An afternoon at FDR's home in Hyde Park

Our original plan for Labor Day was to drive from Ewing, NJ, to the north side of Albany, NY on our way to Saratoga Springs.  It was to just be a driving day because we were expecting heavier traffic due to the holiday.  It was going to be pushing our limits for a full day of driving, so when I saw there was a national historic site along the way, we thought that would be a great way to break up the trip.  It was also a cooler 66 degrees when we left.

Hyde Park, New York, was the home of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He was born there in the same home he lived in as a child and then used as his home even while serving as the President of the United States.  He and his family just referred to the home and property as “the place.”

When we made our Middle States trip, we made a late addition to a long driving day through Kansas when we learned about President Eisenhower’s boyhood home and Presidential library and museum in Abilene, Kansas.  We spent some time there, but not nearly as much as we would have liked to be able to see the home and give the museum the attention it deserved.  So when we scheduled a stop to see FDR’s place, we made sure to time it so we could get there and be able to not feel rushed through.

We left the hotel early and arrived at the FDR home site just after noon.  Because DH is a national parks passholder, there was no charge for us for the tour, but we did have to pay $10 each (senior rate) to be able to go into the museum.  The museum tickets are good for two days.

We had time to watch the film they show in the visitor center before walking over to the stables where we would meet our ranger / tour guide for the house.  The house is absolutely beautiful!  It’s not extravagant like the Biltmore, nor has it been turned into a museum.  It is frozen in time.  The Roosevelts had agreed that when he finished his last term as President, they were going to donate their home to the nation’s people and go live in eastern New York.  Even though FDR died while still in office (April 21, 1945), his wife Eleanor continued with their plan, and their home was opened to the public for viewing a year to the day later.  The tour guide told us that there were 5,000 people who came on the first day to see the President’s home.

Here are a few pictures from the house that caught my eye.

This is the library / living room area of the house.

This is a portrait of FDR.

This is the view from the "back porch" which was really on the side of the house.

This is the side of the house with a beautiful screened-in porch.

This is from the front.  The middle part was original house; the two wings were added on later during FDR's lifetime.

This is the staircase inside. FDR had an elevator installed that allowed him to go upstairs after having been struck with polio.

We learned that FDR established the first Presidential Library.  I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it’s nice that he started a grand tradition.  As we toured the museum, we saw artifacts and documents with his own handwriting on them.

As for the museum, the one thing DH wanted to see was FDR’s car.  And of course, it was nearly the last thing you come across in the museum.  They make you look at everything else, and when a man has served in four terms of presidency, well, you can imagine how many sections there were in the museum ahead of the car.

After we finished up at the house and museum, we headed up to Albany, NY for the night.  I had programmed us to get to the hotel but then we decided we wanted to go eat dinner first at the Chili’s I had found that was just a half mile from the hotel – or so we thought!  I had looked on the maps at home and targeted Chili’s for dinner because of its proximity to our hotel, and we had liked it when we recently took a trip to Texas and ate at one on the way.

When I got the restaurant added as a new stop along the way, the GPS sort of lost her mind and had us go through downtown Albany and through their broken streets.  It was not even near the route through Albany that she was taking us originally to the hotel.  But we finally got clear of things, saw the hotel, and went to eat.  The server was so helpful with my celiac, and we enjoyed a lovely meal.  When we got back to the car, the GPS wanted to continue us another 15 minutes to the hotel (which we just saw on the way to eat).  So I turned her off.  But as we were pulling into the hotel parking lot, it dawned on me that the address wasn’t right.  So yeah, apparently when I was studying maps, I had pulled up the wrong Holiday Inn Express on the map.

So we drove the extra 15 minutes to the one where we had made our reservation.  And there was barely anything at the hotel area (are you starting to see a theme?  There wasn’t anything around where we stayed the night before, either.)  Thankfully the rest of the evening went well and we had a good rest for the following day.

Up next: Another day, another battlefield.

~ Cindy D.