When Allison Pataki was an undergrad at Yale University, there were a few perks to being the daughter of the governor of New York.
For one — being able to host 20 sorority sisters for an overnight Kappa Alpha Theta retreat at the 158-year-old executive mansion in Albany, NY, complete with a private chef and historic activities.
“We all swam around in the indoor pool that was installed by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he got polio and had to swim laps in the winter,” says the 29-year-old Pataki.
The New York native is the first to admit that her father George Pataki’s gig as three-term governor of New York (1995-2006) awarded her some unique opportunities — from hobnobbing with President Bill Clinton to hanging with Britney Spears after a 2001 concert in Saratoga.
But it was always up to Pataki to make a name for herself.
“Being the governor’s daughter, you had to prove that you, as an individual, could stand on your own,” she explains.
She’s doing just that with her debut novel, “The Traitor’s Wife,” out today, which tells the oft-ignored story of Benedict Arnold’s second wife, Peggy Shippen — a glamorous and flirtatious Philadelphia socialite who quietly steered her husband toward treason.
“Peggy was the one who introduced [British army officer] John Andre to Benedict Arnold,” says Pataki. “They had a salacious back story — the three plotters. My first thought was, ‘Why don’t more people know about this?’ ”
The subject was a natural fit for Pataki, who grew up in the historically rich Hudson Valley, right across from West Point.
“George Washington had slept in the home right next to my parents’ home,” she says. “Benedict Arnold, when he was the commander of West Point, stayed right across the street — I had played in that yard.”
The budding writer, who currently lives in Chicago with her husband, 29-year-old Dave Levy, a resident in the orthopedic surgery department at Rush University, plans to continue telling the tales of history’s overlooked players.
She just finished co-penning a manuscript, set in the French Revolution, with her 26-year-old brother, Owen, a first lieutenant in the United States Army. (Pataki has two other siblings, Teddy, 31, and Emily, 35.)
Family has always been of the utmost importance to the Pataki clan — one of the reasons her father opted not to move his family to the governor’s mansion in Albany while in office. Instead, they stayed put in their Garrison, NY, home, a 24-room Victorian estate where Pataki and her college sweetheart celebrated their nuptials in 2011.
Gov. Pataki tells The Post it was a “key decision.”
“She and her siblings kept the same house, the same neighbors, the same friends. And they remained the same kids, as opposed to moving to the capital, where they would have been known as the governor’s kids,” he explains.
Just because there weren’t interruptions doesn’t mean life was normal.
Pataki attended the annual White House Governors Dinner hosted by President Clinton in 2000, and everyone from US senators to Christopher Reeve and Tom Wolfe have visited the family’s Garrison abode.
At age 10, she had a front-row seat in Central Park for Mass with Pope John Paul II, and in 1994, was given the full VIP treatment when the New York Rangers competed for the Stanley Cup.
“Their captain, Mark Messier, felt bad for me because I wasn’t able to go to the locker room with my brothers because I was a girl, so he came out afterwards and gave me his signed hockey stick,” recalls Pataki, who’s celebrating her book tonight with a fête at the Four Seasons restaurant hosted by former US ambassador to Finland and NYC real-estate mogul Earle Irving Mack.
Despite the pomp of politics, the former first daughter warns Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s three girls “not to get caught up in it all.”
“Having a name that people recognize might help open doors for you, but once the door’s open, it’s entirely on you to prove that you deserve to be there,” says Pataki, who notes that the prevalence of social media can make the transition from private to public life all the harder for youngsters.
“You really have to be on guard 24/7 now, which complicates the simple act of living out your daily life,” she explains.
While at Yale, Pataki looked to President George W. Bush’s daughter Barbara Bush, a fellow Theta, as a role model: “What impressed me about her was that she just maintained this very down-to-earth quality . . . she was completely herself. To her, her father was her father.”
As for herself, Pataki has no interest in pursuing a career in politics. Nor any desire to pen a book inspired by her father’s career.
“He did his job. He did it well. He wasn’t really a magnet for scandals,” says Pataki. “And scandals are what make stories fun.”