“Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people…This obligation is paramount.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
As we are almost halfway through 2025, it has been hard to keep up with all of the changes in the parks in Hyde Park. It feels like just January; we were plowing snow and planning the projects for the summer. The employees and partners in Hyde Park have been incredibly busy supporting resources and visitor engagement over the last few months.
I am incredibly proud to see the final results of our Mellon Fellow, Dr. Shelby Landmark’s seminal work on a new exhibit at the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, focused on disability representation and the mobility devices President Roosevelt used throughout his life. We officially opened the exhibit in May, and visitors have spent extra time in the park to explore this exhibit and understand the importance of everyday mobility for the president in an inaccessible world. This is a permanent exhibit in the Garage Stables, and I encourage everyone to visit and experience it. I am also delighted to say that we have Dr. Landmark on our team until May 2026 while she continues to research and explore the historical themes of disability as they relate to President Roosevelt and his life. Also, a big thank you to the FDR Hyde Park Foundation for supporting Dr. Landmark’s work, managing the project funds from the Mellon Foundation, and supporting this significant research.
Another special highlight from these first few months has been the increased attention our staff has taken to the historic orchards around the parks. Park Gardener Joe Zwikelmaier received training at Yosemite National Park this last year on the care and maintenance of historic orchards. Bringing back not only new knowledge but an ignited passion for our own orchards, Joe has set out to improve the existing trees at President Roosevelt’s orchard while planting new trees to fill out the historic space. He also plans to work on the orchard at Val-Kill later this summer. The FDR Hyde Park Foundation has played a key role in the preservation of our orchards and other forested areas by purchasing repellant and other supplies to protect the forests from bugs and blight that are impacting the landscape.
These are just two examples of the hard work that is reflected every day at the parks. From engaging with over 350 schoolchildren in a day to meticulously removing and restoring the sun porch on the Vanderbilt Pavilion, our federal employees are vital to ensuring these parks are preserved, and the public understands the importance of our history. Without partnerships and our employees, there is always a risk that parks will lose their relevance to the public and jeopardize the future of these special places. Thank you for sharing your love of our public lands and the importance of the work we all do.
Roosevelt • Vanderbilt • Van Buren National Historic Sites
On May 21, 2025, a new permanent exhibit, titled “First Things First: FDR, Disability, & Access,” formally opened in the Springwood Garage-Stables at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Historic Site (HOFR) in Hyde Park, New York.
There are many National Park Service (NPS) sites with important disability stories. Still, the Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site is the strongest, which is central to its interpretive programming. In 2023, HOFR accepted funds to host Shelby Landmark, PhD as a Disability Representation at Historic Sites research fellow. In her first year of this work, she realized there is a great irony in how we remember FDR and that most people get it wrong.
While FDR is one of the most recognizably disabled historical figures, his disability is commonly represented in ways that imply he hid the truth of his paralysis from the public after contracting polio in the summer of 1921. He was thirty-nine years old.
However, Dr. Landmark’s research has revealed that the public frequently observed FDR using leg braces, crutches, canes, and even automobiles to navigate his surroundings. Using these groundbreaking findings, the NPS is reframing the narrative in this new exhibit, demonstrating how FDR challenged public perceptions and may have altered the way Americans understood the meaning of disability.
The exhibit features never-before-published images of FDR and his use of mobility aids, as well as diagrams for the construction of these devices, unearthed from the Secret Service archival files at the FDR Presidential Library. A pair of his shoes is also on display, which were customized to be connected to his leg braces.
One of his canes is also on display, and the pièce de résistance is a scaled, tactile model of one of FDR’s customized wheelchairs. With these images and objects that highlight not only his disability but also its very public nature, it is hoped visitors will gain a more complete and nuanced understanding of FDR’s disability. The exhibit is free to the public.
Click on images to enlarge.
A keynote presentation by Dr. Landmark took place on the day of the exhibit opening at the Henry A. Wallace Theater, followed by a public reception at the exhibit itself. You can watch this presentation below.
Location: 4079 Albany Post Rd, Hyde Park, NY 12538
Dr. Landmark’s keynote speech at the Henry A. Wallace Theater (35 mins).
