Photos: Halloween Jack-O’-Lantern Festival at Historic New York Mansion

• New York’s Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze is the largest Halloween festival in the tri-state area.
• Artists decorate the grounds of the Van Cortlandt mansion in Croton-on-Hudson with 7,000 lanterns.
• Breathtaking exhibits include a pumpkin planetarium, a 200-foot Kraken and optical illusions.

When the Van Cortlandts purchased their sprawling Hudson Valley estate in the late 1600s, they could not have imagined that it would one day host a lantern festival featuring pumpkin carvings, including a Kraken, a windmill in movement and the Statue of Liberty. .

Dutch merchant Stephanus Van Cortlandt, who served as mayor of New York City, bought the land and built the first version of the Van Cortlandt Mansion between 1665 and 1681, according to the National Park Service. His grandson, Pierre Van Cortlandt, was the first lieutenant governor of New York and added the main floors and porches of the mansion in 1749.