Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum

National Historic Landmark · Norwalk, Connecticut

A 62-room Second Empire country house finished in 1868 for the railroad and banking financier LeGrand Lockwood, and one of the earliest and largest surviving houses of its kind in America - built before the Newport cottages, and grander than most of them. The interior is the point: a skylit octagonal rotunda rising the full height of the house, inlaid woodwork and marquetry of a quality that took European craftsmen years, frescoes, etched glass and marble by the acre. Lockwood lost his fortune in the gold panic of 1869 and died two years later, so the family barely lived in it, and the Mathews family held it for sixty years afterwards. The city bought the property in 1941 and came within a vote of demolishing the house twice, which is why the restoration is still unfinished in places - and why the unrestored rooms are as interesting as the finished ones. It is seasonal, it is tour-only, and it sits within sight of Interstate 95, which is not what anyone expects of a chateau.

295 West Avenue, Norwalk, Norwalk, Connecticut, 06850, United States

SEASONAL and on a short week. Open roughly from spring into the New Year, commonly four days a week including the weekend, with the interior shown by guided tour at set times and a last tour well before closing. Closed through the deep winter apart from special events. The grounds and Mathews Park around the house are open free all year. Confirm the season and the week before travelling.

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