Rockefellers

I went to Kykuit yesterday. Kykuit is the somewhat pretentious name of the Rockefeller Estate. People around here like to name their estates. In fact, people everywhere seem to like to name their estates, maybe for the same reason they like to name their cars.

Anyway, I wanted to see the reputedly spectacular Kykuit gardens. I like to look at gardens because I look for ideas for my own garden. Ok, I can hear you laughing from here. You're thinking that with something less than 3400 acres and a few billion dollars the TwiDurf estate in Loveland probably won't have much in common with Kykuit. And you would be right.

To get into the estate you have to sign up for a tour. I figured it would be worth it to get some of the interesting Rockefeller back story. Here's all I knew about the Rockefellers before I went in:

-- A least one of them made a fortune in oil.
-- Nelson lost his bid for the presidency because he dumped his wife and married Happy.

That's it.

But when I came out, I knew a couple more things:

-- Whoa!! JDR's father was unsavory in the extreme.
-- Like Bill Gates, JDR had to be talked into giving away money.

Oh yes, and the gardens and the art in the gardens are truly spectacular.