Wilderstein, with its Queen Anne mansion and Calvert Vaux-designed landscape, is widely regarded as the Hudson Valley's most important example of Victorian architecture. Located in Rhinebeck, New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River and a disticntive landmark with its unique five-story tower, Wilderstein is also widely recognized as one of the great successes of historic architectural preservation in New York State. In the early 1980s, when Wilderstein became a not-for-profit historic site, the outside of the mansion had not been painted in almost 100 years, the roof leaked, much of the grand verandah was rotting, and the magnificent interiors were covered with soot from the many fireplaces. Today, most of the first-floor rooms have been restored to their former brilliance and the outside has been repaired and repainted in the original polychromatic color scheme of 1888. The gate house has been restored, and restoration work is planned to continue on the spectacular carriage house.
Wilderstein and the Suckleys is more than just the story of a house, however; it is also the intimate story of three generations of a Hudson Valley family that left its mark on the rich social scene east of the river in the Victorian and Edwardian ages, a time when the Hudson River Valley was home to many of the wealthiest and most politically prominent American families—the Roosevelts, Astors, Vanderbilts, and Livingstons, to name but a few of the more famous.
The story ends like a Hollywood movie—and, in fact, it has become a Hollywood movie. In 1991, Margaret ("Daisy") Suckley, the last of the Suckleys to live in the then-unpainted and increasingly deteriorated Wilderstein, died peacefully at home in her 100th year. When volunteers at Wilderstein began to sort and catalogue the house's vast trove of artifacts, they discovered beneath Daisy's bed a box of letters between her and Franklin Delano Roosevelt that revealed the until-then largely unknown close friendship between the two. These letters, along with her diaries, became the basis for the book Closest Companion by Geoffrey C. Ward. The movie, which is called Hyde Park on the Hudson, focuses on their relationship and stars Bill Murray as FDR and Laura Linney as Daisy.