Ferncliff Farm

Not far from his mother's estate of Rokeby, where he had spent summers, Ferncliff was a working farm with dairy and poultry operations, as well as stables where he bred horses.

In 1902, his son and heir John Jacob Astor IV commissioned Stanford White to design a large sports pavilion (called the "Ferncliff Casino"), which included one of the first indoor pools in the United States.

An additional donation of land led to the establishment of a nursing home and rehabilitation center on the former estate property.

Margaret renamed the estate Rokeby, as the area around the Mudder Kill[2] reminded her of the glen in Sir Walter Scott's poem of that name.

He continued to purchase adjoining properties, and the estate eventually had a mile and a half of Hudson River frontage.

[5] By 1900, the farm that supported the retreat was failing, and the Methodist Conference sold 106 acres to John Jacob Astor IV.

Apart from operating a working dairy and poultry farm, Astor maintained his father's stables, but switched to breeding hackney and carriage horses.

[8] By the time of John Jacob IV's death in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the Ferncliff estate had grown to 2,800 acres[9] of apple orchards, cattle and dairy operations, and gardens.

Vincent gave her "Marienruh", the former Ehlers estate at Clifton Point and a mansion designed by Mott B.

It was replaced in 1948 with a neoclassical brick folly called the "teahouse", to which the Astors would resort by miniature railroad.