The wool weaving is called The Joy of Life. Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach made it in 1971 from a Picasso composition, and for decades it was part of what visitors saw inside Kykuit. This fall it hangs at the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center at Pocantico in an exhibition called Woven Wonders. Admission is free with advance registration, and the show runs through March 20, 2027.
The Kykuit house tours, meanwhile, are not running at all in 2026. Those two facts point the same way. In the one year the Rockefeller house is shut, the estate is open to its neighbors later into the cold months, at lower cost, and with fewer steps to get in than the tours ever offered. The rest of the hamlet's late-season calendar fits around that.
How a closed house opened the rest of the estate
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced in January that Kykuit tours would be "on hiatus for the 2026 season" while it develops "a new vision for the visitation program." The Fund said tours will "resume in 2027 with a streamlined visitor experience." The same announcement said the pause would let the Fund finish work that expands public access to the entire Pocantico campus, including a visitor parking lot and a sculpture walk.
Both projects are done. The Fund reported in May that the new visitor parking lot "has been completed," and the Sculpture Walk opened on May 29, 2026.
The old arrangement is a useful comparison. As River Journal reported when the pause was first announced, Kykuit typically drew about 20,000 visitors a year from May through November. Every one of them boarded a shuttle bus at Historic Hudson Valley's visitor center at Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow. That season ended in November. Woven Wonders keeps Kykuit's Picassos on view through the winter, on a schedule built around two days a week:
| Pocantico this season | When | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Woven Wonders gallery | Fridays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., through March 20, 2027 | Free, advance registration |
| Free guided exhibition tour | December 5 at 2 p.m. | Free |
| Sculpture Walk | Included with Woven Wonders registration, weather permitting | Free |
| inti figgis-vizueta's Music for Transitions, with Andrew Yee and the Rothko String Quartet | December 2 at 6:30 p.m. | $16.80 including ticketing fee |
| Marcel Breuer House Tours | December 3 | Sold out |
Registration runs through the Woven Wonders event page, and one free reservation covers both the gallery and the outdoor sculptures. The Breuer house tours are already sold out, while tickets for the December 2 concert are on sale through the Fund's event page.
Saturdays now have two rooms of colored light
The Rockefeller family's art in Pocantico Hills was never only at Kykuit. A short distance away, the Union Church of Pocantico Hills holds nine stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse's Rose Window, which Historic Hudson Valley describes as Matisse's last commissioned work.
For the rest of the year, church visits run on Saturdays only, from November 7 through December 26. Admission is a $12 timed ticket, and members of Historic Hudson Valley get in free. No tickets are sold at the church. They have to be bought in advance online or at the Philipsburg Manor Visitor Center on North Broadway in Sleepy Hollow. Slots start every half hour from noon through 3 p.m., and November 21 is already sold out.
Those Saturday hours overlap almost exactly with the Woven Wonders gallery, which is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day. In practice, a single Saturday afternoon this season can take in Chagall and Matisse glass at the church and Kykuit's Picasso weavings at the arts center, without a shuttle bus and without the May-to-November window that used to set the pace for Rockefeller art in the hamlet.
Saturday, December 5 has the most going on:
- 11 a.m. to noon: Willow Wreath Workshop at Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture, with supplies provided
- Noon to 3 p.m.: Union Church timed visits, on the half hour
- 2 p.m.: Free guided tour of Woven Wonders, one of only a handful the Fund has scheduled through March
Sundays go to the church and the barns
The church also runs a concert program. Its Lumina Concert Series for 2026/27 opens with violinist Johnny Gandelsman on Sunday, November 15 at 3 p.m. The next concert is Messiah on Sunday, December 13 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 at the door. Sunday service is at 10 a.m.
Stone Barns fills Sunday mornings. Its Thanksgiving Market on Sunday, November 22 opens at 10 a.m. with farm produce, meat, eggs, flowers and local handmade goods, and a Blue Hill sous-chef gives a cooking demonstration from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. The Holiday Market follows on Sunday, December 13 at 10 a.m., with seasonal farm products, handmade goods, and another sous-chef demonstration in the same 10:30 slot.
The markets are also the cheapest way onto the property. Stone Barns charges $20 per vehicle on weekends from May through November, but parking is free during its monthly markets. The Thanksgiving Market page states that parking is free, and the Holiday Market page lists campus admission as free. On ordinary days the campus is open Wednesday through Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and closed Monday and Tuesday. Parking is free Wednesday through Friday, and walking the grounds needs no reservation. Through November, the Cafeteria serves Blue Hill's Lunch Tray from noon to 3 p.m., small plates built around whole-grain baking, preservation and butchery.
Weeknights belong to the Preserve
The art venues keep to Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Rockefeller State Park Preserve fills the gaps with events at dusk, on the same carriage-road network that ties the old estate lands together. The Preserve's site counts 45 miles of those roads. It is open year-round from dawn to dusk, and the vehicle fee is $6.
Three evening programs remain this month on the New York State Parks events calendar:
- Gratitude Walk: Lantern-lit Swan Lake, Friday, November 13, 4:30 to 7 p.m. A free 1.25-mile loop lit by lanterns, with registration required.
- Full Moon Hike, Tuesday, November 24, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Four miles of carriage roads for $4.
- Nocturnal Night Walk, Friday, November 27, 4:45 to 6:15 p.m. Free, for ages 8 and up, with registration required.
The Gratitude Walk falls on a Friday, and the Night Walk lands on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Both start late enough in the afternoon that a Woven Wonders visit, which closes at 3 p.m. on Fridays, fits before either one. Once snow arrives, the Preserve's posted winter uses include snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and sledding at Rockwood Hall.
December 13 strings the hamlet together
All of these calendars meet on one Sunday. On December 13, the Stone Barns Holiday Market opens at 10 a.m., with the Blue Hill demonstration starting at 10:30 a.m. At 3 p.m. that afternoon, the Lumina series performs Messiah under the Chagall windows at Union Church. The day before, Saturday, December 12, offers Woven Wonders from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Union Church visits from noon.
That puts a farm market, two rooms of Rockefeller-commissioned glass, Kykuit's Picasso weavings and a choral concert into a single weekend, all within the hamlet and none of it inside Kykuit. When the house reopens in 2027, the Fund plans to run tours itself rather than through Historic Hudson Valley's shuttle program. The new parking lot and the Sculpture Walk will be in place for those tours too.
At Aloia Stroub Real Estate, we follow how changes like the new parking lot, the Sculpture Walk and next year's in-house Kykuit tours shape everyday life in Pocantico Hills. If you own here and want to know what your home is worth this season, request a free home valuation and we will walk you through it.
