The Jay Estate in Rye was home to one of our nation's greatest peacemakers, John Jay...

...and today, it is YOUR park

Our nonprofit, the Jay Heritage Center (JHC) is dedicated to transforming the 23-acre Jay Estate into a vibrant educational campus, hosting innovative and inclusive programs about American History, Historic Preservation, Social Justice, and Environmental Stewardship.

More about who we are and what we do

New Trustee and New Auxiliary Board!

Please Welcome Tom McDermott, Eliza Fraser and Katy McCrory

JHC is delighted to welcome Tom McDermott to the JHC Board of Trustees! Tom began his work at The Rye Record as a Life & Style columnist and in 2013 he was named Editor, beginning a decade of reporting on every facet of community life, including local government and political campaigns, education, high school sports, non-profit organizations, and sustainability. Prior to that, he was an administrative executive at Time Inc./Time Warner for 20 years. He brings a wealth of community outreach expertise and marketing savvy to his new trustee position. READ TOM’S FULL BIO HERE.

We also welcome Eliza Fraser and Katy McCrory in their roles as Co-Presidents of the new JHC Auxiliary Board. Eliza is a second-generation Rye native who attended Rye High School before graduating from Wake Forest University and earning her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. She is a partner at Cohen, Soloway, and Wooldridge and a mother of two. Katy is a branding executive and mother of four. Born and raised in Rye, she attended Rye High School before graduating from Vanderbilt University. She built her career in marketing and branding at several premier financial services institutions, including Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, and Millennium Management.  They are both excited to help expand awareness about the Jay Heritage Center and all it has to offer to new and existing residents of Rye.

READ THEIR FULL BIOS HERE

 

 

June 17th, 11:30am - 2pm

Beyond Blue and White with Genevieve Wheeler-Brown

Nothing says spring better than our popular Classic Design Luncheon and Lecture! We’re honored to feature Genevieve Wheeler-Brown, the author of “Beyond Blue and White.”

Wheeler-Brown’s book explores the history of Delftware ceramics, focusing on the often-overlooked roles of women as makers, patrons, and collectors, from 17th-century factory owners like Barbara Rotteveel to Gilded Age collectors like Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan. A must for devotees of decorative arts and the history of material culture. Location: The award-winning Jay Estate Gardens designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz.  Spring garden attire and hats encouraged! Tickets start at $150. Tables of 10 start at $1500 Read more about Ms. Wheeler-Brown here.

BUY TICKETS HERE

Now at the Jay Estate Gardens Thru November 1, 2026

Analogue Sites by Jorge Otero-Pailos

On view now through – November 1, 2026
Thursdays: 10 AM – 2 PM
Sundays: 10 AM – 5 PM

PLUS Join us for a very special reception with the artist on June 24th at 4pm in the Jay Estate Gardens

It is deeply meaningful to share these sculptures at the Jay Heritage Center, a place rooted in the history of American diplomacy. Here, they connect the story of our modern embassies abroad with John Jay’s legacy as a statesman at home and diplomat abroad. — Jorge Otero-Pailos

About the Work

Analogue Sites is a series of steel sculptures by Spanish-American artist and preservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos, created in 2019 from fencing salvaged during the preservation of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, designed by Finnish-American modernist master Eero Saarinen. Otero-Pailos transformed this material as a way of preserving its layered history and drawing attention to the U.S. Embassy Program—an unprecedented Cold War–era initiative by the State Department that made modernist architecture and the arts central to American diplomacy abroad. READ MORE HERE

 

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Land Acknowledgement

It is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are learning, speaking and gathering on the land of the Wiechquaesgeck (WE-QUEES-GECK), a subdivision of the Munsee people. The Munsee can be identified as speakers of Munsee, a dialect of the Lenape language. Today, the Munsee language is considered critically endangered, only spoken by a handful of elders on the Moraviantown Reserve in Ontario, Canada, each speaker over the age of 70. Lenape, or Leni Lenape was a name prescribed to them by colonists, rather than a label of initial self identification.
The Wiechquaesgeck were the historic owners of Rye, Harrison, and large parts of Westchester County, as they lived between the Hudson and Long Island Sound. Modern nations like the Stockbridge-Munsee, the Delaware Tribe of Indians, and the Delaware Nation trace their ancestry to the Munsee tribes, and continue to keep their history alive. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all. In the coming years, we plan to reintroduce species of fauna and flora indigenous to the Wiechquaesgeck into our gardens as a way to promote greater respect and understanding of their culture.

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