Theodore Roosevelt, a family-centered father of six, ended his workday at 4 PM to play with his children. Often a man of contradiction, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was a diplomat, internationalist, naval historian and strategist, combat commander of a volunteer cavalry regiment, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy. As a noted historian, biographer, essayist, editor, columnist, and critic. He wrote 36 books. He was a renowned ornithologist, an expert on and hunter of big-game animals, but also a pioneering American conservationist. He was a country squire, horseman, socialite and patron of the arts. He reformed the federal civil service and New York City police department, lost a race for New York City mayor, finished second in a 1912 third party bid for president, arrested outlaws as a North Dakota deputy sheriff, served as Governor of New York and Vice-President of the United States.
Today, Sagamore Hill is furnished as it was during his busy lifetime.
The Roosevelt Memorial Association, now the Theodore Roosevelt Assocation purchased Sagamore Hill from the Roosevelt estate in 1950 and opened as a museum to the public in 1953.
In the early 1950's, Theodore Roosevelt's home at Sagamore Hill was considered not to be historic or nationally significant. By the early 1960's, that view had changed.
In the Spring of 1961, Congressmen J.T Rutherford of Texas (House Resolution 8484), Wayne Aspinall of Colorado (H.R. 8485), John Saylor of Pennsylvania (H.R. 8486), John Chenoweth of Colorado (H.R. 8487), John Lindsay of New York (House Joint Resolution 539) and Senators Jacob Javits and Ken Keating (Senate Joint Resolution 124) of New York introduced almost identical bills to establish Theodore Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill home and Manhattan birthplace as national historic sites.
