Sagamore Hill – Theodore Roosevelt's Summer White House
Discover the story behind Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite place on earth. No house better reflects the personality and interests of its owner than Theodore Roosevelt’s cherished Sagamore Hill. After Roosevelt returned to Oyster Bay following the death of both his beloved wife and his mother, he and second wife Edith made the house a home for their growing and rambunctious family. What began as the perfect getaway from unhealthy New York City summers in his grandfather’s day became the summer White House during Roosevelt’s presidency.
He hosted political guests like Henry Cabot Lodge and cultural luminaries like novelist Edith Wharton. Roosevelt spent his final years happily at Sagamore Hill, and after his death in 1919 the house was preserved by his widow, the Theodore Roosevelt Association and eventually the National Park Service. With previously unpublished photographs and a room-by-room guide to the house and grounds, historian Bill Bleyer recounts bygone days at Roosevelt’s haven.
About Bill Bleyer (Long Island, New York Author)
Bill Bleyer was a prize-winning staff writer for Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper, for 33 years before retiring in 2014 to write books and freelance for magazines and Newsday. He is the author of Sagamore Hill: Theodore Roosevelt's Summer White House (The History Press 2016) and co-author of Long Island and the Civil War (The History Press 2015). He contributed a chapter to the anthology Harbor Voices – New York Harbor tugs, ferries, people, places & more published in 2008. And he was a contributor and editor of Bayville, a history of his Long Island community (Arcadia 2009).
The Long Island native has written extensively about history for newspapers and magazines. In 1999-2000, he was one of four Newsday staff writers assigned full time to “Long Island: Our Story,” a year-long daily history of Long Island that resulted in three books and filled hundreds of pages in the newspaper. He has been published in Naval History, Sea History, Lighthouse Digest, Civil War News and numerous other magazines and in The New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, The Toronto Star and other newspapers. Prior to joining Newsday, Bleyer worked for six years at The Courier-News in Bridgewater, N.J., as an editor and reporter. He began his career as editor of the Oyster Bay Guardian for a year.
Bleyer graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors in economics from Hofstra University, where he has been an adjunct professor teaching journalism and economics. He earned a masters in urban studies at Queens College of the City University of New York.
