Centrally located within the Rockefeller Pocantico Hills Estate Historic District is the former farm complex of the estate. This stone barn complex was designed by the noted architect Grosvenor Atterbury in consultation with John D. Rockefeller Jr. and two of his sons, Nelson Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller III. Commissioned in 1930, the Norman-style farm group consists of a horse stable, hay barn, cow barn, silos, garages, and offices.

Adaptively restored in 2004 by David Rockefeller in memory of his wife Peggy, the buildings are now the site of the non-profit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and contains the Michelin star restaurant Blue Hill.

In 1930, John D. Rockefeller Jr. commissioned Atterbury to design a farm group at his family property Kykuit on a hillside site with distant views of the Hudson River. Years earlier Frederick law Olmsted Jr.'s firm had surveyed the land to best determine the location for the farm and may have been the one to recommend Grosvenor Atterbury as architect for the project. Atterbury had worked with the Olmsted firm on projects and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. was a friend.

Grosvenor Atterbury was a gentleman architect with social connections. He graduated from Yale and studied at the School of Mines at Columbia, as well as at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in the atelier of Paul Blondel. In New York he apprenticed with the notable firm of McKim, Mead and White. In 1895, he set up his own practice on Fifth Ave. and 19th Street. Despite his elite background, he had a social conscience and worked on many projects in town planning and affordable housing. His commissions included almost every building type: country houses, City houses, hospitals, museums, churches, schools, etc.

At Stone Barns, Atterbury evolved a multitiered Norman-style farm group consisting of a horse stable, hay barn, cow barn, silos, garages and offices. It struck a fine balance of rustic sophistication by coursed stone with rose colored brick, slate rooves, and weathered half-timbering and wood. Steel-framed construction made large opening and spans possible. His plan featured a series of arches and storage areas on the lower level, which supported an upper-level court around which various barns and stables were arranged. Atterbury described his plan as a," commonsense, straightforward and simple architectural solution to the problem, along the lines of the American farm barn."

Atterbury elaborated upon the basic rectangular shape of a hay barn by adding a steeply pitched roof, a cupola, a series of brick in-filled arches above a string of large wooden carriage doors and small leaded windows under the eaves. In the northern corner of the courtyard, he transformed the evocative vertical forms of the two silos into a pair of medieval watchtowers adding to the picturesque scheme.

Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker, The Architecture of Grosvenor Atterbury (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009.

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Rockefeller Pocantico Hills Estate Historic District, prepared by William E. Krattinger, NYS Division for Historic Preservation , 2018.

Bearss, Edwin C. "History of the Pocantico Hills Estate," Untitled manuscript on the cultural history of Pocantico Hills (March 1970).