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Larry Lederman takes readers on a privileged photographic tour through the Rockefeller family gardens in the Hudson Valley and Maine. The Rockefeller family is synonymous with great wealth, extraordinary philanthropy, and exceptional stewardship of unspoiled landscapes. In their private world, the Rockefellers have created extraordinary gardens. Over the course of a century, their grounds have matured and evolved to reflect the layered visions of three generations of the Rockefeller family. At Kykuit in the Hudson Valley, John D. Rockefeller valued broad expanses of lawns with a noble forest of evergreens at the perimeter. His son—John D. Rockefeller Jr.—molded this landscape into a more formal Beaux-Arts garden design. This garden was later enhanced by Nelson A. Rockefeller’s addition of an extensive collection of twentieth-century sculpture, which is still in place today. In The Rockefeller Family Gardens, photographer Larry Lederman gives readers unprecedented access to the two Kykuit gardens—the expansive Beaux-Arts–style garden and a little-known Japanese garden, brought to life by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. This book also takes readers inside the garden at Eyrie, the family summer retreat in Seal Harbor, Maine. There, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller collaborated with noted designer Beatrix Farrand to design a walled garden inspired by Asian aesthetics at the perimeter and filled with traditional perennials. Lederman’s photographs capture the beauty of these gardens in all seasons, focusing on the geometry of the designs and the color and light that animates them. This tour through the spaces is accompanied by text from Todd Forrest of the New York Botanical Garden, Cassie Banning of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, and Cynthia Bronson Altman of Kykuit to provide commentary on the design and plant materials featured in this captivating collection of photos.
Dozens of color and bandw photographs, ranging from the construction of the house to snapshots of family members, illustrate the text which recounts the history of the estate from its founding early in the century through its recent transfer to the National Trust. It tells how each successive generation left its stamp, and includes never before published reminiscences of five generations of Rockefellers. Contains a family tree, visitor information, and a map of the gardens. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
John D. Rockefeller's Cleveland roots stretched across the oil-drenched banks and murky flats of Kingsbury Run in Cleveland and ended in the wooded sanctuary at Forest Hill. Six miles east of Public Square, Forest Hill was the Rockefeller family's country estate and summer home for four decades. It had formal gardens, greenhouses, a lake and lily pond, a golf course, a horse track, and acres of farmland. In the early 1900s, tourists and local residents rode the streetcar out Millionaires' Row to East Cleveland, where they peered through the imposing iron gates scrolled with an R to peek at the gatekeeper's lodge, the manicured lawns, and the road that led to the mansion atop the hill. Unfortunately, in 1917, Forest Hill burned to the ground. Because so many records, mementos, and photographs perished, the estate remains as shrouded in secrecy today as it did during its lifetime. Forest Hill: The Rockefeller Estate unveils the story of the estate, how it evolved and changed over the years, and how its legacy continues.
What it was like to be as rich as Rockefeller: How a house gave shape and meaning to three generations of an iconic American family One hundred years ago America's richest man established a dynastic seat, the granite-clad Kykuit, high above the Hudson River. Though George Vanderbilt's 255-room Biltmore had recently put the American country house on the money map, John D. Rockefeller, who detested ostentation, had something simple in mind—at least until his son John Jr. and his charming wife, Abby, injected a spirit of noblesse oblige into the equation. Built to honor the senior Rockefeller, the house would also become the place above all others that anchored the family's memories. There could never be a better picture of the Rockefellers and their ambitions for the enormous fortune Senior had settled upon them. The authors take us inside the house and the family to observe a century of building and rebuilding—the ebb and flow of events and family feelings, the architecture and furnishings, the art and the gardens. A complex saga, The House the Rockefellers Built is alive with surprising twists and turns that reveal the tastes of a large family often sharply at odds with one another about the fortune the house symbolized.
