Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill

A video guided tour of Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park, NY narrated by Doris Mack, a National Park Service tour guide who knew Mrs. Roosevelt personally.

Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site Val-Kill consists of 180 acres approximately two miles east of Springwood, the Hyde Park Roosevelt family home.

FDR encouraged Eleanor Roosevelt to develop this property as a place that she could develop some of her ideas for work with winter jobs for rural workers and women. She named the spot Val-Kill, loosely translated as waterfall-stream from the Dutch language common to the original settlers of the area. There are two buildings which are adjacent to Fallkill Creek.

Stone Cottage, the original cottage which was home to Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, which they sold back to Eleanor in 1947 and a large two-story stuccoed building that housed Val-Kill Industries and which would become Eleanor's home after Franklin's death. It was the only residence that she personally owned.

Eleanor Roosevelt often hosted workshops for Encampment for Citizenship here.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation making it the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site. In 1984 the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill negotiated an agreement with the National Park Service and made Stone Cottage its home. In 2008 the Eleanor Roosevelt Center moved from Stone Cottage to a new facility at Val-Kill.