"Greentree" (North Hills, New York)

USA / New York / North Hills / North Hills, New York
 estate (manor / mansion land), LIGC - Long Island Gold Coast, historical layer / disappeared object
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"Greentree" is a 400-acre estate in Manhasset, one of the last mostly intact LIGC estates on Long Island. W. Payne Whitney purchased the estate around the turn of the last century for his bride, Helen Julia Hay. The five family farms that were purchased to make up the new estate were the Mitchell, Ketchum, Brinkerhoff, Skidmore, and Schenck farms. When he passed in 1927, his son John Hay "Jock" Whitney and his second wife, Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney, occupied the main house, where Mrs. Whitney remained in residence there until her death in 1998. The estate features a "real tennis" court in good condition, but it is no longer in use. The estate includes numerous large stable buildings, as the Whitney's were avid horse breeders and racers. The Mitchell homestead which was on the property as since burned down.

The Greentree Foundation now occupies the property. Mrs. Whitney first set up the Foundation in 1982, the year Mr. Whitney died. As now, her original aim was "to advance human understanding" by hosting meetings of world leaders and diplomats at the estate's secluded, retreat-like-setting. The estate hosted the Manhasset negotiations in 2007, a round of talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front, as part of a set of UN-led meetings.

nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn95071148/1997-07-24/ed...
collections.si.edu/search/detail/ead_component:sova-aag...
collections.si.edu/search/detail/ead_component:sova-aag...
collections.si.edu/search/detail/ead_component:sova-aag...
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greentree
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°46'55"N   73°41'41"W

Comments

  • John Hay Whitney, almost 500 acers, 32 rooms, Colonial style. Whitney famous for horse breeding, publisher of New York Herald Tribune He bought the film rights to "Gone With the Wind"
  • The descriptive comment above says Greentree WAS one of the last GC estates to remain largely intact. This is true, it was (past tense) one of the last, meaning it is not necessarily intact any more.
  • Anyone around who still knows of the area nearby known as "Duck Alley"? My father grew up there and had great stories of playing in and around the Whitney estate (1930 - 1947).
  • my grandfather worked as a groundskeeper for john hay at one time the united states ambassador to england
  • hi there I believe my uncle worked as a stableman sometime in 1940 and enlisted in the us army giving green tree estate as his address I am trying to find out what became of him after the war.
  • I worked there in the early 1960s in the greenhouses run by famous horticulturist and orchid specialist, Don Richardson... At that time John Hay Whitney and his wife Betsey lived on the estate as did his sister Joan Payson
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This article was last modified 4 years ago