A HUDSON VALLEY CHRISTMAS
—December 12, 2009—
From Doylestown: From New Hope:
Departure Time: 6:30 A.M. Departure Time: 6:45 A.M.
Return Time: Approx. 7:15 P.M. Return Time: Approx. 7:00 P.M.
Cost: $139.00 due at time of reservation
Reservation deadline is October 16, 2009
Usher in the holiday season with a Hudson Valley Christmas. Your morning begins at the neoclassical mansion Boscobel situated on a bluff on the east bank of the Hudson River offering a memorable view of the Hudson Highlands. Completed in 1808, the house is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of Federal architecture in the country and contains one of America's leading collections of decorative arts and furniture much of it made by New York high-style cabinetmakers Duncan Phyfe and Michael Allison. The 45-acre estate was originally owned by States Dyckman, a descendant of early Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, who managed to retain his family fortune despite his loyalty to the English Crown. In 1794 at the age of thirty-nine he married eighteen year old Elizabeth Corne, daughter of a Loyalist neighbor. The union produced a son and a daughter. He later adopted two other children, possibly the offspring of earlier dalliances. He also devoted considerable time in caring for his sister whose mental illness led to drug addiction and an unhappy marriage. Always in poor health and facing constant financial setbacks, Dyckman frequently traveled to England to retrieve a number of wartime debts. Although he was able to recover substantial resources, suffering from gout and a lingering leg injury sustained in a carriage accident, Dyckman returned to America for the last time in 1803 and immediately began work on Boscobel. Having overcome “humiliating poverty,” the house was to serve as an expression of his new found wealth and social standing. Unfortunately, he died on August 11, 1806, at the age of fifty-one with only the foundation of his home completed. His widow carried on the construction, and she and their surviving son, Peter, moved into it in 1808. It would stay in the family until 1920. For the next 35 years, under various owners, it frequently faced destruction, being declared “excess” by the federal government, until in 1955 the Friends of Boscobel saved it from a contractor who bid $35.00 to demolish it.
After lunch, you will step back in time to Hudson Valley Victoriana at its finest—the opulent Wilderstein, renowned for its magical Queen Anne architecture and lavish interiors. Wilderstein, German for “wild man’s stone” after a nearby Indian petroglyph, was designed in 1852 by architect John Ritch for real estate investor and export trader Thomas Suckley and his wife Catherine Murray Browne. Suckley was a descendant of the Beekman and Livingston families whose estates were prominent landmarks in the Hudson River Valley for generations. In 1888 the original two-story Italianate villa was remodeled and enlarged by Suckley’s son Robert and his wife Elizabeth Montgomery. The home was transformed into an elaborate Queen Anne style structure with the addition of a dramatic five-story circular tower offering a commanding view of the surrounding landscape. The interiors were designed by Joseph Tiffany, cousin of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Three generations of Suckleys resided at Wilderstein, the last of whom was Margaret (Daisy) Suckley, a cousin and confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Miss Suckley traveled with FDR throughout his presidency, gave and trained his black Scottish terrier Fala, helped to establish his library in Hyde Park, and was with him when he was fatally stricken with polio at Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1945. She died at Wilderstein in 1991 at the age of one hundred. Beginning at Christmas 1984, she opened her home to the public. The tradition continues to this very day as Hudson Valley and New York City florists and designers decorate the house for the Yuletide season.
The tour includes deluxe motorcoach transportation, admissions, lunch, and all taxes
and gratuities per itinerary.
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