A photographic portrait of 16 private gardens in New York and Connecticut through the seasons, weathers, and times of day. For his third book of landscape photographs with Monacelli, following Magnificent Trees of the New York Botanical Garden and The Rockefeller Family Gardens, Larry Lederman has selected 16 private gardens in New York State and Connecticut and studied them in depth, presenting views through the seasons and weathers to capture their essential spirit. As Gregory Long, President Emeritus of the New York Botanical Garden, observes: "After selecting the gardens, Lederman sets out to learn and understand them. He visits in all seasons, in all weather, at many times of day, in many light conditions. He wants to analyze their design and study their character. He wants to know their plants and see their environmental conditions and visual elements from many points of view. He wanders. He walks the paths, forward and backward, and stops frequently so that his camera can memorize views and details. As a result of this time spent and such intense scrutiny, he sometimes discovers aspects of a place that the residents themselves have never seen or fully appreciated. I think the owners of the gardens in this book will see vistas, patterns, designs on the land they did not know they possess. They will love their even gardens more, and their commitments will grow."
In 1894, Abby Aldrich, the outgoing, impulsive daughter of Rhode Island’s Senator Nelson Aldrich, met Brown University student John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the shy and reserved heir to the Standard Oil fortune. This unlikely pair fell in love, but only seven years later did John feel confident enough to propose. Once married, Abby used her empathy, willingness to experiment, and defiant optimism to broaden John’s way of thinking and to expand his vision of what the Rockefeller fortune could do, shaping the family into a progressive force in philanthropy, the arts, and politics. Abby cherished and protected her six children — Babs, John III, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and David — and inspired in them a desire to serve society. She helped open the nation’s eyes to modern art and in 1928, initiated the foundation of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. From behind the scenes Abby helped direct the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and the building of Rockefeller Center. “Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was a legendary figure, a woman of great wealth and power who used them for great good — in often cunning ways. Astonishingly, no one has written her story before. Now Bernice Kert has done so in a sweeping, meticulous, original biography that illuminates a rare life, an historic family, and modern America.” — Catharine R. Stimpson, University Professor, Rutgers University “Bernice Kert can raise biography to a level of insight and surprise that matches the best fiction. Witness this study of a woman we think we know all about.” — Elizabeth Janeway, author of Man’s World, Woman’s Place “Bernice Kert’s thoroughly researched biography of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller is a welcome and wonderful read. Everyone interested in art and social history will want to read about this most progressive and interesting Rockefeller.” — Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume I, 1884-1933 “[Reading] this biography, the life of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, is like reading an exciting mystery story. One can hardly wait to turn the page to find out what this extraordinary and fascinating woman did, not only for herself but for everything and everyone she touched, from her husband, to nature, to the opening of a new view into the art world. The vitality of Abby Rockefeller, as depicted here by Bernice Kert, is a lesson to all women.” — Brooke Astor “What might have been a kind of family mausoleum turns out to be a fascinating read, brimming with fresh material from unpublished archives and interviews with eyewitnesses. Bernice Kert’s thorough and engaging portrait brings to life an enormously influential American woman who had an historic impact on both her extraordinary family and the arts — as a pioneering collector and patron, and as the innovating founder of two major museums.” — J. Carter Brown, Director Emeritus, National Gallery of Art “Kert, despite all her exhaustive research, happily lets her subject retain all of her formidable vitality and independence... Kert deals not only with the couple’s marriage — which was, in spite of some strains, a lifelong love affair — and the six Rockefeller children, but also with Abby’s generous contributions to art, education, and politics, as well with as her role in creating Rockefeller Center and Colonial Williamsburg. A splendidly intelligent, very readable portrait of a woman who was as wise in the rearing of her family as in the spending of her great wealth.” — Kirkus Reviews “In this elegantly written, carefully researched and psychologically astute biography, Abby Rockefeller emerges as a loveable and intelligent woman who wielded her great privilege to a variety of socially beneficial ends.” — Publishers Weekly “Bernice Kert [has] an eye for offbeat biography... Kert’s penetrating close-up captures not only [Abby’s] remarkable personality but the suffocating nuances of post-Victorian matrimony; women readers in particular will relish Abby’s refusal to be pigeonholed.” — Ted