Hildene
Historic House · Manchester, Vermont
Robert Todd Lincoln built this Georgian Revival house in 1905 on a three-hundred-foot promontory above the Battenkill valley, having first come to Manchester as a twenty-year-old in the summer of 1863 while his father was president. Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge designed it; an Aeolian pipe organ went in three years later at a cost of eleven and a half thousand dollars, and a formal garden laid out in 1907 in the shape of a cathedral window still carries over a thousand peonies. Lincoln descendants lived here until 1975, when his granddaughter Mary Lincoln Beckwith died in the house.
1005 Hildene Road, Manchester, Vermont, 05254, United States
⚠ SEASONAL HOURS WITH CLOSED DAYS - check before travelling, particularly outside the summer, because this is not a full year-round operation. A single per-person admission covers the house, the formal gardens, the 412-acre grounds and the 1903 Pullman car Sunbeam, with reduced rates for children and students and free entry for members. ⚠ THE 1908 AEOLIAN PIPE ORGAN IS DEMONSTRATED AT INTERVALS through the day - ask at admissions when the next one is. ⚠ THE PEONY GARDEN HAS A SHORT WINDOW IN JUNE and is the best thing on the property when it is out. Parking is free on site. The house is largely self-guided with staff stationed in the rooms. Walking trails run from the promontory down through meadow and wetland and are open with admission.