West Park, New York

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the area became attractive to the well-to-do seeking second homes because it provided privacy, clean water and relatively inexpensive property.

Some notable residents included: John Jacob Astor, Mother Cabrini, General Daniel Butterworth, Robert Livingston Pell, John Burroughs, Col. Oliver Hazard Payne,[2] financier and philanthropist Archibald Russell, the founder of Ulster Savings Bank and father of Archibald D. Russell, Harry Payne Bingham, John Jewell Smith and later his daughter Hilda Worthington Smith, architect Matthias Hollwich, boxer Floyd Patterson, and show business celebrities Connie Ray, Joe Langworth, Peter Dinklage, Sebastian Roché, Blair Ross and Frances McDormand.

In 1826, she began her famous walk to freedom from Floyd Ackert Road in West Park to the home of Isaac Van Wagenen in the nearby hamlet of St Remy.

The Payne home, known as Omega, a 42,000 square foot historically significant mansion of the Gilded Age, is now operated by Marist College as the Raymond A Rich Leadership Institute.

It was built just prior to the U.S. Civil War in the Italianate style by Scottish-born financier and philanthropist Archibald Russell,[9] and was sold in 1885 to Eugene and Cynthia Durkee whose family amassed a fortune by selling spices and mustards.

After remaining abandoned for a decade, the mansion and adjacent school building were acquired in 2015 by a number of investors and is now the Hudson House, a luxury vodka distillery, hotel and event space.