Briarcliff Manor was historically known for its wealthy estate-owning families, including the Rockefellers, Astors, and Macys. Many of the extended Rockefeller family lived in and around the neighboring area of Pocantico Hills, and William Rockefeller (brother of John D. Rockefeller) lived for some time at Edgehill, a house in Scarborough.[5](p83)[145] U.S. Naval Commodore Matthew C. Perry resided for years in Scarborough and was one of the founders of Saint Mary's Episcopal Church, and donated a bell he captured in Tabasco, Mexico to the church in 1847.[4](p68)[146] Captain Alexander Slidell Mackenzie also lived in Scarborough.[4](p69) Businessman William Henry Aspinwall lived in Scarborough, and was sent to England during the American Civil War to prevent the construction of Confederate ironclad warships. He was involved in the Panama Canal; Panama's second-largest city (now known as Colón) was named Aspinwall after him by emigrants from the U.S., and Aspinwall Road in Scarborough was later named after him. John Lorimer Worden, a U.S. Navy rear admiral who commanded the USS Monitor against the CSS Virginia during the Battle of Hampton Roads, was born at Rosemont in Scarborough.[5](p28)[35][147][148] Carrie Chapman Catt, a pioneer in the campaign for women's suffrage (president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and founder of the League of Women Voters and the International Alliance of Women),[149] lived at Juniper Ledge during the 1920s.[57] Carle Cotter Conway, a resident of Linden Circle, was president of the Continental Can Company for 33 years.[5](p98)[150] Banker and businessman James Speyer lived at Waldheim, an estate in Scarborough, with his family.[36] William J. Burns was the penultimate director of the Bureau of Investigation; his successor, J. Edgar Hoover, transformed the agency into the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Burns established a private-investigation service, the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, and his family moved to Shadowbrook, a house on Scarborough Road, in 1917.[5](p117) William Woodward Baldwin, a lawyer and the ninth Third Assistant Secretary of State, rented The Elms (a house in the village) from 1897 to 1926. Further on, Baldwin bought property in the village and built a bungalow, and later bought a concrete house on Pleasantville Road near the Briarcliff train station.[143] Christian Archibald Herter, a physician and pathologist, lived with his wife at the Edgehill estate; he worked at a separate laboratory building on the property.[151]
Marian Cruger Coffin, a landscape architect, was born in Scarborough.[152] Brooke Astor, a philanthropist, socialite and member of the Astor family, lived in Briarcliff Manor for much of her life.[153] Children's author C.B. Colby was on the village board, was the village's Fire Commissioner, and researched the BMSHS 1977 history. He lived on Pine Road until his death in 1977.[5](pp192, 195, 219)[54][154] Anna Roosevelt Halsted lived with Curtis Bean Dall on Sleepy Hollow Road.[54] Blanchette Ferry Rockefeller, twice-President of the Museum of Modern Art, lived in the village until her death.[155] Eugene T. Booth, a nuclear physicist and Manhattan Project developer, lived in the village.[156] John Cheever lived in Scarborough, and spent most of his writing career in Westchester towns such as Briarcliff Manor and Ossining.[157] He served in the Briarcliff Manor Fire Department.[54] Coby Whitmore, a painter and magazine illustrator, lived in the village from 1945 to 1965. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and journalist John Hersey attended public school and lived in Briarcliff Manor; he was the village's first Eagle Scout and a lifeguard at the village pool, and his mother was a village librarian.[5](pp137, 217)[158][159] Folk singer and songwriter Tom Glazer lived on Long Hill Road for almost 30 years.[5](p223) Mathematician Bryant Tuckerman, who helped develop the Data Encryption Standard, was a long-time village resident.[160]
Ely Jacques Kahn, Jr., a writer for The New Yorker, lived in Scarborough for more than 20 years, and was a member of the village fire department.[54] His father (Ely Jacques Kahn, a New York skyscraper architect) designed two houses in Briarcliff Manor, including one for sports commentator Red Barber.[5](pp136, 217–8) Burton Benjamin, former vice president and director of CBS News, lived in the village for about 30 years. Harcourt president William Jovanovich lived in Briarcliff Manor for 27 years.[5](p220) Leonard Jacobson, a museum architect and colleague of I. M. Pei, lived in the village.[161] John Kelvin Koelsch, a U.S. Navy officer during the Korean War and the first helicopter pilot to receive the Medal of Honor, lived in Scarborough and attended the Scarborough School.[162] Novelist and short-story writer Richard Yates lived at the corner of Revolutionary Road and Route 9 in Scarborough as a boy, and named his novel Revolutionary Road; it was made into a 2008 film.[163] Rolf Landauer, a German-American physicist and a refugee from Nazi Germany, lived in the village.[164] Author Sol Stein, founder and former president of the Briarcliff Manor-based Stein and Day, was a village resident.[5](p221)[165] John Chervokas was an advertising writer and executive and Ossining town supervisor and school board member, and a longtime resident of Briarcliff Manor.[166] Physicist Praveen Chaudhari, an innovator in thin films and high-temperature superconductors, lived in Briarcliff Manor.[167] Lawrence M. Waterhouse was the founder, CEO, and president of TD Waterhouse, now part of the Toronto-Dominion Bank and TD Ameritrade.[168] Waterhouse was a resident and benefactor of the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society.[169] Cardiac surgeon Peter Praeger, a founder, president and chief executive of Dr. Praeger's Sensible Foods, was a village resident.[170]
The Webb family lived on the Beechwood estate. Family members who lived at the estate include Henry Walter Webb, a New York Central Railroad executive who bought the property during the 1890s; Webb's cousin George Webb Morell, a Union Army brigadier general during the American Civil War, and Webb's half-brother Alexander S. Webb, a Union major general during the Civil War and a Medal of Honor recipient. Other family members were James Watson Webb (father of Henry Walter Webb), a diplomat, newspaper publisher and New York politician; General Samuel Blatchley Webb (father of James Watson Webb), an aide to George Washington; and businessman William Seward Webb (brother of Henry Walter Webb), founder and president of the Sons of the American Revolution. Colonel Elliott Fitch Shepard, brother-in-law of William Seward Webb and aide-de-camp to New York governor Edwin D. Morgan, lived at Woodlea in Scarborough with his wife Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard and their children.[5](pp29, 47)
