Some years preparing for Christmas comes as naturally as breathing; others, it’s a labor of love. When a labor, one relies on repetition and muscle memory to lay the groundwork as it’s been learned by rote all these years. Confident it will all get done, you build and it will come. Sort of like faith. Hmmm, perhaps there’s a parallel here, a clue given during Christmas as to how to live. Preparing one’s hearth is first cousin to preparing one’s heart. It’s such a personal and organic process, building one’s Christmas (or one’s faith), year after year through all stages of life. First as a child with wonder in your eyes and magic in your heart, steeping in the traditions established over years by
your own parents and theirs before. Then creating your own traditions in your own home with your own children in all of their phases and stages. Christmas unfurls like an amaryllis, little by little pushing its way up through the darkness to burst into glorious display.
From the top of the Hudson Valley down to the city, Gilded Age mansions have been preparing their hearths for Christmas for 150 years, through fortunes and wars made and lost, in homes once private and now public. Many have tours at Christmas time, and are well worth a visit. Most have gift shops in case you feel too guilty about road tripping when you should be shopping. The homesteads thrive on our support, so the effort is philanthropic too. If you can carve out a slice of time, gift yourself a peak into Christmas past. The homes listed below are works of art in any season, with grounds to stroll and stunning views of the Hudson River, but are exceptional while decorated.
Upper Hudson Valley: these four mansions, the most northern, can be easily done in one trip. Beautiful country. Great shopping in Hudson and Rhinebeck.
- Olana: 5720 State Route 9G, Hudson. Former home of painter Frederic Church.
Tours available weekends only. Gift shop. 518.828.0135. - Clermont: 1 Clermont Avenue, Germantown. Tours available weekends only. Gift
shop. 518.537.4240. - Wildenstein: 330 Morton Road, Rhinebeck. Tours available weekends only.
845.876.4818. - Ogden Mills Mansion: 75 Mills Mansion Drive, 1 Road, Staatsburgh. Open
Thursday-Sunday. Gift shop. 845.889.8851.
Mid-Hudson Valley: these three homesteads are in Hyde Park and are all operated under joint management, The Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historical Site, by the U.S. National Park Service. Open weekends. New Deal Museum Store at FDR’s house is great. 845.229.7770. Add Locust Grove in Poughkeepsie for a perfect road trip.
- Vanderbilt Mansion: former home of Frederick W. Vanderbilt
- Springwood: former home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- Val-Kil: former home of Eleanor Roosevelt. Now THERE’s an idea, a “She Shed”!
- Locust Grove: 2683 South Road, Poughkeepsie. Former home of Samuel F.B. Morse. Museum shop. Weekends only. 845.454.4500.
Lower Hudson Valley: These three mansions are the closest to Rye, and well worth a pop
in.
- Boscobel: 1601 Route 9D, Cold Spring. Open Wednesday – Monday. Museum shop. 845.265.3638. Easy to spend a day in Cold Spring’s lovely shops and restaurants.
- Lyndhurst: 635 South Broadway, Tarrytown. Noteworthy occupants included former NYC mayor William Paulding, merchant George Merritt (as in The Merritt Parkway) and railroad tycoon Jay Gould. Open Thursday-Monday. Museum shop. You can band this one out after the Weestcheser mall to restore your faith in humanity. 914.631.4481
- Glenview (aka John Bond Trevor House), at the Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers. Open Wednesday-Sunday, tours at 1 and 3 pm. Museum shop. Don’t miss the Nybelwyck Hall Doll House. Weirdly wonderful. 914.963.4550.
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