Sunnyside

Story

Sunnyside is a historic house on 10 acres along the Hudson River in Tarrytown, New York. It was the home of the noted American author Washington Irving, best known for his short stories including "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" . It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.This cottage-like estate shows Dutch Colonial Revival, Scottish Gothic and Tudor Revival influences, with its instantly recognizable wisteria-covered entrance and jagged crow-stepped gable.HistoryIn some sense, Sunnyside began almost 200 years before Irving with Wolfert Acker (sometimes spelled Wolfert Eckert), a Dutch-American inhabitant of the region. His property, "Wolfert's Roost", was part of the Manor of Philipsburg; among other buildings, it contained a simple two-room stone tenant farmhouse, built around 1690. The property came into the hands of the Van Tassel family who were married into the Eckert family and who owned it until 1802. That year, 150acre were deeded to the family of Benson Ferris, one-time clerk of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, whose wife, Maria Acker, was a descendant of Wolfert Acker.