Kykuit, known also as the John D. Rockefeller Estate, is a 40-room National Trust house in Westchester County, New York, built by order of oil tycoon, capitalist and Rockefeller family patriarch John D. Rockefeller. Conceived largely by his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and enriched by the art collection of third-generation scion, Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller, it has been home to four generations of the family.Kykuit, derived from the Dutch word Kijkuit meaning "lookout", is situated on the highest point in the hamlet of Pocantico Hills, overlooking the Hudson River at Tappan Zee. Located near Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, it has a view of the New York City skyline twenty-five miles to the south.HistoryOne of America's most famous private residences, Kykuit was designed originally as a steep-roofed three-story stone mansion by the architects Chester Holmes Aldrich and William Adams Delano. Aldrich was a distant relative of the younger Rockefeller's wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who was involved as artistic consultant and in the interior design of the mansion. The elder Rockefeller had purchased land in the area as early as 1893 after his brother William had built a 204-room mansion, Rockwood Hall, in the area.