⭐️ 397 crates of produce were donated to Dutchess Outreach
⭐️ 76 volunteers contributed 1168 hours
⭐️ An abundant crop of Concord Grapes was harvested from vines planted in 2023
⭐️ New information on the interpretive kiosk, together with the audio tours of the garden, gives visitors a complete self-guided educational experience.
⭐️ Increased people power allowed us to do more: more crops planted in succession through the year (5 crops of lettuce; 2 crops each of radishes, beets, and kohlrabi); and better maintenance of all garden areas.
In late June 2024, the entire Horticulture team from the Roosevelt Vanderbilt NHS traveled to Boston for the American Public Garden Association Annual Conference. This conference rarely makes its way to the Northeast, so this was an opportunity not to be missed. Our three full time staff, one seasonal, and two interns were all able to attend, thanks in part to the financial assistance of the FDRHPF. The conference provided unparalleled opportunities for networking with public gardens from throughout the country. Topics ranged from new horticulture research and technology, cataloging collections, engaging the public, and working across generations with staff and volunteers.
Friends and colleagues generously shared their knowledge with our staff on field trips throughout the season.
Our trips included the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, the Farm Ecology Center, the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program, Innisfree Garden, Stonecrop, Weir Farm, Queens Botanical Garden, and Longwood Gardens.
In March our Gardener, Joe Zwikelmaier, renewed his Red Card for the second year in a row. This certification allows him to work with the Interagency Firefighting Group to help fight wildfires around the country. Joe passed his annual work capacity test, which involves walking three miles in 45 minutes with a 45 lb backpack on. He also attended the annually required wildland fire refresher session.
In September 2024, Horticulturist Anna de Cordova and Gardener Joe Zwikelmaier traveled to northern California for the annual Preservation Horticulture Training. The Home of Eugene O’Neill and the Home of John Muir served as the classroom for NPS staff from across the country to learn the fundamentals of landscape preservation from the NPS Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation experts.
NPS staff also delivered many educational programs in 2024. Horticulturist Anna de Cordova participated in the Food Growers Roundtable at the Morton Library in Red Hook and was an instructor at the NPS Preservation Horticulture training. Horticulture staff gave tours and talks at the park to groups from the American Horticulture Society, Cheekwood Gardens, Walkway Ambassadors, Library Lunch & Learn, and the Culinary Institute of America Masters in Sustainable Food Systems class. Our park also hosted an arborist training given by the Olmstead Center for Historic Preservation.
The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia County “Nature Calls” podcast explored the Roosevelt Home Garden with Anna de Cordova: Episode 156: FDR Home Gardens | Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley.
Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to be buried “in my mother’s flower garden” undoubtedly had a double motive to ensure that his mother’s garden would always be maintained as he cherished it. Eighty years after his death, the wear and tear of routine maintenance and visitor traffic has impacted the condition of the garden to the point that is time for a major rehabilitation to honor the President’s wishes and maintain the gravesite of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt to a high standard for the next eighty years.
After the work is completed, the most noticeable changes will be a return to the crisp lines and level grades for all paths, turf and garden beds that were the hallmark of the garden in the Roosevelt era. Restoring steel edging, leveling and improving the paths, changing some obvious anachronisms like the post and chain fencing and removing some 1970’s era lighting fixtures will contribute to a better-preserved garden.
Click on images to enlarge.
Behind the scenes, improved technologies will make the garden more robust and able to sustain the visitor traffic and maintenance programs, as well as address some environmental concerns. The wheelchair accessible paths will be a stone grit with an organic binder that is water permeable, repairable and weed suppressing. The irrigation system will use moisture sensors and precision controls to increase water conservation and use a combination of the common pop-up sprinkler heads as well as buried irrigation lines to water the narrow sod strips that currently go dormant in periods of drought.
A new drainage system will carry water away from the south end of the garden where rainfall from increasingly common larger storms compromises the paths, lawns and flower beds. A robotic mower that cuts very little grass at a time and runs very regularly, but in a random pattern, will alleviate the rutting and compaction caused by decades of push mowing. The restoration of steel edging around all of the symmetrical flower beds will put an end to the hand edging that chips away at the level grade of turf and flower beds. In the end, like all good preservation projects, the garden will be the same as it was but better constructed, with improved systems that support historic preservation with modern technology.
