Unlocked Secrets of the McAndrews Estate in Crugers

With a wooden tobacco pipe pinched between his lips Martin McAndrews Jr. strolled through the overgrown woods of his former home with more than sixty captivated fans behind him.

His name is a legend in the local area of Crugers, where the have spurred folklore of many sorts over the last fifty years. The estate, which dates back to the early 20th century, was abandoned by McAndrews’ parents in the 1960s.  McAndrews left the estate in 1960 to join the U.S. Army. During his service he toured twice in Vietnam. Westchester County seized the land in 1969 and demolished buildings that were deteriorating before opening it to the public as part of Oscawana park. In 1997 the Town of Cortlandt took over maintenance of the property.

For the last fifty years wildlife has grown over what was once a 100-acre estate that boasted a mansion, elaborate gazebos, a grand fountain, a racetrack, cow stables, smaller houses and other features.

McAndrews led the large group on a tour on Sunday afternoon, where the posse of middle-aged and senior adults explored the woods like children and happily reminisced about their time on the property. The tour was organized by Wes Pomoroy, who formed a group of other interested hikers, compiled research and contacted McAndrews to help fill in the holes in their theories about the ruins.

“Wes told me it would be him and a few friends,” 72-year-old McAndrews said with a smile during the tour. “I never expected this kind of turn out.”

But the overwhelming number of people interested in his former home was flattering and McAndrews generously shared his knowledge and even photos of the estate in its former glory.

Tour participants told stories of ghosts, hidden treasures, horse races, underground passageways, secret compartments, parties and vagrants they have encountered on the grounds over the last 50 years. When they got close enough to hear McAndrews they eagerly listened to him unlocking the answers to their fifty-year-old questions.

“It is all folklore,” one tour participant said, explaining how he and others on the tour had already figured out a lot about the property prior to the tour. “It is bits and pieces told over the years from all different people.”

But much of the folklore of which the crowd spoke turned out to be true. With some surprise explanations, McAndrews confirmed his followers’ assumptions about his childhood home estate. As some in the crowd had guessed, the windowless and doorless brick building was a water pump house, the racetrack had been used for horses, there had been an underground tunnel from a gazebo to the main house.

The surprises came in the details. The old stairless gazebo that tour participant Diana Scarfo and her friends hung out in during the late 1960s had in fact had a staircase in its time, and the underground tunnel used to have water pipes that led to the basement of the house. What most on the tour had always assumed was a horse stable was actually used to house cattle. The octagonal foundation and large iron artifacts that lay within its walls were the pieces of a grand fountain, rather than a gazebo, as some had thought. Click through the photos above for a virtual tour of the ruins.

While people like Scarfo and her friend Dianne Picciano never lived on the property, she and others remembered enjoying its grandiosity.

“For senior week all the guys came to school dressed up as gangsters,” Picciano said of her senior year at Hendrick Hudson High School in 1967. “They had these beautiful top hats, tailcoats and the whole tuxedos that they had found inside the McAndrews estate.”

Picciano told McAndrews how her friends had found what she assumed were his family’s tuxedos. “It was like they left everything exactly as it was,” she told McAndrews, who shrugged and told her, “I don’t know, I was gone in 1960.”

Scarfo, a 1968 HHHS graduate who now lives in Florida, added that she and her friends had found a secret compartment with un-cashed Belgium checks, a ledger book written in Belgium and drugs (she assumed someone had been living there and stashing the drugs in the compartment next to the historical artifacts).

“I took the checks into my English teacher to figure out what they were,” she said.

Others on the tour had never explored the grounds as teens, but had fond memories of exploring the mystical place with their children.

“I live up the hill and I used to take my son here all the time,” Bob Ferguson said. “One day we found someone living in one of the structures.”

Ferguson and many others on the tour had regularly explored the grounds with their children, but had not been back for years until yesterday. McAndrews has only visited the grounds five times in the last 50 years, and before yesterday had not been back in 7 years.

Wes hopes to get the Town and the County involved with efforts to preserve or possibly restore portions of the property. Some on the tour want to leave it exactly as is, but were asking for better maintenance.

“These old cisterns need to be covered up,” said Tom, who preferred not to give a last name. Pointing to an approximately 10 foot deep hole, Tom explained that there were many throughout the woods that could be dangerous for children and others.

At the end of the tour most people thanked McAndrews and left, but about fifteen stayed behind and poured over photographs laid out on the hood of McAndrews red sedan. The photos were taken in 1911 by E.E. Ballard and compiled by Lynn Stevens in 1964. Looking over each other’s shoulders people pointed to the grand buildings of which only a few brick walls remain.

“At least I know the photos will live on forever now,” McAndrews said, as the crowd eagerly snapped digital pictures of his old photographs.

To read the full history of the McAndrews estate visit the McAndrews Wikipedia Page where you will find links, including a link to a google map that documents where all the remains lay.

Here is a link to a film that shows the property before and after demolition. Local resident Frederic Cole complied the footage into a short film called “The End of Long View.”

To keep up with Pomeroy and his group’s efforts to preserve the grounds read Pomeroy’s blog here on Patch, and “like” the Historic McAndrews Estate on Facebook.