Val-Kill is the 180-acre retreat approximately two miles
east of Springwood, the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park,
that ER loved dearly. Two buildings sit adjacent to Fallkill
Creek. Stone Cottage, the
original cottage and home to Marion
Dickerman and Nancy Cook,
and a large two-story stuccoed building that housed Val-Kill
Industries and which would become ER's home after FDR's
death. In 1977, after a prolonged community campaign, President
Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation making it the Eleanor
Roosevelt National Historic Site, the only historic
site dedicated to a first lady. In 1984 the Eleanor
Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill negotiated an agreement
with the National Park Service and made Stone Cottage its
home.
Sources:
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life, Volume
One. New York: Viking Press, 1992 325-327.
Lash, Joseph P. Eleanor: The Years Alone. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co. 1972, 172-173.