The Kyuit Adventure

Click here for the photo gallery of the Kykuit trip!

---

The Frink and Rockefeller families are together at last.

I am about to sit down for the final meal of an extraordinary adventure as a guest of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, at the home and estate of John D. Rockefeller.

Kykuit, which means “lookout” in Dutch, was constructed between 1907 and 1913 for John D. Rockefeller and his family; four generations have lived here. Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s (son of J.D. Jr.) widow, the celebrated Happy, lives on the estate to this day.

How did I, a curious reader might ask, a simple, humble Blue Ridge Mountain man, come to hang out for a few days at the legendary estate of the billionaire founder of Standard Oil? It began with a phone call.

It was during the 2009 session of the Virginia General Assembly. I sat at my desk in suite 509, diligently pursuing answers to the many issues facing the citizens of the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. My phone rang. My caller was Elizabeth McClung, executive director of Belle Grove Plantation; at her 2006 email behest, I answered in the affirmative to an invitation to a proffered seat on the Belle Grove Inc. board. At that time, I was the lone passenger aboard the Repubblica de Genova, a cargo ship on a 47 day voyage to far West Africa and back to Northern Europe.

“Belle Grove has been selected by the Trust (The National Trust for Historic Preservation) to attend a two day ‘board-building’ exercise at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Tarrytown New York. Belle Grove can bring the president and three board members. I believe it would be great if you would join us. Phil is going and he will drive. The cost is $300,” Elizabeth concluded her pitch. I seldom receive such an interesting phone call while working in the Virginia House of Delegates. The National Trust owns Belle Grove Plantation; the board and Elizabeth operate it.

Thursday, March 13, I arrived at Belle Grove ten minutes after the chosen hour of 8 a.m., after a 54 mile drive from Jewell Hollow. Jackie, Elizabeth and Phil were already ensconced in Phil’s black Land Rover. We were to pick up Barbara at her very handsome, rare-furniture-filled 18th Century rural home in Pennsylvania, somewhere in the wishbone between I-81 and I-78. After a tour of Barbara’s home, we journeyed on in two vehicles to Esther’s restaurant, famed for its chicken pot pie; I ordered one. It contained no covering crust and its large bowl was filled with wide egg noodles, a small chicken leg and thigh, with a rich chicken broth reduction, with a few potatoes sprinkled about. I most enjoyed the egg noodles.

We arrived at Tarrytown at 4 p.m., give or take 15 minutes. After a careful check-in process at the guard station entrance to the Rockefeller estate, a staff member met us in front of the imposing, grey stone Kykuit Coach Barn and Pocantico Conference Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (The National Trust owns two thirds of Kykuit, under bequests from two late sons of John D. Junior, and will receive the remaining third when the last Rockefeller of that generation dies.) Some board-builders were housed in Kykuit, the four story beaux-arts villa; others, I included, laid their heads to rest in the much more Spartan rooms of the Coach Barn building.

---

Saturday, a day of rest and a day to refocus on my unique board building experiences at the Rockefeller estate.

My room was a corner one, very adequate with a solid single bed, an early empire walnut chest, a stuffed chair with hassock, and what appeared to be western American Indian throw rugs over the hardwood floor. The desk, facing one of the windows, was suitable for a travel writer to tap-tap on his laptop.

The white bathroom, with tub and excellent shower head, was sparkling clean, the towels fluffy. For reasons unknown, the toilet paper was single ply, a rarity these days. The conference center guest quarters were serviced by Latina maids, to whom I spoke in Spanish. As a guest, I refrained from inquiring into their immigration status.

Thursday evening cocktails commenced at 6:30. This honored ritual was held on the ground floor of the conference center, in a public area next to the dining room. The essence of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was with us: His portrait hung over the bar.

The liquor brands were first rate. I spied both Beefeaters gin and white vermouth (though Italian), obviously an invitation to make a martini. With the help of the woman of the catering staff serving as bartender, I chilled a glass with ice, made my potion in another and poured it into the chilled stemmed glass.

Other board-builders watched as I, off toward the end of the side board serving as a bar, went through my ritual. “Can you make me one of those tomorrow night,” one of the retired female college professors serving as board-builders for the Hotel de Paris Museum, near Denver asked. “Of course, my dear,” I replied.

At dinner, we were asked to sit with strangers. Unknowingly, I settled into a chair next to a wiry, diminutive, mid-years woman with short cropped sandy hair and coiled-steel energy. My dinner companion was Esther, executive director of a foundation, non-profit board-building guru and Socratic leader of our upcoming day and a half board-building curriculum.

During my dinner conversation with Esther, I learned that she is married to a member of the U.S. House from North Carolina. After we established our political clique of two, she confided in me: “I’m a news junkie. I don’t know what I am going to do. There is no TV in my room.”

Dinner consisted of a salad which has passed out of memory, roast pork slices over a sweet potato puree, and a pound-cake-dense, rich chocolate inch-high circle, drenched in crème anglais sauce. Servers poured both colors of wine throughout the savory meal.

Board-builders re-assembled in the Hayloft Lounge after dinner. The lounge is a vast room on the 2nd (guest rooms) floor of the conference center; there cognac and other after dinner potables had been set out.

