Ferncliff Farm (or Ferncliff) was an estate established in the mid 19th century by William Backhouse Astor Jr. (1829–1892) in Rhinebeck, New York. Not far from his mother's estate of Rokeby, where he had spent summers, Ferncliff was a working farm with dairy and poultry operations, as well as stables where he bred horses. In 1902, his son and heir John Jacob Astor IV commissioned Stanford White to design a large sports pavilion (called the "Ferncliff Casino"), which included one of the first indoor pools in the United States. The sports pavilion was later converted into a residence (called "Astor Courts") for his son, Vincent Astor. After the death of Vincent Astor, the 2,800 acre estate was broken up. Some parcels (such as the gatehouse, staff quarters, teahouse and dairy barns) became private homes. Two hundred acres were donated for the founding of the Ferncliff Forest nature preserve. An additional donation of land led to the establishment of a nursing home and rehabilitation center on the former estate property. Background William Backhouse Astor Jr. was the son of William Backhouse Astor Sr. (1792–1875) and his wife, Margaret Rebecca Armstrong (1800–1872). His mother was the daughter of Senator John Armstrong Jr. and Alida Livingston Armstrong, and she had grown up at the Armstrong estate (La Bergerie) at Barrytown in Dutchess County, New York. William Jr. was born in 1829. His parents purchased his mother's childhood home from her widowed father in 1836. Margaret renamed the estate Rokeby, as the area around the Mudder Kill reminded her of the glen in Sir Walter Scott's poem of that name. Rokeby became the family's summer home. Upon the death of William Sr. in 1875, Rokeby passed to Margaret Ward Chanler, daughter of William Jr.'s late sister Emily. History The area that became Ferncliff was first inhabited by the Wawyachtonoc, a tribe of the Mahican confederation, known locally as the Sepasco Indians, after Lake Sepasco. By the early 1800s, the land was occupied by farms. Around 1853, William Jr. purchased several small farms a few miles south of Rokeby. He then established Ferncliff Farm, where he built an Italianate mansion overlooking the Hudson River on River Road in Rhinebeck. He continued to purchase adjoining properties, and the estate eventually had a mile and a half of Hudson River frontage. At Ferncliff, he bred racing and trotting horses. His son, John Jacob Astor IV, was born