Kykuit Tours On Hold until 2027
• Bookmarks: 792
By Elizabeth Tucker–
For the entirety of the 2026 tourist season, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund will pause the popular tours of the historic Kykuit mansion as it completes renovations to the Pocantico Center campus. Until this year, Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) had been responsible for leading visitors through the neo-classical mansion surrounded by terraced gardens, grottoes, and sculpture ranging from Italian Renaissance replicas to Isamu Noguchi.. A new parking lot at the Pocantico Center will allow the campus to receive visitors to Kykuit directly, along with visitors to the other buildings there. Foremost among them is the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center, which opened in 2022.
“After a brief hiatus,” said the Pocantico Center’s Executive Director Meredith Horsford, “a reimagined Kykuit tour program will streamline the visitor experience and give us flexibility to respond to audience interests—the arts, architecture, philanthropy, history, and more.”
HHV was formed by John D. Rockefeller Jr. under the name Sleepy Hollow Restorations for the purpose of managing the Philipsburg Manor historic site, which Rockefeller acquired in 1951 and restored. Around that time, he also bought Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s home in Irvington, and van Cortlandt Manor in Croton with the intention of instructing the public about the history of the region. The organization operates these three sites and has also conducted tours of Kykuit since Nelson Rockefeller bequeathed it to the National Trust in 1979 (from which it is leased by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund).
HHV additionally began conducting tours of the Union Church of Pocantico Hills in 1986. No tours are currently held at van Cortlandt Manor, although the grounds are used each year for the highly popular Great Jack o’Lantern Blaze. Because of the restructuring at Kykuit, HHV has laid off five full-time staff members and fifty museum educators. The latter have been invited to reapply with the Pocantico Center.
Kykuit tours draw an estimated 25,000 people annually “from all fifty states and beyond,” said HHV’s director of communication, Rob Schweitzer. The closure coincides with the sesquicentennial of the United States—when an increase in tours would be expected—as well as the fiftieth anniversary of Kykuit’s designation as a National Historic Landmark. In 2025, according to Schweitzer, visitors spent several hundred thousand dollars locally, beyond the cost of touring Kykuit. “More than half dined out, 40% visited another area cultural attraction, 26% stayed overnight in the area, and nearly 20% shopped in local stores,” he reported.
Representatives of Sleepy Hollow are disappointed about the closure in 2026. However, addedMayor Marjorie Hsu, “I respect that all properties, buildings and infrastructure require maintenance and upkeep, especially those of historical and cultural significance.” Sleepy Hollow Communications Director Burns Patterson listed the reasons that “more and more visitors” are coming to the village: “new access to the waterfront, the beauty of the nearby Rockefeller State Park Preserve, and expanding dining and shopping options” downtown.
Read or leave a comment on this story...
Share
Print
