In 1903 he took the first step by purchasing a farm situated in the Westchester Hills, five miles from Mount Kisco, New York.

He began by building a lake at the foot of the hill on which the home was to stand, then a water-tower, and finally the house itself.
The plans to the minutest detail had been laid out on the lawn at Marion and, as the architect himself said, there was nothing left for him to do but to design the cellar.
Richard and his wife moved into their new home in July, 1905, and called it Crossroads Farm, keeping the original name of the place.

In later years Richard added various adjoining parcels of land to his first purchase, and the property eventually included nearly three hundred acres.

The house itself was very large, very comfortable, and there were many guest-rooms which every week-end for long were filled by the jolliest of house-parties.

In his novel "The Blind Spot," Justus Miles Forman gives the following very charming picture of the place: "It was a broad terrace paved with red brick that was stained and a little mossy, so that it looked much older than it had any right to, and along its outer border there were bay-trees set in big Italian terracotta jars; but the bay-trees were placed far apart so that they should not mask the view, and that was wise, for it was a fine view.
It is rugged country in that part of Westchester County--like a choppy sea: all broken, twisted ridges, and abrupt little hills, and piled-up boulders, and hollow, cup-like depressions among them.