The Locust Avenue

Overlooking the Hudson River, this grassy strip beside Clermont was laid out as a road in the 18th century by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston. Named for its irregularly planted locust trees, it once connected the Clermont mansion with the Chancellor's 1793 Arryl House, now a ruin. Clermont in the 1840s was praised by landscape architect A. J. Downing for its long planted avenues and fine water view, and Chancellor Livingston's property was well known for the unusual character, variety, and extent of its trees and gardens. A 1798 account by Polish traveler Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz described an alley of high locusts or acacias leading to a view of the whole course of the Hudson River and to the house of the Chancellor's mother, surrounded by the finest fruit trees. Maintained by generations of Livingstons, the trees have been replaced periodically over the years as they died naturally or were taken by storms.

Clermont, New York · United States