Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island

Esperanza and Irwin travel to Shelter Island for their 117th podcast. Sylvester Manor is a remarkable place where layers of East End history converge. Built in the 17th century by Nathaniel Sylvester, a wealthy merchant and slaveholder, the manor was home to Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, and European settlers. Today, its landscape, buildings, and gardens offer a window into a complicated past—and a story of how that history is being preserved, interpreted, and re-imagined. Listening is Believing.