Berkman, Los Angeles Times “A picture of a complex and engaging woman, one who was at once very much a part of her time and extraordinarily ahead of it... Although the Modern museum was at the heart of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller’s work... her interests were far ranging. They included the advancement of civil rights, historic preservation and education. The portrait of her in this book is that of a model aristocrat, a wealthy, well-bred woman who understood power and the creative, contemporary uses of the concept of noblesse oblige. Kert shows Abby Rockefeller to have been, in her way, very much a feminist.” — Robert Duffy, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Since its original publication in 1952, Fosdick's book has been the single most reliable treatment of one of the most important philanthropies in the United States and indeed the world. Fosdick served as president of the foundation for twelve years, from 1936 to 1948, when it was the largest grant-making endow-ment in the world. As Steven Wheatley notes in his valuable new introduction, in part The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation was intended as an instrument of institutional self-defense. When it was written, the foundation community was under mounting political attack from the right, and the book was meant to help balance the Scales by cataloging the foundation's good works. As a deliberate self-portrait, the book conceals as much as it reveals, while in the process it reveals a good deal about the author. Fosdick sees politics, like bureaucracy, as perhaps an avoidable problem and not an inevitable consequence of foundation activity. He sees foundations as engaging in the application of scientific, tech-nical, and organizational solutions to public problems through a ""venture cap-ital"" approach to discovering how to resolve them. Fosdick's ""higher ground"" approach became established philanthropic practice far beyond the Rockefeller Foundation. Consequently, this volume is significant as an institutional history as well as a charter for American foundations.
Finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction A New York Times Editors' Choice Selection The untold story of Hamilton’s—and Burr’s—personal physician, whose dream to build America’s first botanical garden inspired the young Republic. On a clear morning in July 1804, Alexander Hamilton stepped onto a boat at the edge of the Hudson River. He was bound for a New Jersey dueling ground to settle his bitter dispute with Aaron Burr. Hamilton took just two men with him: his “second” for the duel, and Dr. David Hosack. As historian Victoria Johnson reveals in her groundbreaking biography, Hosack was one of the few points the duelists did agree on. Summoned that morning because of his role as the beloved Hamilton family doctor, he was also a close friend of Burr. A brilliant surgeon and a world-class botanist, Hosack—who until now has been lost in the fog of history—was a pioneering thinker who shaped a young nation. Born in New York City, he was educated in Europe and returned to America inspired by his newfound knowledge. He assembled a plant collection so spectacular and diverse that it amazes botanists today, conducted some of the first pharmaceutical research in the United States, and introduced new surgeries to America. His tireless work championing public health and science earned him national fame and praise from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander von Humboldt, and the Marquis de Lafayette. One goal drove Hosack above all others: to build the Republic’s first botanical garden. Despite innumerable obstacles and near-constant resistance, Hosack triumphed when, by 1810, his Elgin Botanic Garden at last crowned twenty acres of Manhattan farmland. “Where others saw real estate and power, Hosack saw the landscape as a pharmacopoeia able to bring medicine into the modern age” (Eric W. Sanderson, author of Mannahatta). Today what remains of America’s first botanical garden lies in the heart of midtown, buried beneath Rockefeller Center. Whether collecting specimens along the banks of the Hudson River, lecturing before a class of rapt medical students, or breaking the fever of a young Philip Hamilton, David Hosack was an American visionary who has been too long forgotten. Alongside other towering figures of the post-Revolutionary generation, he took the reins of a nation. In unearthing the dramatic story of his life, Johnson offers a lush depiction of the man who gave a new voice to the powers and perils of nature.
A pioneering philanthropist and daughter of American royalty reveals what it was like to grow up in one of the world’s most famous families. The great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, Eileen Rockefeller learned in childhood that while wealth and fame could open any door, they could not buy a feeling of personal worth. The privileges of having servants and lavish summer homes were offset by her parents’ thoughtful yet firm lessons in social obligation, at times by her mother’s dark depressions and mercurial moods, and the competition for attention among her siblings. In adulthood, Rockefeller has yearned to be seen not as an icon but as a woman and mother with a normal life, and like all of us, she had to learn to find her own way. Being a Rockefeller, Becoming Myself is an affirmation of how family shapes our identity and the ways we contribute to the larger family of life, regardless of our origins.