at Ferncliff in 1864. Upon the death of William Jr. in 1892, John Jacob IV inherited the Ferncliff property. Thomas H. Suckley ("Sook-lee") was the son of George and Catherine Rutsen Suckley. His father was a wealthy merchant in New York City, while Thomas became a property developer in Manhattan. His mother, Catherine was the daughter of John Rutsen, whose maternal grandfather was Gilbert Livingston, son of Robert Livingston, Lord of Livingston Manor. Suckley inherited from his mother 125 acres of land at Mt. Rutsen, on the north of the village of Rhinebeck. In 1876, he donated the land at Mt. Rutsen to the New York Methodist Conference to establish a retirement community for ministers. By 1900, the farm that supported the retreat was failing, and the Methodist Conference sold 106 acres to John Jacob Astor IV. Apart from operating a working dairy and poultry farm, Astor maintained his father's stables, but switched to breeding hackney and carriage horses. In 1902, John Jacob IV commissioned New York architect Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White to design the Ferncliff Casino (the term "casino" referring to a sports pavilion) for entertaining guests. (It was also known as "Tennis House".) The Beaux-Arts style building was completed 1904. It included indoor tennis and squash courts, a bowling alley, an indoor swimming pool, a shooting range, guestrooms and was close to a nearby boathouse on the river. Having completed work on the sports pavilion, White then started work on improvements to the mansion. In the early twentieth century, a railroad station was built at Rhinecliff, reportedly due to the influence of John Jacob IV, a major stockholder in the New York Central Railroad. It is a contributing property to the Hudson River Historic District. There was in addition, a small private station at Fernwood on the so-called "Hucklebush" Line between Rhinecliff and Hartford, Connecticut, whose telegraph station was designated "A". By the time of John Jacob IV's death in 1912, the Ferncliff estate had grown to 2,800 acres of apple orchards, cattle and dairy operations, and gardens. The property passed to his elder son, Vincent Astor. In 1926, Vincent's sister, Ava, married Serge Obolensky. Vincent gave her "Marienruh", the former Ehlers estate at Clifton Point and a mansion designed by Mott B. Schmidt. During the 1940s, the mansion originally built by William Jr. was demolished. It was replaced in 1948 with a neoclassical brick