Rockefeller Brothers Fund Maintains A World Class Art Collection In a Westchester Basement
Who knew that an art collection rivaling the Metropolitan Museum of Art can be found in the basement of a Westchester home? We're talking Picasso and Modern Artists Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, and Louise Nevelson.
And it's all inside the lower level of Kykuit , also known as the John D. Rockefeller Estate, a 3,400-acre site in Sleepy Hollow. The residence was constructed for Rockefeller and his family in 1913 and is very much an ode to an artist’s heart with Italian-styled gardens and Beaux-Arts architecture.
The National Historic Landmark housed four generations of Rockefellers including the ex-governor of New York and Ex-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller who commissioned the art gallery. Nelson Rockefeller’s parents—John D Rockefeller Jr. and Abigail Greene Aldrich—were art collectors, thus precipitating a love of art to him.
By the time he lived in the house, however, his parents’ collection was given to museums or scattered throughout the rest of the house.
Initial plans for the basement included a bowling alley, but five galleries to house art from some of the most known modern artists were created instead...