Quick answer
Wave Hill is a 28-acre public estate and garden in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, overlooking the Hudson River. Mark Twain leased the house from 1901 to 1903, Theodore Roosevelt's family spent summers here, and the estate was given to New York City in 1960.
Full transcript
The house where Twain wrote
Wave Hill began as a gray fieldstone mansion built in 1843 for a lawyer named William Lewis Morris, on a slope above the Hudson in the Bronx. Then the famous came. Mark Twain leased the house from 1901 to 1903 and wrote here; Theodore Roosevelt's family rented it for the summers of 1870 and 1871; the conductor Arturo Toscanini stayed from 1942 to 1945, standing on the lawn to conduct the river. In 1960 the family gave the whole estate to the city. Stand on the terrace at the back of the house and the view is the same one they had — the Hudson below, the Palisades rising across the water.
A garden built in layers
The estate covers 28 acres, and every layer of it is deliberate. Glyndor House, rebuilt in 1927 after a fire, holds the art galleries. The Abrons Woodland is 10 acres of native second-growth forest with a path around the perimeter. The Marco Polo Stufano Conservatory collects palms, tropicals and more than 1,100 container-grown cacti and succulents. Birders have logged 127 species here, from ruby-throated hummingbirds to bald eagles. Find the pergola above the lawn and walk its length to the river overlook.
What to do while you're here
Take the woodland path first, while your legs are fresh, then work back through the flower garden and the alpine house to the conservatory. Pack a lunch for the terrace — the cafe is fine, but the bench at the river overlook is better. Check the gallery calendar before you go, because the Glyndor exhibitions change and the good ones fill the quiet rooms. Bring binoculars and stay for the light on the Hudson River and the Palisades, which arrives around sunset.