The Landscape and Garden Division of the Roosevelt Vanderbilt NHS thanks the Franklin D. Roosevelt Hyde Park Foundation for their continued support of the Home Garden Restoration. Their support ensures the interpretation of an important legacy of the Roosevelt family in Hyde Park and allows us to connect our community and visitors to their stories.
By Joe Zwikelmaier, Gardener at the Home of FDR
Behind Springwood, down the hill, near the Hudson River, lies the Rosevelt Family’s Apple Orchard. Not much history has been recorded on this orchard, but we do know that it was planted around the year 1916. We also know the names of several varieties. These varieties include Stayman Winesap, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Northern Spy, Golden Russet, McIntosh, Baldwin, and a few others.
But what was once seventy trees, as the years progressed, has become around 16 living trees. Though apple trees can live to around 200 years old, many trees in that orchard have died due to diseases like fire blight. There have been attempts and plans to restore the orchard to its historic character, including an attempt in 2013 where the NPS did in fact plant young trees, only to be destroyed by the whitetail deer that frequent the orchard. Attempts at excluding the deer from the orchard (including an electric fence) could not stop them from rutting against and even pulling the trees right out of the ground.
But today we are happy to announce that we will be restoring the Orchard. In October 2024, the horticulture team sent me to Yosemite National Park for a training course called Apple Camp. Apple Camp, is originally a biennial event held in Maine as a sort of convention for all things apple growing, this version sought to be a west coast edition This training, hosted by the National Park Cultural Landscapes Office, recruited landscape professionals and orchardists from around the NPS to work as a team and help with the rehabilitation efforts in the historic orchards at Yosemite all while teaching us the basics of historic orchard care. Attendees camped out in the Yosemite Valley for three nights next to the Merced River. The trees we worked with were, for the most part, old. Often planted by some of the original homesteaders in the Yosemite Valley, these trees had seen their share of both care and neglect throughout the years. Several orchards were even growing in the shade of massive longleaf pines which encroached on them.
Click on an image to enlarge.
Our work included careful pruning, with the direction to only prune out about fifteen percent of live growth on these delicate elder trees, as to not shock them. We learned how to prop tree limbs at odds with gravity and how to install cable rods to keep splitting branches stable. We attended a grafting demonstration around a campfire and an apple tasting where dozens or apple varieties were brought in by some of the apple cider producers who were also invited to apple camp. These producers were the other half of attendees, they camped with us and presented their exciting projects in a symposium style event each day.
When I returned from my trip, I felt a renewed focus to begin work on the apple trees at The Home of FDR, many of which resembled in size, age and shape, the trees I had worked with at Yosemite. So with my newfound skills I began the process of rehabilitating the Orchard. This process included many cold days in January, pruning off older live growth which had been crowding the canopy, and taking out lower limbs that were no longer alive. I measured the original thirty by thirty foot grid which the trees were planted on and placed wooden garden stakes to represent where the trees should be planted (which is why the orchard is currently full of garden stakes). Luckily, during the 2013 replanting, so much of the research that I have been working from had been conducted by my former supervisor Dave Hayes. Dave had produced the needed research before beginning a project like that, he even brought in a plant genetic scientist from the USDA to identify unknown varieties of apples. Thanks to the research and paperwork work he did, I have been able to dive deep into this new project.
The next steps we’re taking are in my opinion, the most exciting. The plan now, is to plant 15 young apple trees each year over the next three years. The first round of apple trees have been ordered and are due to arrive in mid-April. The new trees being planted will represent the varieties which were historically planted there and will consist of four varieties: Golden Delicious, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Northern Spy and Stayman Winesap. We have been working hard on the planning for this day of planting for several months now and have most of our plans in place. An important part of these plans includes a holistic spray program styled largely on the one laid out in “The Holistic Orchard” by Michael Phillips, a book that has guided so much of this process. My work has also taken influence from another book called the “Historic Orchard and Fruit Tree Stabilization Handbook”, published by the National Park Service in partnership with California State Parks. This piece of literature is where I draw the inspiration to solve the deer problem, caging each apple tree individually with five foot high, six foot in diameter fencing. Cages tall, wide, and sturdy enough so that the deer cannot breech them (although I have no doubt that they will try). This caging will remain in place for several years until the trees are large enough to handle some light deer browsing.