The after dinner session was an interesting opening to the gamut of meetings, formal and informal, in which we board-builders would partake over the next 36 hours. The executive director of each of the five participating Trust sites gave a verbal description of his or her site, complete with problems and advantages, aided by a computer-assisted slide show.

Chesterwood, in Stockbridge Mass. was the home and massive studio of Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the marble, seated, Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, at the west end of the Washington National Mall. Chesterwood, we learned, is down the road from the home of Norman Rockwell, also open to the public; that being both a blessing and a curse: the Rockwell spread draws visitor traffic to the area, but is a mighty competitor.

Carol, one of the Chesterwood directors and a 40-ish dark beauty of Maltese extraction, and I became meal companions. Friday evening I suggested it would be jolly if we would meet up in the next life; the next morning in the meeting room, she said: I talked to my husband last evening and he doesn’t think the next life thing is such a good idea.” We both laughed.

Hotel de Paris Museum, is all the rage in the tiny town of Georgetown, Colorado, in the mountains near Denver. The original hotel was built by a French reinvention artist who changed his name to Louis Dupuy. He was a journalist, turned silver miner, turned injured silver miner, turned restaurateur, turned hotelier.

The Hotel de Paris Museum is owned now by the Colorado branch of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America; if you want to be casual about it, the Colonial Dames. The retired Marine officer male executive director cracked to me during Friday cocktail hour in the Coach Room, surrounded by some of J. D. Senior’s carriages: “I work for 280 Dames.”

Lyndhurst is a Hudson Riverside castle a cannon-shot down the Hudson from Kykuit. It was once owned by Jay Gould, 19th Century railroad robber baron and all around bad dude. Some Lyndhurst folks were among the five National Trust historic sites groups in attendance for board-building.

The Commonwealth of Virginia was represented at the “Better Boards for Historic Sites” Kykuit soirée, in addition to Belle Grove Plantation, by Woodlawn and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House; sort of an early 19th and 20th Century combo. Woodlawn is a 126 acre plantation once a 2,000 acre piece of George Washington’s Mount Vernon spread. The now- restored Federal-style mansion was constructed for George’s nephew and his bride.

Woodlawn is the largest piece of open space in Fairfax (a very large) County. It abuts Fort Belvoir, a growing Army compound. Living cheek to cheek with the Department of Defense is considered dicey by the board folks of Woodlawn; they live with the fear that Big Gov might sweep in, take them over, and build barracks, or some such on their inviting chunk of open space. The Woodlawn executive director was wiry, with long light brown hair and a sultry, low pitched feminine voice, which became apparent during the after dinner drinks and site shows.

Friday morning board-building began in earnest. Esther’s job was described as facilitator. The energy that poured out of her for a day and a half was stunning. She was more a talented Socratic teacher, asking questions rather then lecturing (think law school and the movie “Paper Chase”) and a non-profit management coach.

Board members learned some principles of good and effective boards—keep them small, start meetings on time to honor those in attendance, keep a rigorous line between staff and board functions, select new board members with narrow, specific skills needs in mind, beware of conflicts of interest, conduct the business of the board in the meeting and not in little knots of folks in the parking lot after (a sure sign the executive director is in trouble.) And on and on we learned.

Friday afternoon, two to four, was a travel writer’s dessert course. Board-builders were given a tour of Kykuit and vast grounds, where almost 100 sculptures are placed. The conference tourists were divided into two groups; by the luck of the draw, I was in the one led by Cynthia Altman. She has been the Kykuit curator since the time of Nelson Rockefeller. He was the last family member to live in Kykuit (Ms. Altman referred to him as “Nelson” and to Happy as “Mrs. Rockefeller.”) Nelson was responsible for the acquisition and placement of 20th Century sculpture on the grounds and paintings, tapestries and more dainty sculptures in the underground gallery leading to the “grotto.”

Quoting from the pamphlet “Kykuit Sculpture:”

“Within the gardens of Kykuit are two distinct collections of sculpture. The fountains, wellheads, and classical figures—from ancient and Renaissance models or by American sculptors of the early 20th century—were assembled between 1906 and 1913 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and landscape architect William Welles Bosworth to enhance the Beaux-arts garden plan. More than 70 modern works were brought to Kykuit and carefully sited by Nelson Rockefeller between 1961 and 1973. They reflect many of the major trends of modern sculpture during the first three-quarters of this century, from the classicism of Maillol to the minimalism of Meadmore, from the whimsy of Calder and lyrical drawing-in-space of David Smith to the monolithic work of Moore, from the assemblages of Picasso to the reductions of Brancusi and Giacometti.”

We also toured the interior of the Kykuit home itself. That evening after dinner, we returned to the upper floors of the house, where some of our group were housed. After going though a door to the Kykuit roof, lo and behold 25 miles or so down the Hudson River we could clearly see the Empire State Building, standing out among other Manhattan skyscrapers.

For our final evening at Kykuit, the Rockefellers Brothers Fund functionaries had been thoughtful enough to set aside a lounge for our board-builders, fitted out with after dinner potables, including an exquisite VSOP cognac (label unknown to me). There a photo was taken with three lovely, young female board builders and me on a long couch, obviously enjoying the merriment of the evening.

After a box luncheon at the conclusion of our Saturday morning session of board-building, goodbyes were exchanged and we Belle Grove-ites mounted Phil’s Range Rover for the Tarrytown to Middletown drive.