This Art Garden Is One of New York’s Hidden Gems—And It’s Got Deep Roots
Tucked in the northern reaches of the Bronx is an art garden oasis that many New Yorkers don’t even know about.
Wave Hill, a 28-acre 19th-century estate in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, crowns an overlook on the Hudson River with views onto the Palisades cliffs in New Jersey. Home to a resplendent botanical garden and two houses, the estate, which was gifted to the City of New York in 1960, today serves as both a garden and a cultural art center. Temporary exhibitions are hosted in the Glyndor House Gallery, a 1927 home turned contemporary art venue; Wave Hill is also home to an artist residency.
Sara Jimenez , Folding Field (detail) (2025) commissioned by Wave Hill for the exhibition Trees, we breathe , 2025, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Stefan Hagen.
This year marks Wave Hill’s 60th anniversary as a green space open to the public, and this hidden art gem is marking its diamond anniversary with four contemporary art exhibitions that explore the rich interconnectedness of nature and creativity.
Wave Hill’s History
Wave Hill is a New York City hidden gem with vivid history. Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and even Arturo Toscanini have stayed on its grounds.
Wave Hill, as it exists today, is the outcome of the changing tides of New York history. The first Wave Hill House was a 1843 mansion built for lawyer William Lewis Morris and his wife Mary Elizabeth Babcock, and their seven children, as a rural escape from the city. It is thought that Babcock may have given Wave Hill its name. After Babcock’s death in 1851, the family returned to the city, and by 1866, the property was owned by the publisher William Henry Appleton, who expanded the house in several stages and established gardens on the property.
Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, What we hold in time’s tender keeping (2025). Installationview. Commissioned for the Sunroom Project Space at Wave Hill. Courtesy of the artist.Photo: Stefan Hagen.
He brought some of the most famed guests to his summer property. Theodore Roosevelt’s family rented Wave Hill during the summers of 1870 and 1871, when he was still a child. Mark Twain leased it from 1901 to 1903 and wrote to his daughter of the property, “This dining-room is a paradise, with the flooding sunshine, the fire of big logs, the white expanse of cushioned snow and the incomparable river… And how the stormy winds do blow, as the sailor ballad says.”
Sarah Ahmad, Fractured Alchemy (2024) (Triptych) (walls) and Carlie Trosclair, Woodland Terrains (2022) (floor), on view in “Trees, we breathe at Wave Hill, 2025. All works courtesy of the artists. Photo: Stefan Hagen. Courtesy of Wave Hill.
In 1903, George Walbridge Perkins, a businessman and politician, purchased the property and gave Wave Hill much of the shape and mission it holds today. He expanded Wave Hill, purchasing an adjacent property, home to the house today known as Glyndor (it was rebuilt in 1927 following a fire). Perkins added extensive landscaping and made major additions, including a three-story subterranean building that housed a bowling alley and recreation hall, and is today the grounds Ecology building. Perkins was a progressive who devoted himself in retirement to a long list of causes. After his death, his wife, Evelina Ball, continued this legacy, ultimately deeding the property and its extensive grounds to the City of New York. Today, Wave Hill is a New York City designated landmark. It opened to the public in 1965 after extensive conservation.
Wave Hill Today
In the 60 years since its opening, Wave Hill has become at once an oasis in the city, a case-study in urban conservation, horticulture, and biodiversity, and a platform for artists exploring the intersection of art, science, community, and nature. Currently, Wave Hill hosts a circulating roster of artist residencies as well as curated exhibitions.
Andrea Bowers, Don’t Let Our Children Inherit Tree Stumps Coffee Table Library (2024). Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery. Photo: Stefan Hagen. Courtesy of Wave Hill.
On view now is the group exhibition “Trees, we breathe,” which brings together works by artists including Sarah Ahmad, Andrea Bowers, Sara Jimenez, Yoko Ono, and Rose B. Simpson, among many others. The exhibition spans both galleries in the Glyndor House and expands onto the grounds of the property. The exhibition examines trees’ unique communication systems and ancient histories; trees emerge here as more than objects of majesty and beauty but as wise beings who bear witness to human history and folly, deserving of honor.
Sonja John, Floral Larceny (2025). installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Stefan Hagen.
In the sunroom of the Glyndor House, the work of two of the garden’s artist residents is on view. Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya presents “What we hold in time’s tender keeping”, which centers on a suspended, spirit-house-inspired canopy that includes crowd-sourced objects in a vivid depiction of community storytelling. On view beside this is Sonja John’s dazzling ‘Floral Larceny’ an installation that blends botanical imagery and imagery from the artist’s family archives, to create stained glass-like mylar panels mimicking breeze block motifs—linking ecology, diaspora, and personal memory. Lastly, Wave Hill invites visitors to soak in views of the grounds by making use of ‘You’re Soaking in It!’, an interactive sculpture by SuRan Song and William M. Weis III. The work unfolds into a hybrid bed-stage and asks ethical questions surrounding sleeping in public and the dreams each of us possesses.
There’s much more in store, too, as this summer, Wave Hill will also be hosting a range of other public programming that celebrate its unique history as an oasis of art and nature in New York City. More