"In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee…there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town."
-- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

This weekend I took a drive to Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture in Tarrytown, NY the suburban seat of the Rockefeller family.  Old Dutch New
Rose Window courtesy of Union Church York historians have said that the name Tarrytown means wheat.  Washington Irving, an area resident, thought the name was coined by farm women who knew of their husbands "toiling" at the local tavern.  Either way, it was again one of those incredible days we see so few of in New York City and finding any excuse to be outdoors was the name of the game.

The first major structure off of the Saw Mill River Parkway at the Stone Barns exit is Union Church of Pocantico Hills, one of 27 churches in Tarrytown.  A town that in 2003 had 11,411 residents according to a recent census. The Union Church, however, is not just any church--it is known, not so quietly, as the Rockefeller Church where the family has worshiped on weekends since 1890.  And what a church it is.

The current structure was built in the early 1920s and largely funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.  It is best known for its 10 stained glass windows nine of which were designed by Marc Chagall and the Rose Window designed by Henri Matisse just before his death.  I have to say that the Matisse is my favorite.  What struck me most about the church, however, was the craftsmanship.  This was a church built to last.  Even the ceiling beams, though understated, were impressively designed.  This superb craftsmanship is a hallmark of the Rockefeller family and it delicately infuses each of their projects.  I was surprised though that the church was asking for $5.00 handouts from each of its mostly middle class visitors.  But enough about religious worship.....healthy food worship is what we're about.

After a five minute drive along the town's lake and another minute or so inland, you come to the entrance of Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture and you know that you are in a special place.  The stone barns complex was part of a larger Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills and the barns had been a home of David and Peggy Rockefeller and their children.  The 80-acre complex with 49,000 square feet of stone barns was originally designed by the architect Grosvenor Atterbury in the 1930s and commissioned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.  Mr. Atterbury was an American architect who had worked for McKim, Mead & White and was known first for his weekend homes for the wealthy and later New York City's Forest Hills Gardens. 

Peggy Rockefeller loved farms and farming and was so committed to it that she created and managed her own including what is now Stone Barns Center.  After her death her family chose to honor her passion for the land and a healthy, pure food supply by creating a center where these themes could be further explored and local farmers could be encouraged and supported.  The family also took the opportunity to renovate and adapt the stone barn complex.  The Rockefellers chose the award wining architectural and urban design firm of Machado and Silvetti Associates for the project.  I am linking to their site here because their slide show of the center is essentially an exhibit of the project and better than any photos that I could take or have seen of the complex.

So, the Rockefeller family has created a non-profit organization which will help maintain their converted barns and surrounding farm land.  Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture now houses classroom space where scheduled lectures are offered in an effort to promote sustainable, community-based food.  There is also an outpost of New York's Blue Hill, a for-profit restaurant utilizing the livestock and produce grown on the property which treats guests to a real-life example of farm to table dining. 

The center also has exhibit spaces, a reading room that had been a silo, a café, and a four-season, 24,000 square foot greenhouse as well as outdoor growing fields and 50 miles of walking and riding trails.  There are programs for kindergartners to high school students and teachers throughout the school year which include hands on activities with the livestock and produce, opportunities to prepare meals and sessions devoted to crop rotation and organic farming.  The center also partners with schools and youth programs associated with farmer's markets throughout New York City including the ENY Farms! discussed below. Visitors may wander on their own or with a docent exploring well labeled fields that contain mobile housing for up to 900 chickens, bees, sheep, turkey, pigs and veal calves as well as the greenhouses.

You can imagine after absorbing all of this one could get hungry and we did.  The Blue Hill restaurant also has a cafe on the premises which is really a very high-end take away with a lovely outdoor terrace for picnics.  It is here that I encountered those peaches.  Let's be honest prices at the cafe are steep, but in turn you are being served very high quality food grown only steps or a few miles away. As an exercise it would be interesting to analyze organic and conventional farming on everyday farms to see where the costs actually begin to diverge and why.  Okay so putting that new project aside for the moment, what to have? Well, rather than sandwiches or salads I figured something as pure as possible, as raw as possible would give me a better sense of what the Blue Hill chefs were actually working with.  So I purchased three ready to eat peaches, three plums and a second mortgage. 

The peaches were unreal and I'm sorry to say made me forget all about those pluots.  Do you remember peaches with fuzz?  I do and these had fuzz, flavor, juice, sweetness and memories.  This was fruit ripened on the tree, not in a truck.  This was food, not insults!  I have since learned that the peaches are not grown at Stone Barns, but do come from an organic farm in Middletown, NY not too far away and I am trying to learn more about them.  

I am an avowed foodie...we know this and so being so wowed by awesome tasting fruit should not come as such a surprise to you by now.  But come on, how often were you so enraptured by the last hot dog you ate or the potato chips or french fries? We were meant to eat much of what comes naturally out of the ground and off the land. And getting back to the way we are supposed to eat is what Stone Barns is all about.  The  Stone Barns Center also provides an opportunity to teach children where their (healthy) food comes from and that eating this way can taste great.

Directions: You can take the Saw Mill River Parkway to Exit 23 if visiting Union Church too. Or if you are going directly to Stone Barns, take the Hudson Line at Grand Central Station and then a taxi (or your bike) to Stone Barns.  Either way the trip is about 35 minutes from NYC and you can save on gas if you take the train.  

September 15, 2006 Editor's Note--I happened to have been at NYC's Union Square Greenmarket and as I was leaving I spotted the Blue Hill at Stone Barns van and rushed over to ask about those peaches.  According to the two very helpful and knowledgeable men I learned that the peaches come from Eckerton Hill Farm and that they have a stand at the greenmarket.  So of course, I rushed right back over there.  I spoke with one of the Eckerton Hill farmers and was informed that the peaches actually come from a neighboring farm, but they do not allow visitors.  I learned that 90% of their yield are Firestone peaches and 10% are the White peaches that we purchased.  Surprisingly, the farm is in Hamburg, PA not New York's Hudson Valley.