Hitchcock Estate

The Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, New York is a historic mansion and surrounding grounds, associated with Timothy Leary and the psychedelic movement. It is often referred to in this context as just Millbrook; it is also sometimes called by its original name, Daheim.

The 2,300-acre (9.3 km2)[1] (or 2,500-acre (10 km2))[2][3] estate was purchased in stages by assembling five farms,[1] beginning in 1889,[4] by German-born acetylene gas mogul Charles F. Dieterich (1836–1927),[3] a founder of Union Carbide.[1] In 1912 Addison Mizner designed the four-storey[5] 38-room[6] mansion which Dieterich named "Daheim" ("The Home Place").[4][3] Featuring turrets, verandas, and gardens,[5] the late-Victorian mansion has been described architecturally as Queen Anne style or Bavarian Baroque.[3] The estate also featured a large gatehouse, horse stables, and other outbuildings.

Ownership of the estate passed from Dieterich's heirs to oilman Walter C. Teagle and then to the Hitchcock family. Siblings William Mellon "Billy" Hitchcock, Tommy Hitchcock III, and Margaret Mellon "Peggy" Hitchcock, heirs to the Mellon fortune (children of Tommy Hitchcock Jr., grandchildren of oilman William Larimer Mellon, Sr., and great-great-grandchildren of Mellon fortune founder Thomas Mellon), who were familiar with Timothy Leary's work and Leary personally, gave the estate over for use by Leary[7] in 1963.[3]

Leary and the group he gathered around him lived at the estate and performed research into psychedelics there. Leary wrote (with Ralph Metzner) the 1964 book "The Psychedelic Experience" at the mansion.[3] People who lived at the estate included Richard Alpert and Maynard Ferguson, while the numerous visitors and guests included R. D. Laing, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Mingus, and Ivy League academics.[3] Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters visited in their bus Further.

During Leary's residence at the mansion (1963 – 1968) the culture and ambiance there evolved from scholarly research into psychedelics to a more party-oriented atmosphere, exacerbated by an increasing stream of visitors, some youthful and of the hippie persuasion.[3] The mansion was the target of drug raids.[5] Leary and his group were evicted in 1968; Leary moved to California.[8]

The mansion was later boarded up and fell into disrepair including structural degradation, but after about two decades of effort it is (as of 2016) habitable although not modernized.[6] It is still owned by the Hitchcock family[3] and is not open to the public. In 2003, Hudsonia Institute[9] scientists discovered on the estate a circumneutral bog lake (a spring fed calcareous body of water that usually supports the vegetation of both acidic bogs and calcareous marshes), rare in the area and worthy of preservation.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Michael Redmon (September 14, 2011). "Park Lane". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved July 4, 2016.
  2. ↑ Mary K. Mewborn (2002). "Real Estate News". Washington Life Magazine. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Stacey Scewczyk (May 13, 2014). "Millbrook Revisited". Staceface.net. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 Janine Stankus (December 26, 2008). "Hitchcock estate home to rare scientific finds". Zwire. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 Bob Simmons (February 19, 2012). "Bob Simmons on Timothy Leary and the Raid on Millbrook". The Local – East Village. New York Times. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  6. 1 2 "John Foreman 1945 – 2016". Millbrook [New York] Independent. April 5, 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Surprising List of 10 New Englanders Turned On By Timothy Leary". New England Historical Society. 2013. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  8. ↑ Devin Lander (January 30, 2012). "League for Spiritual Discovery". World Religions and Spiritualities Project. Retrieved July 4, 2016.
  9. ↑ "Hudsonia Ltd.".

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