Landscape Information
These two adjoining yet individually managed state parks extend from the eastern shore of the Hudson River to Route 9, incorporating more than 1000 acres of topographically varied terrain. The northern Ogden Mills and Ruth Livingston Mills State Park encompasses a patchwork of former estates donated to or acquired by the state in the twentieth century. These include land purchased and developed by Revolutionary War officer Morgan Lewis in the late eighteenth century, as well as two former estates, The Point (now Hoyt House) and Hopeland, designed by Calvert Vaux. The park also includes the eighteen-hole Dinsmore Golf Course, originally developed in the 1890s. Rolling topography, punctuated by specimen trees, affords players expansive borrowed views to the west. Pedestrian trails, some purportedly laid out by Vaux, traverse the park’s undulating, forested terrain. The Mills’ mansion, Staatsburgh, though sited within the parkland of the Mills State Park, is individually managed as Staatsburgh State Historic Site.
The land encompassed by the southern Margaret Lewis Norrie State Park was donated to the state by Lewis and Geraldine Thompson in 1934 and was subsequently developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC established curvilinear roads, a pond, and numerous stone structures, including the extant Norrie Point Inn (1935-37). The building, which now houses an environmental center, is situated along the river in the southwestern portion of the park near a marina constructed in the 1950s. From the marina, a trail proceeds north along the shore, defined by long expanses of rocky cliffs interrupted by beaches of tumbled stone. Oak, pine, and cedar, growing along the banks, frame views of the river, the opposite shore, and the Catskill Mountains to the north.
Norrie State Park is the southern terminus of the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
