Hackley School

Frances Hackley

Frances Hackley, a wealthy widow and leading supporter of the Unitarian movement, decided to give her summer mansion in Tarrytown to a school for boys. She provided substantial funding to refurbish the mansion for school purposes and to operate the school for several years.[1][2]

In the spring of 1899, a board of trustees was formed and a headmaster hired. The first students arrived in the autumn of 1899 and resided in what is today called Hackley Hall.[3]

Hackley Lower School in 1908

In the fall of 1899, Theodore Chickering Williams and Seaver Buck, the first headmaster and the first master hired, respectively, searched for additional land. They found a large estate for sale near the grounds of what later became Marymount College, and purchased it with funds from Hackley. The buildings on the estate were torn down immediately, and within a short period, construction began on the buildings that would eventually join to form the Hackley quadrangle. The first buildings constructed were Goodhue Hall and the Minot Savage building. They were in use for the first time in 1902–1903. The remaining buildings, including the Sarah Goodhue King Chapel and the Headmaster's house, were completed by 1908. Inscribed above one of Hackley's doors is the phrase "Enter Here to Be and Find a Friend."[3]

From the beginning Hackley was non-sectarian, but shaped by Unitarian values. An early and influential president of the board of trustees was Samuel A. Eliot, a Unitarian minister.[4] A vigorous interscholastic sports program began during the first years with football already prominent in 1900–1901.

Of the faculty of twelve, six have been with the school for periods of from ten to twenty years. It is distinctly a college preparatory school. A handbook published in 1920 stated that "Of the two hundred and sixty alumni the great majority have entered Harvard and Yale. The boys come from well to do families, chiefly of New York and New England."[4]

Clarence Francis, a famous industrialist at the time and special consultant to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was the commencement speaker at Hackley in 1959, in order to commemorate the school's sixtieth anniversary.[5]

Walter Boutwell Gage, among the teachers who taught in Hackley's first term, was made headmaster in 1908.[4] Peter Gibbon published a book titled A Call to Heroism in 2003. He also wrote for several newspapers, magazines, and professional journals. Walter Johnson was the eleventh headmaster from 1995 to 2016.[6]

On August 4, 2007, a fire, sparked by an intense lightning storm, destroyed Goodhue Memorial Hall. The Kaskel Library and its 27,000 volumes, artwork, and other resources were lost. The stone facade of the building remained intact.[7]

In September 2010, Goodhue Memorial Hall reopened, with the Sternberg Library and computer labs located on the new second floor. In total, over 8,000 sq ft (740 m²). of space was added to the building.

Hackley School is a part of the Ivy Preparatory School League. There are teams for boys and girls in most of the sports typically offered by New England prep schools.

The Upper School's five-day boarding program provides a combination of school and academic concentration during the week coupled with family and home life on the weekends. The program houses up to 30 students of all genders.

Newsweek editor Naveed Jamali, who attended the school briefly around 1990, wrote of his lasting memory of the student parking lot: it was filled with "shiny new" expensive cars like Porsches and BMWs.[9]

Notable alumni include:

• Alan Seeger 1906, poet[10]
• F. O. Matthiessen 1919, Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Professor[11]
• Philip Johnson 1923, architect[12]
• Frederick R. Koch 1951, billionaire collector and philanthropist[13]
• George Hamilton 1957, actor[14]
• Claude Canizares, 1963, astrophysicist (Chandra X-Ray Observatory)
• Malcolm Mooney 1964, musician (notably Can's original singer) and visual artist [15]
• Joe Klein 1964, author (Primary Colors)
• Jim Reilly 1966, former NFL football player[16]
• Alec Wilkinson 1970, author The Happiest Man in the World
• Chris Berman 1973, ESPN sportscaster
• Keith Olbermann 1975, newscaster
• Ilyasah Shabazz 1979, author (Growing Up X)
• Ken Noda 1980 pianist, vocal coach, and composer
• Andrew Jarecki 1981, documentary filmmaker, Capturing the Friedmans
• Cathy Schulman 1983, producer of Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Crash
• Eric Bress 1987 filmmaker, The Butterfly Effect (2004), Kyle XY (2006–2009)
• Dara Khosrowshahi 1987, chief executive officer of Uber[17]
• Eugene Jarecki 1987, documentary filmmaker, Why We Fight
• Ian Rapoport 1998, reporter NFL Network
• Jordan Rapp 1998, Triathlete (2011 ITU long-distance world champion)
• Jenifer Rajkumar 2000, politician
• Avery Trufelman 2009, radio journalist and podcaster[18][19]
• Andrew Stopera 2015, national team curler[20]
• Celia Rose Gooding 2018, actress and singer