Dining Room

NPS Photo

The Dining Room is intimate and cozy, hardly adequate for the scale of entertaining that occurred here during FDR's presidency. Dinners in this room must have been, at times, crowded affairs. The table and chairs were moved here from Sara's New York City apartment following her death in 1941 (the table that was her prior, was sent to the dining room at Val-Kill where it is today). Two large credenzas display Italian ceramics collected during trips abroad. Large ancetral portaits fill the remaining wall space—Franklin and Laura Delano on the south wall, Warren Delano II on the north wall, and Dr. Isaac Roosevelt over the fireplace. The three-fold screen at one end of the table was painted by Sara's distant cousin, the artist Elizabeth Terry Delano.

 

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Furnishings of Note

 

Dr. Isaac Roosevelt by Daniel Huntington (attr.)

Described by his brother as a man of “delicate constitution and refined tastes,” FDR's paternal grandfather Isaac Roosevelt (1790-1863) lacked the self-assurance typical of his Roosevelt elders. Isaac was an eccentric recluse. Born in 1790 in New York City, he was educated at Princeton. He then graduated from the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1812, but did not intend to practice medicine (the sight of blood was intolerable and he could not endure sound of suffering). He preferred solitude, collecting books on the history of medicine, and conducting botanical experiments with his mentor, Dr. David Hosack. In 1827, Isaac married Mary Rebecca Aspinwall, who gave birth in 1828 to FDR's father, James Roosevelt.

 

Bible Box on Stand

This carved oak box with silver strap hinges bears the coats-of-arms for the Beleke and Bersvort families, who have no known connection to the Roosevelts. This box held the Roosevelt famiy Bible dating from the 16th century (the bible is on exhibit at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Libary & Museum).

 

Naval Engagement by Thomas Birch

This oil on board illustrates a British frigate firing on a U.S. frigate in an unidentified naval engagement. The 20-star jack flying on the U.S. vessel would date this scene sometime between 1818-1819. The painting is attributed to Thomas Birch (1779-1851). Birch worked as an engraver in Philadelphia, but his rise as a painter began with the War of 1812. The patriotic nature of his naval engagements were very popular.

 

Mantle Clock

A nineteenth-century mantle clock surmounted with bronze sculpture of a saddled horse with dog by Pierre-Jules Mêne (French, 1810-1871). Mêne was a successful sculptor specializing in smal, naturalistic bronzes depicting mainly domestic animals.

 

Armchair

An armchair in the Jacobean style, from a set of eight chairs in the dining room. FDR brought these chairs from Sara Delano Roosevelt's New York City apartment after her death in 1941. Sara likely had them made to copy a set of chairs from Mount Hope, the home of James and his first wife, Rebecca. Mount Hope was destroyed by fire in 1865.