Top Cottage, part of Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site
TOUR DETAILS
Tours of Top Cottage, the home where Franklin Roosevelt went to get away from the crowds that flocked to his Springwood estate, are held seasonally. There is a fee, and tickets are available in advance online at Recreation.gov or on the day of the tour at the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site Visitor Center, assuming there are any tickets left after online sales. Only one tour is held each day during the week, typically at 9:30 AM, and there is a limit of ten people. If you are interested, call the Visitor Center at (845) 229-5320 to see when tours are being held.
Tours begin at the Visitor Center. A bus takes participants to Top Cottage, which is actually much closer to Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val-Kill home, part of Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, than Springwood. Block out two hours of your time for arriving early at the Visitor Center, the actual tour, and the round trip transportation.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that tours aren’t held that often and are limited to a small number of people, tickets rarely sell out. I did the tour in late August, and there were only three other people on the tour with me. The parking lot at the Visitor Center was full, so either nobody cares to see Top Cottage or nobody knows tours are being held. My bet is the simple lack of publicity. A Ranger told me he thinks it is because the tour is given first thing in the morning, and most people show up at the park later in the day. This eliminates the option for spur-of-the-moment ticket sales, and thus only those who are aware of the tour in advance end up taking it.
Keep in mind that if you cannot fit a tour into your schedule that you can walk to Top Cottage from Val-Kill on the Top Cottage Trail, a 2-mile round trip hike (you cannot get inside). It is also possible to drive to Top Cottage if you just want to snap a photo and walk quickly around the property, but you might have to park along the street if the driveway gate is locked. If the police come by, you could get ticket.
The Top Cottage tour is informative, but as for the house itself, it is a minor part of the experience. The tour group enters one room, which is decorated with period reproduction furniture based on old photographs of the interior. Tour participants are invited to spend a few minutes looking around and can even sit in the chairs since they are not original or antiques.
Interior of Top Cottage, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site
Interior of Top Cottage, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site
Interior of Top Cottage, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site
Other than the brief entrance into the house, the tour takes place on the back porch that overlooks the yard where the Roosevelts held a casual picnic for the King and Queen of England. At this point, the Ranger proceeds with a lecture about Roosevelt, the history of Top Cottage, and the events that took place here.
Porch of Top Cottage, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site
The backyard is very small, and any views of the Hudson River and the valley below are now obscured by tall trees that grow right up to the edge of the yard. In Roosevelt’s day, the view wasn’t completely clear, but he certainly wasn’t staring at a forest. The river can still be seen in the winter when the leaves have fallen off the trees.
View from the porch of Top Cottage, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site
TOP COTTAGE HISTORY
Top Cottage was Franklin Roosevelt’s home away from home where he went to escape the constant stream of visitors and press to his Springwood Estate. While just a few miles away to the east, it was definitely more secluded, made even more so by Roosevelt’s purchase of the surrounding parcels of land to keep anyone else from building near him. He actually began purchasing farmland east of Springwood as early as 1925, and he continued purchasing land up through 1938.
Construction on the house began in the summer of 1938 and concluded in June 1939, though Roosevelt had guests at the cottage before all the finishing touches were completed. He planned to write his memoirs at Top Cottage after his second term as president, but he ended up getting elected a third and fourth time, and of course he died not long into his fourth term on April 12, 1945. Even when he did get to spend time at Top Cottage, he never spent the night.
The home is most famous for hosting England’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (aka The Queen Mother) on June 11, 1939. This was the first time that reigning British monarchs had been to the United States, and they had come to hopefully gain support from the U. S. in case a war started in Europe—it did less than three months later. Roosevelt turned the event at Top Cottage into a typical American picnic in the backyard, very low-key for royalty. Top Cottage hosted many more dignitaries including Winton Churchill (multiple times), Crown Princess Louise of Sweden, and Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana of the Netherlands.
Unlike the Springwood Estate, which went to the National Park Service soon after Roosevelt’s death, Top Cottage was sold and had multiple owners before it became part of Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site. The first new owner was Eleanor Roosevelt herself, who purchased Top Cottage from the Roosevelt executors in April 1947. A few months later she sold it to her son, Elliott Roosevelt. In 1952, Elliott sold 118 acres, including Top Cottage, to Agnes Potter, and after that the property remained in the Potter Family until being sold to the Beaverkill Conservancy in 1996 (the sale was for 34 acres and the house). The Potters developed much of their remaining land into the residential neighborhoods that now surround Top Cottage.
Beaverkill Conservancy subsequently was able to purchase three other properties that had once belonged to Roosevelt but had been sold off over the years, allowing Top Cottage to be connected to Eleanor’s Val-Kill home once again. Visitors to Val-Kill who hike to Top Cottage on the Top Cottage Trail do so through the land purchased by the Conservancy. The trail closely follows the original dirt path used by Roosevelt to drive to the top of the hill where he had picnics before Top Cottage was built. This drive approached the hill from the north and had a lot of sharp turns and was quite steep at the end, so he eventually came up with another route that approached the cottage from the south. Today there is a vehicle road that passes through the subdivisions developed by the Potters.
The Beaverkill property was acquired by the National Park Service in May 2001. Tours to Top Cottage were held up until the COVID epidemic in 2020 and did not resume again until late summer in 2024.
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Last updated on June 6, 2025
