Gardens and Grandeur
of the Hudson River Valley
Welcome to The Gardens and Grandeur of the Hudson River Valley
• September 16 - September 23, 2025
Maximum Group Size: 25 Guests
Gardens and Grandeur of the Hudson River Valley
Tuesday, Sept. 16 – Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025
5 Days / 4 Nights
New York’s Hudson River Valley is renowned for its intense historical significance, the legacy of America’s great industrialists and the grand gardens that flank both sides of its waters. For centuries, artists and authors have been inspired by the architectural, natural and horticultural treasures of the area. Now is your chance to join a modern day “Hudson River School” designed especially for garden enthusiasts! With roots planted in Washington Irving’s beloved Tarrytown, this tour branches up and down the mighty Hudson with visits to sites that truly run the garden gamut. From the classically manicured landscapes of the Rockefeller Estate at Kykuit to the bold blurring of house and grounds at Russel Wright’s Manitoga, this tour will inspire even the greenest of thumbs to view the term “garden variety” in a whole new light.
Day One, Tuesday, Sept. 16:
Board your morning flight and plan to arrive at New York’s LaGuardia Airport by noon. Once you board our private motor coach, your Hudson Valley adventure begins. Your first stop is at Wave Hill. Often called “one of the greatest living works of art,” Wave Hill is a spectacular public garden overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades in Riverdale. Upon arrival, you will enjoy an included boxed lunch. Then it will be time to begin this grand adventure. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the estate includes two houses and a botanical garden.
The oldest part of the main house, Wave Hill House, dates back to 1843, and Glyndor House dates from 1927. Wave Hill now serves as a non-profit cultural center dedicated to exploring human connections to the natural world. A Wave Hill docent will guide us through the carefully cultivated gardens and extensive collection of rare and unusual plants and provide a history of this vibrant yet intimate 28-acre site. The awe-inspiring view at the Great Lawn and Pergola Overlook will provide a picture-perfect beginning to your exploration of the Hudson Valley.
Depart Wave Hill late afternoon and travel to your hotel and home for the next four nights. The Tarrytown House Estate is a full-service hotel perched high on a hill above Sunnyside, the home of famed author Washington Irving. This quaint, seemingly unsuspecting hotel in Tarrytown, NY has long been the destination for intellectuals, bon vivants, and trendsetters. Once you have refreshed and settled into your room, gather in the Cellar Bar for a Welcome Reception. Sip an included beverage and enjoy a savory snack while you get acquainted with the members of the group Close out your evening with an included dinner served in Goosefeather, the Cantonese restaurant located in the King Mansion at Tarrytown House Estate.
Day Two, Wednesday, Sept. 17:
Start your day with a hearty breakfast buffet served at the hotel, then board the coach and head out for a day filled with history, natural beauty and delicious wines. We will travel along the Hudson River to Boscobel, an historic house museum. The house was built in the early 19th century by States Dyckman. It is considered a significant example of the Federal style of American architecture augmented by Dyckman's extensive collection of period decorations and furniture.
Originally located in the Westchester County village of Montrose, restoration efforts in the mid-20th century moved it 15 miles upriver to where it currently stands. Boscobel's distinguishing feature is the unusual delicacy conveyed by the front facade and its ornamentation. Unique among Federal style buildings, carved wooden swags in the shape of drapery, complete with tassels and bowknots, grace the top of the second-story balcony. Nearly one-third of the face is glass, with flanking lights integrated into contemporary windows used in the restoration to enhance the effect. Adjacent to the house is a permanent sculpture garden with ten bronze busts of significant Hudson River School artists.
After lunch, travel just a short distance to Cold Spring where you will enjoy an afternoon at Stonecrop Gardens, a veritable gardener’s paradise! Perched in a dramatic setting in the Hudson Highlands, Stonecrop Gardens was the former private garden of Garden Conservancy founder, Frank Cabot and his wife, Anne, and has become an important destination for gardening enthusiasts since opening to the public in 1992. The display gardens cover an area of about 12 acres and incorporate a diverse collection of gardens and plants. A 2,000 square-foot conservatory housing tender specimens floats on a pond near the entry and multiple greenhouses display alpines, tropicals and succulents. Your visit includes a guided tour of the grounds followed by free time to explore and show for plants on sale in the Potting Shed.
