Day 12 Rockefeller Mansion and Stone Barnes

Today started very early 6:15 am to be exact. We didn't go to bed very early the day before so we were pretty tired. We road a real train (kind of) to Tarrytown, about 20ish miles north.





From there we caught a taxi to the Rockefeller Mansion visitors center, rode a shuttle to the Rockefeller Mansion. It was amazing. John D. Rockefeller built it with his son (hired people). John didn't want to be ostentatious. I don't know about you, but the things I saw were far from ordinary.



This next pic is one of the porch lights




This is a fountain at the edge of his front yard


This is a very small part of his backyard



To his credit though, even though at the time he was the richest man in the US, possibly the world,(he owned standard oil, he had bought out 8 of the 10 oil companies) he also started the whole philanthropist movement in our country. He was the first one to set up huge donations, and foundations, and charities. He gave literally thousands of acres to remember history. He would buy up old houses and villages (Williamsburg) restore them and donate them to the government or foundations so everyone could enjoy them. Steve said one reason he could become so wealthy was mostly he was smart, but also probably because there wasn't income tax at the time. He lived in the early 1900's. He bought about 5000 acres and then later the family donated 3000 acres of that property to the preservation whatever. The family still owns 2000 acres. The house we saw is now a museum. It was incredibly beautiful inside, they wouldn't let us take pics inside. The pics below are from their website.




It felt good to get out of the city and be around trees and grass, and nature.

We then went to Stone Barns. Rebecca and Lizzie told us about this farm. It is a nonprofit farm, where they try to show an example of how to be self sustaining as much as possible. They grow a lot of veggies, pigs, chickens, layers and eating ones, sheep and rabbits. They promote eating local food. They have a cafe and a restaurant on the property. They try to use only what they produce and what other local farmers grow and raise. We ate at both the cafe and the restaurant. You could tell the food was fresh and home grown. It was very good.

We walked around the farm and especially to check out the greenhouses.

these are the tomatoes.


these are all their lettuces, it was very inspiring.

This is the barn where they have info and stuff

Steve loved the bldgs. They had all been restored. They were incredible.

After we walked around the farm, we crashed in their little cafe. What you can't see is we both took our shoes off and put them up on chairs.

We had dinner reservations at the restaurant. I looked in the little store and farmers market, and then we both just rested until it was time for our dinner reservation.

We chose what was called the Farmer's feast. It was the chefs way of using his in season foods. He would make the most delicious and unique presentations we had ever tasted. I had never seen anything like these. We had somewhere around 10 or more courses. The last two courses were dessert. Before dessert, the course was a loin steak. I don't usually eat steak, I find it boring, but that steak was the best beef I have ever eaten. It was grass fed. I could really tell the difference. After each little course we would wonder what was coming next. It was fun as well as delicious. It was an adventure. All I kept thinking was I wish Rebecca, Lizzie and Jacob were there. Lizzie and Rebecca would be blown away by the creations, and Jacob would have just loved the whole experience of the self-sustaining delicious food. I loved the whole experience, and it motivated me to experiment more with herbs and recipes. I used to do that in my younger days before so many mouths to feed-"now". I think it is time to go back to that. I have never tasted so many flavors in my mouth at one time. It was incredible. Below is a pic of one of the courses. I wanted to take pics of all of them, but I was afraid they were thinking I was going to copy them.

It is squash arugala crab and who knows what else.

This is us, we were happy.