View of the Hudson River from near the ruins.

I was chatting with a friend who once lived in Sleepy Hollow (or North Tarrytown as it was then). Somehow the conversation turned to some ruins, which she described as being next to an IBM facility and which had a some point burned down. Since I’m always interested in ruins I decided that I’d see if I could identify the site, and perhaps visit it. I ‘googled’ IBM sites with possible ruins near to them. The only one that seemed to almost fit the bill was Rockwood Hall, which I’ve posted about many times before (see here).

The only problem was that Rockwood Hall had not burned down. Rather the then owner John D. Rockefeller Jr. had most of the property’s buildings razed, including the mansion in 1941-42. In late 1946, the Rockwood Hall property was proposed for the location of the United Nations headquarters. John Jr.’s son Laurance Rockefeller sold some of the property to IBM in 1970. IBM’s property was later bought by New York Life, followed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, the current owner. The remaining property was sold to New York State at a significantly reduced price to become parkland within Rockefeller State Park.

In trying to find information on the property I found numerous mentions of the mansion having burned down. Perhaps at some point there was a fire on the property and seeing the blackened vegetation visitors might have assumed that the house had burned down.

Taken with an Olympus OM-D EM-10 and Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42 f3.5-4.6 II