Take a look inside Franklin D. Roosevelt's 21,000-square-foot mansion where he entertained royals and world leaders

The Vanderbilt family's 45,000-square-foot Gilded Age mansion is also in Hyde Park, which is about 95 miles from New York City.

The National Park Service operates both the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, while the National Archives manages the library's collections.

The National Park Service offers 40-minute guided tours of Springwood from May through October. Tickets cost $15 each and are sold in person on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The statues were modeled after a 1933 photograph of the Roosevelts at their Hyde Park home.

Further along the path, I began to see signs for Springwood, which is located next to the stables.

Roosevelt was an avid equestrian and continued riding even after his legs became paralyzed due to polio.

Roosevelt's father, James Roosevelt, was a Harvard-educated lawyer who earned his fortune as a businessman for various railroad and coal companies. He purchased the original farmhouse on the property in 1867 and named it "Springwood."

In 1915, Roosevelt and Eleanor added two stone wings and most of the third floor to make more room for their six children.

"Perhaps a little political foreshadowing?" he said.

Roosevelt served as assistant secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. His fondness for Navy ships was evident in the decor throughout Springwood.

As a child, Roosevelt collected birds and had them stuffed in order to study them up close.

The bronze statue depicts Roosevelt in 1911 when he was serving his first term in the New York State Senate.

The small round table in the back of the room was the kids' table.

The room is named for the Dresden chandelier and sconces that Roosevelt's father brought back from Dresden, Germany.

At 39 years old, Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio and became paralyzed from the waist down. He didn't want people to know that he used a wheelchair, so the ramp could be folded up and hidden away when guests were present.

When Roosevelt took business meetings at Springwood, his aides positioned him in an armchair and put a stack of papers in his lap to give him a plausible reason not to stand when his guests arrived.

Roosevelt's famous guests included King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), Prince Frederik and Princess Ingrid of Denmark, Prince Olav and Princess Martha of Norway, and Winston Churchill.

Roosevelt sat for the portrait after he was elected to his first term as president in 1932.

King George VI and Winston Churchill slept in this room during their visits to Hyde Park.

Louis Howe and Harry Hopkins, two of Roosevelt's close political advisors, stayed in this room.

Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Russian pianist Madam Knavage, and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, stayed in the Chintz Room during their time at Springwood.

His father, James Roosevelt, wrote in his diary on the night of Roosevelt's birth that he was a "splendid, large baby boy" who weighed 10 pounds. Everything in the Blue Room is original, including the mattress Roosevelt was born on.

James and his wife, Sara Roosevelt, slept in the Blue Room. After James' death, Sara moved into another room down the hall when the home was renovated in 1915, bringing her furniture with her. The Blue Room was then redecorated and repurposed as a guest room.

Sara requested that the original furniture be moved back into the Blue Room after her death to restore it to the way it looked when Roosevelt was born.

When the Roosevelts had children of their own, the oldest son living at home slept here.

The Secret Service used the mirror to monitor activity down the hall and around the front of the house.

Roosevelt's father, James, died in 1900, while Sara lived for another 41 years. She moved from the Blue Room into this room after the home's 1915 renovation.

The space was originally intended to be a morning room.

After Roosevelt's death in 1945, Eleanor moved to Val-Kill, a cottage she built with friends Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman. Located around 2.5 miles from Springwood, the property is now known as the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site.

Roosevelt would often spend early mornings in his room reading the paper or meeting with one of his secretaries.

Having direct communication with Washington was state-of-the-art technology at the time, and proved crucial as his health began to fail towards the end of his life.

"The clothes that are in that room on display, FDR handpicked for you to see," our guide said. "He knew you were coming."

Eleanor turned Springwood over to the National Park Service in 1945, shortly after Roosevelt's death, and spoke at its dedication as a national historic site in 1946.

"I think Franklin realized that the historic library, the house, and the peaceful resting place behind the high hedge with flowers blooming around it would perhaps mean something to the people of the United States," she said at the event, author Olin Dows wrote in his 1949 book, "Franklin Roosevelt at Hyde Park," according to the National Park Service. "They would understand the rest and peace and strength which he had gained here and perhaps learn to come, and go away with some sense of healing and courage themselves."

Roosevelt planted many of the trees on the property as part of his forestry experiments and conservation efforts.

Roosevelt wrote that he wanted to be buried where the sundial stood in the rose garden on his Hyde Park estate, according to the National Park Service.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum was dedicated in 1941.

When I visited my first presidential library, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, I bought a passport to fill with stamps from all 15 presidential libraries nationwide. I was delighted to find a desk with stamps to add to my booklet just outside the gift shop.

Nearly 10,000 people visited Springwood on the first day it was open to the public in 1946, and they haven't stopped visiting since.