NEW YORK: The Rocky Roll

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Art is Rockefeller's gripping hobby. He has gathered 1,500 primitive pieces, another 1,000 oils, etchings and lithographs, almost all modern. Says Adviser Rene d'Harnoncourt, director of the Modern Museum: "Anyone who is such a doer gets a special kick out of his times." Some of the best items are in the Rockefellers' 27-room triplex apartment overlooking Manhattan's Central Park, others at the family's 3,000 acre estate in Pocantico Hills near Tarrytown. Rockefeller has built a house in the shadow of the family mansion, where his father still spends the winter. To show off his outdoor sculpture, he has diverted streams, moved walls, replanted the shrubbery around his white shingle Dutch colonial farmhouse.

In addition to the apartment and the farmhouse, the Rockefellers keep a summer place near the big Maine house in which Nelson Rockefeller was born. But currently all the houses are increasingly lonely. Both oldest son Rodman, 26, and daughter Ann, 24, have married, moved away; each has two children. Son Steven, 22, traveling with his father's campaign caravan this autumn, goes into the Army after Christmas. Only children left: Mary and Michael, 20, the only twins in the Rockefeller clan. Each of the children, in a particular tribute from their father, was informed well in advance that he was about to run for Governor.

Candidate or Chowderhead? Even before Rockefeller left Washington in 1955, seasoned New York politicians thought they saw the start of a Rockefeller-for-Something movement. The clue: in 1953 knowledgeable Lieut. Governor Frank C. Moore was persuaded to step out of a bright future in Governor Thomas E. Dewey's administration, step into the Rockefeller Government Affairs Foundation as president, a position in which he would be within hailing distance for political counsel. Political geiger counters began to click in earnest last year, when Rockefeller volunteered to help build a stadium for the soon-to-leave-Flatbush Brooklyn Dodgers. He accepted more and more invitations to women's club luncheons and rubber chicken dinners. He was appointed chairman of a state commission to study proposed changes in New York's constitution, a role which gave him a chance to see and be seen around the state. The geiger count: a run for Governor.

One of the first to hear the click was State G.O.P. Chairman Judson Morehouse. A year ago Morehouse had scribbled down the names of potential candidates: Tom Dewey, onetime Attorney General Herbert Brownell, U.S. Senator Jacob Javits. onetime G.O.P. National Chairman Hall. As a longshot he added Rockefeller, who had been a dependable campaign contributor ($10,000 a year). Morehouse dispatched poll takers across the state to see which name rang bells, was not surprised when Three-Termer Dewey's bonged loudest. But chiming in second place and tolling louder with each sample was Nelson Rockefeller. Realist Morehouse tore up his list, began to pump for Rockefeller. Said he to a gathering of county leaders: "Either you guys support me while I pick the best candidate or you will get yourselves some chowderhead and get this election all messed up."