The Northgate Ruins: Revisited

On Sunday my dude and I decided to return to Cold Spring, a town along the Hudson River about 1.5 hrs north of the city, for a hike. We had been in April and although we've been on a few more hikes since then, I think Cold Spring is my favorite for a few reasons. It's super convenient (the hiking trails are walkable from the Metro North station), relatively cheap, challenging but not impossible and most importantly the trails take you past the ruins of several different structures.

I wrote about the ruins of the old Cornish Estate after our first hike, but I was excited to explore the main house further after realizing that we had missed some things. On our first trip we missed the pool entirely and just glanced at the greenhouse, which are two of my favorite features of the estate. The weather and foliage situation was quite similar to when we went in April and although the bare trees afford great views, I definitely regret not catching the leaves at their peak colors this year.

The fireplaces are definitely a highlight of the estate ruins and help you to visualize how grand the house must have been before it burned down (yikes). There are just enough smaller details like tiles on the fireplaces and inlay tiles on the ground to make me wish I could step back in time and see the house and its furnishings intact.

I'm so glad that we got to take our time and revisit the estate ruins—I feel like I could go back many more times and still find something new each time. It's become a joke now that on every hike we take I say "I bet it's beautiful in the fall," but I'm sure that's true of these ruins—and I'm sure they're magical in the snow, if winter ever decides to show up for real this year we might have to go back.