Top Cottage, known as Hill-Top Cottage, in Hyde Park, New York, was a private retreat designed by and for Franklin D Roosevelt.
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10 Facts About Top Cottage
2.
Top Cottage is in the Dutch Colonial Revival architectural style, built of fieldstone.
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3.
Top Cottage had moved into his mother's house at Hyde Park, enlarged for him and his family, and otherwise lived in family townhouses in New York City, rented houses in Albany and Washington, DC, or official residences such as the New York State Executive Mansion and the White House.
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4.
Top Cottage would refer to it as "Our Hill"; she as "the nicest Hill in Dutchess County".
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5.
Top Cottage designed the cottage to accommodate the wheelchair, with one flat floor and everything he could want or need located within easy reach of someone in a sitting position.
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6.
Top Cottage is the only presidential residence, other than Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and Poplar Forest, designed by a president.
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7.
Top Cottage commissioned architect Henry Toombs to help finish the design, who suggested Roosevelt be credited as architect despite his lack of professional training or experience, angering some Republican architects when an article about the cottage doing exactly that ran in Life magazine.
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8.
Top Cottage reportedly became flustered at the break in protocol and drank to herself.
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9.
Top Cottage made some renovations, such as adding dormer windows and a mud room.
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10.
Cottage was subject of a review book, The President as Architect: Franklin D Roosevelt's Top Cottage, was compiled by John G Waite Associates, an Albany architectural firm specializing in restorations.
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