Mission

To cultivate, preserve and share Sylvester Manor's lands, buildings and stories, inviting new thought about the importance of food, culture and place in our daily lives.

What We Do

Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island’s 1652 homestead and the most intact plantation remnant north of Virginia, is now a nonprofit educational farm open to the public. Through farm-based education, local food programs, place-based arts performances and workshops, historic tours and cultural experiences, we offer meaningful ways to engage with our mission.
Once a Native American hunting and fishing ground, Sylvester Manor has been home to 11 generations of its original European settler family. It reflects a remarkably intact history of America’s evolving tastes, economies and landscapes.
Over time, the place has been transformed from a slaveholding provisioning plantation to an Enlightenment-era farm, then to a pioneering food industrialist’s estate and today to an organic educational farm responsive to, and supported by, neighbors and friends worldwide.
In light of this history, we envision a farm, a community, and a world where people celebrate food, arts, and inventiveness in the everyday, with a spirit of fairness and joy.