Evening star., 1909-07-07
.|Rv|NC'S "SUNNYS|DE"
Most Famous Home on the
Banks of the Hudson.
NOW HIDDEN By FOLIAGE
Scene of Authors Most Celebrated
Writings.
MADE FORTUNE BY HIS WORKS
Achieved Fame Across the Atlantic.
Nine Years in the Dip
lomatic Service.
6ADE FORTUNE BY HIS WORKS
BY WILLIAM f.. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence Of The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.

Chicago Record Herald
IRV1NGTON, n. Y, July 6, 1909.
The home of Washington Irving, which he
called Sunnyside (and the name may have
been appropriate once, but it is no longer),
lies about half a mile north of the vii
lage Of Irvington, at the foot of the bluff
that runs parallel with the Hudson river.
In his day it commanded a view of the
water. but it is now entirely hidden on
all sides by a mass of foliage. To reach
It you turn down from the old stage road
into Sunnyside lane, a winding sylvan
road over which the arms of the trees
meet and form leafy tunnel Mr.. Isaac
Seligman, the New York banker, lives
on both sides of it, as you might say.
His country residence, Willowbrook,
formerly the home of Moses II. Grinnel.
is on one side, and on the other is his
farm and private golf links. where MIR.
Seligman finds great joy and satisfac-
tion.
A gate is open five days in the week
SO that the public may see the quaint
old house in which Irving lived, but on
Saturday and Sunday the present occu-
pant and a nephew of the author, Mr..
Alexander Duer Irving, who is in busi-
ness in New York, naturally likes to
have the place to himself. The day we
were there the Irving Club of young
ladies from Brooklyn seminary was
house and grounds.
The house is reached by a beautiful
winding road lined with plants that today
are all ablaze with bloom. the lawn is
broken by groups Of Towering shrubs and
the walls and fences are covered with
fragrant honeysucAe and climbing roses.
The grounds embrace about seven acres
and the famous owner planted here and
there great variety of trees, which are
now in the age of greatest luxurance-
beech, birch, willow. oak. locust, maple,
elm. linden, copper beeches, cedar, hem
lock and pine. Tie house is clad in ivy
from the foundations to the tops of the
chimneys and 1t all came from a cutting
from Walter Scotts favorite vine at Mel
rose Abbey. which was brought across
the ocean and planted by the hand Of
Mrs. Renwick, daughter of Rev. Andrew
Geoffrey of 1ockmaben, known in girl
hood as Bonnie Jessie of Annandale" or
the Blue Eyed Lassie' of Robert Burns.
"A token Of friendship immortal,
With Washington Irving returned;
Scots Scots ivy entwined % Ger his portal ;,
Wolfert's Rest.
Mr.. Irving did not build the house, al
though he added considerably to it. 1t
was originally erected in the days of
Gov. Peter Stuyvesant by Wolfert Acker,
privy councillor. Of that hard-headed and
stern old magistrate. Acker inscribed
over the entrence. in Dutch. his favorite
motto, s1Jugt in Rust which means
fert's Rust" (Which means "Wolfert's
quiet" The name was afterward cor
rupted into roost. as Mr.. Irving once
said, by the uneducated who did not
quaint cock-loft look, and from its hav
ing a weathercock perched on every
gable" "In those days: Mr.. Irving said,
the unsophisticated inhabitants of the
neighborhood lived by hunting and fish
ing; occasionally recreating themselves
with a little tomahawking and scalping."
The house passed into the hands of
Jacob Van Tassel, valiant Dutchman
belonging to one of the Wealthiest and
most influential families on the HUDSON.
fagitious rebel against the king during
the revolution" Van Tassel had much
trouble. The hostile ships of the British
landed one day in front of the roost, the
house was looted and partially burned
and the owner was carried a prisoner to
New York.
Mr.. Irving cast an atmosphere OF ro-
nance around "Wolfert's Roost." He
charming stories, and one of his novels
bears Its name. It was here that ka-
trina Van Tassel gave her memorable
quilting party, which terminated so
disastrously to Ichabod Crane in his
midnight race with the Headless Horse
man of Sleepy Hollow. Here, too, that
imaginary Dutch historian, Diedrich
Knickerbocker, discovered the precious
documents which. like the lost books
of Livy, had baff1ed the researches of
former historians"; and from them Mr..
Irving gave us one of the most charm
ing series of tales that was ever writ
ten.
Old-Fashioned Stone Mansion.
Mr.. Irving describes Sunnyside in his
| story 'Montjoy' as "a little fash
| ioned stone mansion, all made up of
gable ends and as full of angles and
corners as an old cooked hat. 1t is said,
in fact, to have been modelled after the
cooked hat of Peter the Headstrong
(Gov. StuyvesanD, as the Escurial was
modelled after the gridiron of the bless
ed st. Lawrence. 1t is full of hooks
and crooks and chambers of all sorts
and sizes; buried among willows and
elms and cherry trees, and surrounded
with roses and hollyhocks. with honey.
suckle and sweet briar clamoring to
get into every window; a brood of
hereditary pigeons summing themselves
on the roof. with the nests of the
hereditary swallows and martins about
the caves and chimneys. and hereditary
bees humming among the flowers
Could there have been more attrac-
tive place?
In his sweet story of The Wife" ne
tells us that a single man lis apt to
run to waste and self-neglect; to fancy
himself lonely and abandoned. and to
allow his heart to fall to ruins like
some deserted mansion for the want of
an inhabitant." But he made himself
monarch of a little world of love in
the domestic endearments of the kim
dred he gathered under his roof and the
reverent affection of the friends WHO
share his generous hospitality
Irving's Love Affair.
Washington Irving, as you know. was
a bachelor by fate, and not by choice.
When he was a student reading law
with Brockholst Livingston, he fell in
love with Matilda Hoffman, daughter of
Josiah Ogden Hoffman young woman
of more than ordinary beauty. refine
ment of character and sweetness of
disposition. Her name is linked with
his in romance more pathetic than
any he ever wrote, and under all his
wit and humor and the quaint fantasies
of his pen he cherished her men,
eighteen years old and he was twenty
six, and a few months before their wed
ding day. From the day of her burial
until, in 1859. His own dust was laid
away to rest in the Sleepy Hollow
cemetery. he was never heard to men
ton her name: not even to his most
intimate friends and members of his
family: but after his death his literary
executor found detailed statement of
to her love, which was sealed up in AN
envelope with her miniature and a
braid of her hair.
The house has been kept very mucn
nearly as Mr.. Irving left it. and. fortu-
nately, has never passed out of the ean