Bellefield at Historic Hyde Park (“Bellefield”) is the newest thread in an incredible tapestry of history that has been woven in Hyde Park and the Hudson Valley over the centuries.
The documented history of the Bellefield site reaches back to the Great Nine Partners Patent in 1697. Colonel Henry Filken, of Flatbush, Long Island, was granted Water Lot Number Two, and his family were the first Europeans to hold ownership of this site. The land traded hands during the 1700s, but it was eventually bought by James Roosevelt, the great-grandfather to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1820. Later, in 1835, John R. Stuyvesant would come to own this land and build his “Edgewood” mansion on the western side of Albany Post Road.
In 1899, Stuyvesant’s descendants sold the property to the Society of Jesus, and by 1903, the Saint-Andrews-on-the-Hudson Jesuit Novitiate was established. The Jesuits operated a sizeable farm on the site of Bellefield up until 1970 when Saint-Andrews-on-the-Hudson was sold to the Culinary Institute of America (“CIA”). The Jesuit’s farm, the current site of Bellefield, was held by the Jesuits for several years after the CIA took over the land west of Albany Post Road. However, as the years passed, the farm was abandoned, and the forested areas grew back.
Ownership of Bellefield’s land traded hands several times in the late 20th century. However, by the early-2000’s development plans were in place to create a new community inspired by the site’s agricultural past and proximity to culinary greatness. Today, these plans for Bellefield are finally coming to fruition with the opening of the Inn at Bellefield. This first hotel is the start of Bellefield’s progress to becoming the largest agrihood in the northeastern United States. The greenway plan pictured below highlights some of the agricultural and natural elements that will be integrated into the design of this community.
However, Bellefield is just the newest addition to a town and region with an incredible history. Hyde Park is the exemplary small American town, idyllically positioned on the banks of the great Hudson River, with a power-house history unlike any other.
From the Lenape tribes to early Dutch settlers, from American aristocratic River Families to great democratic ideals, from nature conservancy to interlaced community engagement, Hyde Park has been at the center of important historic milestones.
Emerging from moraine deposits in a glacial lake that retreated approximately 15,000 years ago, this area is rich in clay that was mined to make bricks that built the Brooklyn Bridge, the Museum of Natural History, and the Empire State building in Manhattan. Several tribes of indigenous people — the Munsee Lenape, Wappinger, and Mohicans — lived around this area before European contact. These groups established complex societies supported by their successful agricultural and hunter-gatherer cultures. Following Henry Hudson’s sailing voyage upriver, Dutch colonists also settled the area and named mountains, valleys, and creeks in their own language. A famous Dutch descendant from Hyde Park is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who lived on his family’s estate at Springwood all his life.