It’s also worth mentioning that in addition to the orchard rehabilitation project, there are two sub-projects happening as well. One in which we have taken scion-wood from some of the apple trees in the lower orchard to graft onto rootstock in order to propagate them for planting in the future. As well as a project in partnership with Yosemite National Park, in which we will be receiving some grafted trees from their park for planting here. The Yosemite trees were discovered in the park but have no known genetic matches in any apple tree database. Our goal is to preserve these genetically rare trees and possibly save them from extinction.
There is so much else to say about what I’ve learned and what I still don’t know when it comes to taking care of apple trees. What we hope, is that this is the beginning of the consistent care that this important historic resource deserves.
Cara Ratterman started as a Biological Science Technician with the Roosevelt and Vanderbilt National Historic Sites in January 2025.
In January, Cara set 27 camera traps out across the parks to monitor white-tailed deer populations. The cameras operated continuously for about 5 weeks to capture photographs of deer and other wildlife. These photographs will help to provide a better understanding of deer density within the parks, and how that affects overall forest health. Stay tuned to the parks’ social media pages to see some of the wildlife images that were captured!
Cara is also working on documenting vernal pools, which are small water bodies that occur in upland forests. These pools are important breeding sites for many amphibians, including Jefferson salamanders, spotted salamanders, wood frogs, and spring peepers. Other aquatic species like fingernail clams and fairy shrimp require vernal pools to complete their life cycles. Documenting where these pools occur and the species using them are the first steps to protecting and conserving these native communities.
Later this year, you can expect to see Cara out documenting deer browse, forest plant communities, and pollinator diversity.
Click on an image to enlarge.
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CAITLYN GERMINARO is a Human Services professional whose passion is supporting and advocating for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Caitlyn is currently a Training Specialist for a non-profit organization serving people with disabilities and partnering with communities across 38 counties in New York State. In 2022, Caitlyn received a CP State Annual Conference Staff Recognition Award. She also received the 2023 Leadership Dutchess Community Advocate Award and graduated from the Leadership Dutchess program. Caitlyn holds a BS from The College of Saint Rose and an MS from Walden University. A golfer, gardener, and sunset enthusiast, she lives in Red Hook, NY, with her husband and their two dogs.
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DAVID SCHWARTZ Born in 1951, David grew up in New York City. In 1972, he received his B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance. Following graduation, David began his career with Mikasa, a leader in the Tableware and Housewares industry – first in sales, then in management and as a company principal. Following the company’s initial public offering on the NYSE, David retired from the firm in 1996 and has since made his livelihood as a private investor. Recently, he’s become an active member of the Hudson Valley Start-up Fund, an Investment group that seeks to enable a stronger business ecosystem for entrepreneurs in the Hudson Valley region.
RUDOLPH S. RAUCH is a retired journalist and magazine editor. After graduating with a degree in English from Princeton University in 1965, he worked for two years at Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany, and attended the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1969, he joined TIME Magazine, where he covered Wall Street; served as European Economic Correspondent, based in Bonn, Germany; was a correspondent in the magazine’s Saigon Bureau for fourteen months; and then spent three years covering South America for TIME, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rauch returned to New York as Deputy Chief of Correspondents after a two-year stint as TIME’s Atlanta Bureau Chief. In 1980, he was named the Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and later was Assistant to the Chairman of Time, Inc. Rauch has also served as editor of the quarterly magazine CONSTITUTION, and from 1998 until 2003 was Editor of OPERA NEWS. A long-time director of Scenic Hudson, Inc., Rauch is currently on the board of the Scenic Hudson Land Trust, the Hudson Highlands Land Trust, and the non-profit weekly newspaper, THE HIGHLANDS CURRENT. Rauch is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and lives in Cold Spring, NY.
Evan Jenkins is an architect based in Los Angeles. He serves as Director for Architecture and Development at Atlas Capital Group, a 100-person real estate investment, development, and management firm, with 65 projects between New York and California totaling 14 million square feet and $7 billion in value. Evan holds master’s degrees in architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and real estate development from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, where he was Glascock and van Beuren Fellow at the Center for Urban Real Estate. A native New Yorker, Evan is a member of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, the American Institute of Architects, and the Urban Land Institute. He is Treasurer for the Harvard Heights Neighborhood Association and an advocate for historic preservation at Hyde Park and beyond.