The ideal way to end your day is with a refreshing stop at the Benmarl Winery where you will enjoy a tour and taste. Situated on 37 acres overlooking the Hudson River Valley, this winery is the oldest vineyard in North America. After departing the winery, this evening’s included dinner will be at The Angry Chef before returning “home” for a good night’s sleep.
Day Three, Thursday, Sept. 18:
Following an early breakfast in the hotel, board your coach and travel north for a diverse day of garden touring. Today’s first visit will be to Manitoga, the former home, studio and 75-acre woodland garden of American industrial designer, Russel Wright. Built on the site of an abandoned granite quarry, the complex is an utterly unique testament to Wright's enduring ideas about good design and living in harmony with nature. It holds the distinction of being both a National Historic Landmark and one of the few 20th century modern homes with original landscape open to the public.
Features of the house include large expanses of glass allowing for views of the 30-foot waterfall, the quarry pool, and surrounding landscape. Boulders, plantings and stone terraces are positioned to bring the outdoors in, blending architecture and landscape. Although the many elements of the garden are familiar – nothing is conventional. During this visit, Manitoga’s resident groundskeeper will lead your group on an immersive House, Studio and Landscape tour. Your visit also includes shuttle service to and from the site.
By this time, you’ll be ready to sit back and relax a while. Climb aboard the Pride of the Hudson for a 2-hour narrated sight-seeing cruise. Enjoy a snack and beverage from one of the two onboard snack bars while you bask in the open air on the spacious sundeck or enjoy the comfort of the climate controlled main salon featuring huge wraparound windows. Your cruise will take you by Washington’s Headquarters, Mount Beacon, Bannerman Island, Breakneck Mountain, Cold Spring, World’s End, Constitution Island and West Point.
When the cruise ends, board the coach and enjoy the ride to Untermyer Gardens Conservancy. This 43-acre public garden, created in 1917 by Samuel and Minnie Untermyer, combines exceptional horticulture, monumental architecture, and multicultural design in a majestic natural setting overlooking the Hudson River. The Conservancy is committed to sharing this outstanding resource with a diverse, global audience. On the way “home” to the hotel, we’ll stop for dinner in Irvington at the Red Hat on the River, a fine dining establishment that offers a spectacular view of the beautiful Hudson river. This 100-year old renovated factory building is adorned with WPA-era art evoking a feeling of a turn of the century Parisian bistro.
Day Four, Friday, Sept. 19:
After your included breakfast, it’s back on the coach for an unparalleled day of horticulture and history. At your first stop, you will experience the style of a true titan of industry with a visit to Kykuit, the former estate of John D. Rockefeller that dates back to the late 1800s. This 250-acre property with breathtaking river views served as a private oasis for four generations of the Rockefeller family before it was opened to the public as a historic site under the care of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Today, the site is known for the 40-room, Georgian style mansion that sits at the center of the property, if not more so for the meticulously designed gardens.
During this morning’s guided tour, you’ll visit the first floor of the mansion that is outfitted with fine antique furnishings from around the world. Next, you’ll explore Kykuit’s elegant Beaux-Arts style terraced gardens. These include a Morning Garden, Grand Staircase, Japanese Garden and Tea House, Italian Garden, Oceanus Fountain, Loggia and Rose Garden. The grounds are also graced with numerous sculptures, ranging from classical mythology themes to modern masterworks by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder and Isamu Noguchi. Depart Kykuit and travel into the town of Sleepy Hollow. Have lunch on your own at one of the locally owned eateries before heading to Tarrytown, home of the majestic estate, Lyndhurst Mansion.
Lyndhurst is one of America’s finest Gothic Revival mansions. Built in 1838, Lyndhurst was first conceived in the minds of architects, A. J. Davis and William Paulding. The house was first named “Knoll,” although critics quickly dubbed it “Paulding’s Folly” because of its unusual design that includes fanciful turrets and an asymmetrical outline. The second owner, New York merchant, George Merritt, doubled the house's size in 1864-1865 and renamed it “Lyndenhurst” for the estate’s Linden trees. Railroad tycoon, Jay Gould, purchased the property in 1880 for use as a country house and shortened its name to “Lyndhurst.”
