Revolutionary Places: Westchester Estates and Gardens Where History Lived
During the Revolutionary War, Westchester County occupied a unique role. Neither fully aligned with the British or Patriots, it was a “Neutral Ground” where allegiances shifted, tensions simmered, and history was made. Here, many stately and modest homes were central figures in the country’s revolutionary journey. Once shades were drawn and windows shuttered, plans were hatched, alliances secured, and a future for an independent nation was imagined.
Today, these places still whisper those stories, inviting visitors to stand in the spaces where history unfolded. Join us on a tour of revolutionary places throughout Westchester County to understand why, as we look ahead to the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War, so many significant moments are rooted in Westchester.
Phillipsburg Manor
Once a 52,000-acre colonial provisioning plantation, the Philipse family made this grand estate in Sleepy Hollow a Loyalist stronghold during the Revolution. Featuring a mill, farm, and large stone manor house, the estate was the home to the family’s businesses, which also included a slave trade. After the war, the property was confiscated by New York, demonstrating the new balance of power. It was at the manor that the Philipsburg Proclamation was hatched, declaring freedom for enslaved people who joined the British cause.
Van Cortland Manor
Home to Pierre Van Cortlandt, New York’s first Lieutenant Governor, Van Cortlandt Manor was a strategic hub along the Albany Post Road. British forces ransacked it, yet its importance endured, hosting the likes of George Washington and anchoring the Patriot cause in the region where loyalties were fragile. Today, the manor is the site for the Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze event, drawing scores of visitors.
Odell House
For a brief but critical six-week period in 1781, French General Comte de Rochambeau made this modest home his headquarters while his army of 5,000 and General George Washington’s Continental Army camped nearby in Ardsley. Rochambeau and Washington finalized their plans here for the march to Yorktown, a decision that would lead to victory over Lord Cornwallis.
Thomas Paine Cottage
This unassuming home stands as an intellectual symbol of the Revolutionary War, where the ideas of its resident, Thomas Paine, ignited colonial resolve. The author of the pamphlet Common Sense, Paine was granted the home in recognition for his service to the cause.
John Jay Estate and John Jay Homestead
In Rye sits John Jay Estate, the 400-acre birthplace and childhood home of John Jay, spymaster, diplomat, peace maker, and nation builder. Home to four successive generations of the Jay family, John Jay returned to the estate to celebrate after negotiating the Treaty of Paris, with the help of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, that ended the Revolutionary War.
John Jay Homestead in Katonah is John Jay’s retirement home, a 62-acre property where he devoted himself to life as a gentleman farmer and featuring a 24-room Federal style mansion. Both a slave owner and a dedicated abolitionist, this duality reflects the contradiction between advocating for freedom while also benefitting from human labor. Nevertheless, Jay and his family’s involvement in the anti-slavery movement followed a complete shift that eventually called for total abolition.
Together these sites stand to reveal how the Revolutionary War unfolded throughout Westchester County. Here, history lived within the four walls of historic estates, where debates, planning, and dreams of independence were made manifest in the drawing rooms, parlors and gardens of the county’s historic homes.