Cape Disappointment State Park and Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center

Description

Cape Disappointment State Park is a 1,882-acre camping park on the Long Beach Peninsula, fronted by the Pacific Ocean. The park offers 27 miles of ocean beach, two lighthouses (the North Head Lighthouse and the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse), the Victorian Colbert House Museum, an interpretive center, and hiking trails. Visitors enjoy beachcombing and exploring the area's rich natural and cultural history. The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center stands high on the cliffs of the park, 200 feet above the pounding Pacific surf. A series of mural-sized "timeline" panels guides visitors through the westward journey of the Lewis and Clark Expedition using sketches, paintings, photographs, and the words of Corps members themselves. The center also features short film presentations, a gift shop and a glassed-in observation deck with views of the river, headlands, and sea. Additional displays focus on local maritime and military history.

The park offers exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Caumsett State Historic Park

Description

In 1921 Marshall Field III purchased 1,750 acres of Lloyd Neck to create one large estate. He named the land after its Matinecock Indian name, Caumsett, which means "place by a sharp rock." Field created a self-sufficient English-style estate as a combination country club, hunting preserve, and home, complete with its own water and electrical supply. When the estate was finished, it had facilities for every sport except golf.

The site offers tours and some educational services.

The Breakers [RI]

Description

The Breakers is the grandest of Newport's summer "cottages" and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial preeminence in turn-of-the-century America. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) established the family fortune in steamships and later in the New York Central Railroad, which was a pivotal development in the industrial growth of the nation during the late 19th century. The Commodore's grandson, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, became Chairman and President of the New York Central Railroad system in 1885, and purchased a wooden house called The Breakers in Newport during that same year. In 1893, he commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to design a villa to replace the earlier wood-framed house which was destroyed by fire the previous year. Hunt directed an international team of craftsmen and artisans to create a 70-room Italian Renaissance- style palazzo inspired by the 16th-century palaces of Genoa and Turin. Allard and Sons of Paris assisted Hunt with furnishings and fixtures, Austro-American sculptor Karl Bitter designed relief sculpture, and Boston architect Ogden Codman decorated the family quarters.

The mansion offers tours.

Marble House [RI]

Description

Marble House was built between 1888 and 1892 for Mr. and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, a summer house, or "cottage," as Newporters called them in remembrance of the modest houses of the early 19th century. But Marble House was much more; it was a social and architectural landmark that set the pace for Newport's subsequent transformation from a quiet summer colony of wooden houses to the legendary resort of opulent stone palaces.

The house offers tours.

Chadds Ford Historical Society, Barn Visitors Center, and Historic Sites [PA]

Description

The Society maintains the Barn Visitors Center, as well as three 18th-century historic sites: the 1725 John Chads House, the John Chads Springhouse, and the 1720s Barns-Brinton House.

The society offers educational programs, lectures, research library access, and occasional recreational and educational events; the Center offers exhibits; the John Chads House offers tours; the Barns-Brinton House offers tours.

The Elms [RI]

Description

The Elms was the summer residence of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Julius Berwind of Philadelphia and New York. Mr. Berwind made his fortune in the Pennsylvania coal industry. In 1898, the Berwinds engaged Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer to design a house modeled after the mid-18th-century French chateau d'Asnieres (circa 1750) outside Paris. Construction of The Elms was completed in 1901 at a cost reported at approximately $1.4 million. The interiors and furnishings were designed by Allard and Sons of Paris and were the setting for the Berwinds' collection of Renaissance ceramics, 18th-century French and Venetian paintings, and Oriental jades. The elaborate Classical Revival gardens on the grounds were developed between 1907 and 1914. They include terraces displaying marble and bronze sculpture; a park of fine specimen trees; and a lavish lower garden featuring marble pavilions, fountains, a sunken garden, and carriage house and garage.

The mansion offers tours.

Boot Hill Museum [KS]

Description

The Museum preserves the history of Dodge City and the Old West. Its Front Street buildings are reconstructions, representing Dodge City in 1876 and exhibiting hundreds of original artifacts. The various exhibits throughout the museum depict life in early Dodge City, and include a collection of over 200 original guns, a working print shop, and an extensive collection of drugstore items.

The museum offers exhibits, living history demonstrations, historically-inspired variety show entertainment, stagecoach rides, and chuckwagon-style dinners.

Chepstow [RI]

Description

An Italianate-style villa, Chepstow was built in 1860 by resident Newport architect George Champlin Mason as the summer residence of Edmund Schermerhorn. Containing the original Morris-Gallatin furnishings together with important 19th-century American paintings and documents from other former Morris family residences, Chepstow is highly evocative of the taste and collections of a descendant of one of America's founding families, placed in the context of a contemporary Newport summer home.

The home offers tours.

Hunter House [RI]

Description

Hunter House is one of the finest examples of Georgian Colonial architecture from Newport's "golden age" in the mid-18th century. The house was built and decorated when Newport was a cosmopolitan city with a principle of religious tolerance that attracted Quakers, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Sephardic Jews. The great mercantile families lived patrician lives, building harbor-front mansions overlooking their trading ships, and entertained in grand style. They bought furniture and silver from local craftsmen and were the patrons of such important early painters as Robert Feke and Gilbert Stuart.

The house offers tours.

Isaac Bell House [RI]

Description

The Isaac Bell House is one of the best surviving examples of shingle-style architecture in the country. The house was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, and White in 1883 for Isaac Bell, a wealthy cotton broker and investor. After passing through a succession of owners, the Isaac Bell House was purchased by the Preservation Society in 1996, and is today designated a National Historic Landmark. The Isaac Bell House was remarkably innovative when it appeared in 1883. It is a combination of Old English and European architecture with colonial American and exotic details, such as a Japanese-inspired open floor plan and bamboo-style porch columns.

The house offers tours.