ERIN HOAGLAND serves as the Director of Conservation for the Dutchess Land Conservancy. She is a lifelong resident of the Hudson Valley with an affinity for the natural world. After graduating from Marist College with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Policy, she started a career in land conservation. Erin has been able to apply her passions by working to implement and manage conservation projects on both natural lands and working farmland that protect Dutchess County’s invaluable scenic resources. Erin joined the FDR Hyde Park Foundation Board in 2017.
CANNON CARR is Chief Investment Officer for CornerCap Investment Counsel. Prior to joining CornerCap, Cannon was a senior equity analyst at CIBC World Markets (1998-2007), covering IT business services, wireless services, and emerging telecom. Cannon has provided commentary on CNBC, CNN, Lou Dobbs MoneyLine, and Bloomberg News. He has also been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Fortune, among other publications. Cannon has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Princeton University in Political Economy.
CHARLES BUICE serves as President of Tiger Foundation in New York City. The foundation works to help break the cycle of poverty for New York City families by investing in nonprofit human service organizations in the education, employment, youth and families, and criminal justice fields. Previously, Charles worked in the magazine publishing business in San Francisco and New York City. Charles also serves as a Trustee of The Steele-Reese Foundation and is on the board of A Public Space, a nonprofit publishing enterprise, and of Philanthropy New York, a member organization serving the foundation community in and around New York City. Charles has a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
EILEEN COSGRIFF is a Program Manager for Santander Bank in Boston, MA. She leads the US Project Management Office’s business analysis and UAT practices. Prior to Santander, Eileen worked at Deloitte & Touche LLP and Fidelity’s National Financial Services. In addition to work in financial services, Eileen has field experience in architectural history studying Thomas Jefferson’s designs and building methods at Poplar Forest, VA as well as rebuilding homes in New Orleans, LA under the sponsorship of World Monuments Fund. Eileen has a master’s in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University and a BS in Finance from Providence College. She also volunteers with local community redevelopment organizations, as well the Old North Church, Boston, MA where she and her co-gardeners received the Good Neighbor award in July 2017 for tending to the 18th-century reproduction garden.
G. DAVID PHELPS HAMAR is a Managing Director & Head of Wealth Advisory Services at Chilton Trust. Mr. Hamar advises individuals, trusts, and foundations on a wide variety of financial matters, including portfolio construction, philanthropic advisory, and tax and financial planning. Mr. Hamar is the Founder and Chairman of the Brantingham Preservation Group in the western Adirondack Park, is a Director and Treasurer Emeritus of Virginia Polo at the University of Virginia, and served on the Steering Committee for the formation of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. Mr. Hamar is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law (1990) and Old Dominion University (1983). Mr. Hamar is admitted to the Virginia State Bar and is a CPA. He resides in Manhattan, Onteora Park, and Brantingham, New York.
John Winthrop (Wint) Aldrich retired from a career in N.Y. State government and continues his life-long activism in land conservation and historic preservation, especially in the Hudson River Valley. A graduate of Harvard College who served as an Army officer in Vietnam, from 1974 until 2010 Wint held posts on the executive staffs of the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation – in the latter agency as the State’s Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation. Also, Wint has served as a consultant to the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, a unit of the National Park Service.
KEVIN BURKE is a historian, journalist, and documentary film producer. In addition to serving as the director of research at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, he is the founder and CEO of Kevin Burke Productions, Inc., a New York–based company, through which he has hosted and produced the award-winning podcast series Your Hometown. Burke’s film credits include working as a producer on the popular PBS series Finding Your Roots; Making Black America: Through the Grapevine (PBS, 2022); the Emmy-nominated series The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song (PBS, 2021); and Reconstruction: America after the Civil War (PBS, 2019), winner of the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award. With Henry Louis Gates Jr., Burke is the coauthor of And Still I Rise: Black America since MLK (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2015) and co-editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir, Twelve Years a Slave (W. W. Norton & Co., 2016). Burke graduated from Harvard College in 1998 and from Harvard Law School in 2003. He received his master’s degree in History and Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard in 2004 and 2006, respectively. A member of the New York State Bar, Burke serves on several boards, including as chair of the Hudson River Valley Greenway Conservancy. He and his wife, Anna Barranca-Burke, live with their two children in New York City.
