a walk through of the house, carriage house and grounds.

The house itself was impressive (obviously) but the grounds and views of the Hudson River are what put this trip on the Full Access Recommendation list.  The Rockefellers liked to adorn their property with sculptures, all strategically placed around the house and on the sweeping lawns.  Needless to say, it was striking:

After walking through the main house, the group will get back on the bus to head over to the carriage house.  Originally a stable and place to store the buggies, it has become a museum for all their modes of transportation (both horse drawn carriages and a great collection of classic cars.)    This was one of my favorite parts of the tour.Note: Tours are not year around (they close up for the winter) so you can plan to visit between May-November.