Return to your hotel and refresh before reconvening in the hotel’s meeting space for a private Wreath-making Workshop with Hamptonsbased dried floral artist, Diana Conklin. A former president of the South Fork Craftsmen’s Guild, Diana teaches the lost art of dried flowers with a fresh twist! Everyone in your group will create a Fall Harvest Wreath that may be hung or used as a centerpiece. Diana will provide an assortment of materials grown on her Long Island farm. Tonight, gather for an included dinner served at a nearby, awardwinning restaurant.
Unlike later mansions along the Hudson River, Lyndhurst's rooms are few and of a more modest scale, and strongly Gothic in character. Hallways are narrow, windows small and sharply arched, and ceilings are fantastically peaked, vaulted and ornamented. The effect is at once gloomy, somber and highly romantic; the large, double-height art gallery provides a contrast of light and space. The house sits within a landscape park, designed in the English naturalistic style by Ferdinand Mangold, whom Merritt hired. Mangold drained the surrounding swamps, created lawns, planted specimen trees and built a conservatory. The park is an outstanding example of 19th-century landscape design with a curving entrance drive that reveals "surprise" views of rolling lawns accented with shrubs and specimen trees. The 390-foot-long oniondomed, iron-framed, glass conservatory, when built, was one of the largest privately owned greenhouses in the United States.
Day Five, Saturday, Sept. 20:
Following breakfast, gather your belongings and check out of your hotel. Your last visit, and one certain to make life-long memories, is at the Cloisters. This museum is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was built in the 1930’s resembling architectural elements of several European medieval abbeys. It is used to exhibit art and architecture from Medieval Europe. Although each of the three gardens at The Met Cloisters is unique, their design and plantings are based on information found in documents and works of art from the Middle Ages. The gardens were originally laid out and planted in 1938, the year The Met Cloisters opened.
In the Judy Black Garden at the Cuxa Cloister, arcaded walkways surround an enclosed courtyard that is open to the sky. Here, medieval European species and modern garden plants from Asia and the Americas combine to provide color and scent from early spring until late fall. The Bonnefont Cloister garden contains one of the most specialized plant collections in the world: all of its approximately 300 species were grown and used during the Middle Ages for purposes as varied as food, medicine, magic and artist materials. The raised beds, wattle fences and wellhead are all features depicted frequently in medieval sources. The plantings in the Trie Cloister garden, evoke the flowering meadow so often depicted in medieval works of art. The single field of herbs and flowers refers to the grounds of millefleurs tapestries, in which many species bloom simultaneously in an eternal spring. Many of the plants depicted in the Unicorn Tapestries—a masterpiece of The Met Cloisters—are cultivated in the Trie Cloister, though the plants bloom in the proper season. Enjoy lunch on your own at one of the Cloisters’ cafes before departing and traveling to the LaGuardia Airport for your flights home that should be booked after 4:00 pm.
YOUR PACKAGES INCLUDE
4 Nights accommodation
4 Breakfasts
1 Lunches
4 Dinners
1 Welcome Reception
Guided garden tour at Wave Hill
Admission to Kykuit with guided tour
Guided tour at Stonecrop
Tour and Tasting at Benmaryl Winery
Visit to Manitoga with guided house and grounds tour
Round trip shuttle service to Manitoga
Pride of the Hudson River Cruise
Docent-led house tour at Lyndhurst
House and garden tour at Boscobel
Dried wreath making class
Admission to Untermyer Gardens Conservancy
Admission to the Cloisters with tour of the gardens
Services of a full-time tour manager
Baggage handling for one piece of luggage per traveler
Private motor coach transportation throughout the tour Accommodations, admissions, group meals and baggage service for the coach driver
Taxes and gratuities (Note: gratuities for the coach driver and tour manager are not included and are at your discretion based on service.)
PRICING INFORMATION
Pricing Information: The following prices are based on 15 paid travelers. Fewer than 15 paid travelers may result in a price increase. Prices and itinerary are subject to change.
Per person double occupancy: 2,795.00
Per person single occupancy: 3,445.00