Views and Values

The Jay Estate in Rye and Jay Homestead in Katonah do make you realize the history around you. Here are the properties of men and a family that shaped the early history of the United States. You see how people lived in those times, and what was valued, what was important.

What was important was the land. The Estate in Rye was 400 acres. The Homestead in Katonah was 600 acres. The views seen from the front door of their respective houses were views of their property, their land. In Rye, this meant down to the Long Island Sound allowing them access to the water, and the preferred method of transportation and the distribution of goods.. 

These views were not just amazing views but amazing views of the Jays' property. They become a unique category, different from the view seen from let us say a NYC penthouse suite. In today's NYC suite, you have a range of views, from New York Harbor, to the East River and the bridges across it, to the towers and buildings making up the New York skyline, but these are not views of your properties.

Generally. I suppose that their are people who may own some of those buildings. Even that though is different. Viewing the building or even the block that your own in today's New York, is not the same as owning all that you can see. In this case the hills in front of you  or the hill and valley between you and the Long Island Sound. It is a case of even with your own building or block in NYC, you still see so much more.

I labor a point and upon reflection 400 or even 600 is not that huge. They are between a third to half of Central Park. The King of England in the sixteenth century owned all of it before giving land grants to his subjects. (And it should be noted he saw none of it.) Regardless, what was seen from Jays' porches was largely their property and it stresses I believe what they valued. Wealth in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century translated largely to land ownership.