A long walk home – Along Pocantico Lake – Photography, Images and Cameras

The next phase of my walk took me out of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve where Sleepy Hollow Road and Old Sleepy Hollow Road meet and into the 164 acre Pocantico Lake County Park, which includes the 69-acre Pocantico Lake and spans parts of Mount Pleasant and Briacliff Manor (my village).

According to the excellent Scenes from the Trail Blog:

The original dam and reservoir were built around 1888 by the Pocantico Water-Works Company to supply water to North Tarrytown and neighboring municipalities. Later it was owned and operated by the Consolidated Water Company of Suburban New York (circa 1910) and at some point after 1920, it was transferred to the the New Rochelle Water Company which operated it until about 1977 when the use of the facility as a water supply was abandoned.

The Pocantico Lake site was operated as a water supply until 1977, when it was considered more economical to buy water from the New York City reservoir system. In the early 1980’s, the site was sold to private interests and was expected to be used for residential development.

In 1992 Westchester County bought the 164-acre parcel, including the 69-acre Pocantico Lake, from a Pennsylvania developer for $3.7 million. After being classified by NYSDEC as “high-hazard,” the demolition and reconstruction of the Pocantico Lake Dam was completed in 2013.