James K. Polk Home [TN]

Description

Built in 1816 for James K. Polk's father, Samuel, this Federal-style house is the only surviving home of America's 11th President. James K. Polk lived here with his parents from 1818 to 1824, when he began his legal and political career. His rise to national prominence included serving as governor of Tennessee from 1839 to 1841, and culminated in 1844, when he was elected as a "darkhorse" Democratic candidate for the Presidency. He died of cholera in Nashville at age 53 on June 15, 1849, three months after stepping down from the White House. Today, the James K. Polk ancestral home is a Presidential historic site that displays original Polk belongings, such as furnishings, documents, White House artifacts, and political memorabilia. The site also features the adjacent Sisters' House museum, a reconstructed 19th-century kitchen building, and formal gardens.

A second website for the home can be found here.

The home offers a short film, exhibits, tours, lectures, educational programs, and demonstrations.

Starr Family Home State Historic Site [TX]

Description

Starr Family Home State Historic Site preserves the 150-year-old history of the Starr family in Texas and four generations of adaptations to the site by successive family members. Maplecroft, the centerpiece of the park, was built in the 1870s. Over the years, the home was modified, modernized, and enlarged to accommodate the changing lifestyles of its occupants. Among the innovations was the installation of a carbide gas lighting system. Today, visitors can tour the stately home with the Starr's furnishings and see the nearby outbuildings.

The site offers tours.

Rock Castle [TN]

Description

In 1773 Daniel Smith married Sarah Michie in North Carolina. Subsequently, he received a land grant from that state. In 1784 the Smiths brought their family to this site and commenced construction on Rock Castle. Much of the construction supervision and plantation management was taken care of by Mrs. Smith, since her husband was gone for long periods on surveying trips. A blend of the Federal and Georgian architectural styles, the house was once the center of a 3,140-acre plantation which today is but 18 acres. In addition to the house, there is a family cemetery and a smokehouse.

The house offers tours.

Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion Historic Site [NH]

Description

The Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion is the former home of New Hampshire's first royal governor, Benning Wentworth. The rambling, forty-room mansion which overlooks Little Harbor is one of the most outstanding homes remaining from the Colonial era. Its stateliness and impressive interior and furnishings reflect aristocratic life in Portsmouth in the 1700s.

The site offers tours and exhibits.

Sarah Orne Jewett House

Description

Writer Sarah Orne Jewett spent much of her life in this stately Georgian residence, owned by her family since 1819. The view from her desk in the second-floor hall surveys the town's major intersection and provided her with material for her books, such as The Country of the Pointed Firs, which describe the character of the Maine countryside and seacoast with accuracy and affection. In decorating the house for their own use, Miss Jewett and her sister expressed both a pride in their family's past and their own independent, sophisticated tastes. The result is an eclectic blend of 18th-century architecture, antiques, and old wallpapers with furnishings showing the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

Skylands Manor, Ringwood Manor, and State Botanical Garden [NJ]

Description

Skylands Manor, with its English Jacobean architecture common in the English countryside 400 years ago, was designed by John Russell Pope for Clarence McKensie Lewis, a stockbrocker and civil engineer. Built in the 1920s, it is constructed of native stone and half-timbers. The weathered stone facade of this 44-room mansion blends into the landscape. The mansion contains rooms with antique paneling as well as new American Oak paneling and large windows, some of which contain 16th-century stained glass medallions. Moulded plaster ceilings and an elaborately carved staircase add the finishing touches to this impressive country house. Ringwood Manor, which was home for a succession of well-known ironmasters for nearly 200 years, sits comfortably on a low hill. Iron production in this area began in the 1740s. In the mid-19 century, Ringwood Manor was owned by Abram S. Hewitt, America's foremost ironmaster. Dedicated in 1984, the State Botanical Garden is the culmination of two eras of landscape architecture under the direction of Francis Lynde Stetson, owner of Skylands from 1891—1922. The garden contains an extensive variety of plants, including evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs in specialty areas.

A second website specifically for Ringwood can be found here.

A second website specifically for Skylands and the State Botanical Garden can be found here.

The sites offer tours and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Southwest Seattle Historical Society and Log House Museum [WA]

Description

The Society's Log House Museum is located in a renovated turn-of-the-century log structure which once served as a carriage house, or stable, to the Fir Lodge. The 1900s Fir Lodge was one of the first year-round homes built on Alki Beach and was owned by prominent Seattleites, William and Gladys Bernard. Today, the carriage house houses exhibits on local history.

The site offers exhibits, tours, and educational programs.

Buttolph-Williams House [CT]

Description

With its diamond-paned casement windows, clapboards weathered nearly black, and hewn overhangs, the Buttolph-Williams House harks back to the Puritan pioneering of New England during the 1600s. Although actually built around 1711, the house reflects the continuing popularity of traditional architecture. As a result it is considered the most faithful restoration of a 17th-century-style Connecticut Valley house. An array of colonial-era furnishings is on display. Highlights include a room designed and decorated by Katherine Prentiss Murphy, one of the 20th century's most renowned antiques collectors, and a kitchen with an enormous open hearth and an assortment of Colonial-era cooking implements.

The house offers exhibits and tours.

Hearst San Simeon State Historic Monument and Castle [CA]

Description

La Cuesta Encantada, "The Enchanted Hill" high above the ocean at San Simeon, was the creation of two extraordinary individuals, William Randolph Hearst and architect Julia Morgan. Their collaboration, which began in 1919 and continued for nearly 30 years, transformed an informal hilltop campsite into the world-famous Hearst Castle—a 115-room main house plus guesthouses, pools, and eight acres of cultivated gardens. The main house itself, "La Casa Grande," is a grand setting for Hearst's collection of European antiques and art pieces. It was also a most fitting site for hosting the many influential guests who stayed at Hearst's San Simeon ranch. Guests included President Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Lindbergh, Charlie Chaplin, and a diverse array of luminaries from show business and publishing industries.

The site offers exhibits, tours, a 40-min. film, living history presentations, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.