E. & E. Roosevelt, Props.

The tourist and restaurant trade along the Hudson River, a highly competitive business, got some new enterprisers last week. Their names: Eleanor Roosevelt and son Elliott. Manager Elliott announced that their Val-Kill Inn would probably begin selling meals and lodging this fall.

The inn, a short distance east of the old Roosevelt mansion at Hyde Park, is on an 842-acre tract which the partners bought from the Franklin D. Roosevelt estate last year for $85,000. The building, an old remodeled white farmhouse, has rooms for 44 guests, can accommodate 100 diners at a time. Next year the Roosevelts hope to build a much bigger place modeled after F.D.R.'s stone "hideaway house" at Hyde Park.

Like many another big estate owner, the Roosevelts have found their holdings too expensive to staff and maintain as residences alone. They have to be made to pay their own way. Squire Elliott started things last Christmas by resuming the sale of Christmas trees. (There are 450,000 trees on the estate, many planted by F.D.R.)

This year Elliott is planting alfalfa, clover, oats and corn, enough to fatten 100 steers a year. He has built up his flock of chickens until they are producing 1,700 eggs a day, and plans to add turkeys and capons. Along with the milk, cream and butter from 45 Guernseys, the eggs and chickens are sold to wholesalers in nearby towns.

Elliott does not intend to remain a mere wholesale supplier for long. The Roosevelts now raise 200 pigs a year and already have smokehouses to cure hams and bacon. They plan to put out their own brand (Val-Kill) of sausage, hams and cheese. A little plugging of their products should make it easy to sell all they can turn out.

Partner Eleanor, traveling salesman for the business, carried six Val-Kill hams, complete with spices and written instructions for cooking, on her trip to England (see PEOPLE).

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