Kykuit ( ), known also as the John D. Rockefeller Estate, is a 40-room historic house museum in Pocantico Hills, a hamlet in the town of Mount Pleasant, New York 25 miles north of New York City. The house was built for oil tycoon and Rockefeller family patriarch John D. Rockefeller. Conceived largely by his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr., and enriched by the art collection of the third-generation scion, Governor of New York, and Vice President of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller, it was home to four generations of the family. The house is a National Historic Landmark owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and tours are given by Historic Hudson Valley. Kykuit (in modern Dutch the word Kijkuit means "Lookout", from kijkuit (also uitkijk), both compound nouns meaning "lookout, look-out") is situated on the highest point in Pocantico Hills, overlooking the Hudson River at Tappan Zee. Located near Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, it has a view of the New York City skyline 25 miles to the south. History John D. Rockefeller purchased land in the area as early as 1893, after his brother William had moved into a 204-room mansion, Rockwood Hall, nearby. When Rockefeller and his son chose Pocantico Hills as their residence, he quietly purchased multiple homes and properties in the area, and used the houses for himself, his family, staff, or to rent out. Rockefeller and his wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller moved into one of these, the Parsons-Wentworth House, in 1893. The couple would spend winter weekends and parts of each summer and fall there, sharing the upstairs rooms with their adult children and in-laws, pending construction of the manor house. The Parsons-Wentworth House burned down on September 17, 1902, and the Kent House became their temporary residence until rebuilding could occur. The New York Times mentioned that Rockefeller had never been satisfied with the destroyed house's electric wiring, which had been installed before certain safety measures were developed. He had ordered workers to reroute the wires into conduits, work which had been planned to commence the day after it was pre-empted by the fire. The loss was estimated at $40,000. Kykuit was designed originally as a steep-roofed three-story stone mansion by the architects Chester Holmes Aldrich and William Adams Delano. Aldrich was a distant relative of the younger Rockefeller's wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who was involved as artistic consultant and in the