Want a glimpse into the life of some of the original one-percenters? Then put Kykuit, the Rockefeller family’s palatial, four-story, Beaux Arts mansion, at the top of your Westchester Bucket List. It’s spectacular indoors and out with panoramic views of the Hudson. We recommend the three-hour Grand Tour, which gives you the best of the shorter tours, plus entry to the second-floor balcony and a look through the family’s private sitting rooms. The house is filled with priceless antiques and fine ceramics that coexisted for years with rambunctious children and dogs while the families lived there. Even the basement at Kykuit is a mini-museum with pieces by Calder, Warhol, and walls of enormous Picasso tapestries. The terraced gardens are graced with more than 70 sculptures by Noguchi, Nevelson, Picasso, Moore, and others, as well as classical fountains and figures. There is also a nine-hole golf course along with a “playhouse,” complete with a bowling alley, billiards room, gym, and croquet field, which the family still uses today.
381 N Broadway, Sleepy Hollow
(914) 631-8200; hudsonvalley.org
â–º Click here for more of Westchester’s 2013 Bucket List.
