Sunnyside, Irvington

James David Smillie

Sunnyside Cottage, depicted here looking north toward the Hudson River, is an estate that once was home to America’s first literary star, Washington Irving. It is now an historic landmark in Tarrytown, New York. It remains much the way it was when it was renovated and added onto by Irving after he bought it in 1853. What had started as a rural “cottage” quickly became a lush and fanciful estate that garnered the attention of artists and society columnists alike.

A note on the title: the boundaries of villages were being re-drawn for incorporation around the time that James David Smillie made this etching; Sunnyside was once in Irvington, named for the famed writer of Sleepy Hollow, but became a part of Tarrytown around the 1880s.