Pocantico, The Family Estate
The vast estate, known as Pocantico or Pocantico Hills, occupies an area of 1,380 hectares (3,410 acres). At its peak, the 1,420 hectares (3,510 acres) estate featured a resident workforce of security guards, gardeners and laborers, and had its own farming, cattle and food supplies. It has a nine-hole, reversible golf course, and at one time had seventy-five houses and seventy private roads, most designed by Rockefeller Senior and his son. A longstanding witticism about the estate quips: 'It's what God would have built, if only He had the money'.
Today, ten or so Rockefeller families live within the estate, in the central compouond and beyond. Much land has been donated over the decades to New York State, including the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, and is open to the public for horseback riding, biking, and jogging. Bill Clinton, who lives just north of the estate, in Chappaqua, has taken regular runs in the State Park.
In late 1946 two of Junior's sons, John D. 3rd and Laurance, each offered their respective residences, Rockwood Hall and Fieldwood Farm, as headquarters for the then newly formed United Nations. Family patriarch Junior vetoed the proposals as too isolated from Manhattan. He tasked second son, Nelson, to buy a 6.9-hectare (17-acre) site along the East River, subsequently donated for the construction of the UN Headquarters.
Among guests hosted by Nelson and philanthropist brother David have been Presidents:Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and their wives. Other notable visitors included UN President Kofi Annan, human rights activist Nelson Mandela, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, King Hussein of Jordan, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. and Lord Mountbatten of Burma of the United Kingdom.
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Famous quotes containing the words family and/or estate:
“The family story tells, and it was told true,
of my great-grandfather who begat eight
genius children and bought twelve almost new
grand pianos. He left a considerable estate
when he died.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)