NEWSLETTER
Staatsburg, N.Y. — Explore the upstairs/downstairs world of the Gilded Age this March at Staatsburgh State Historic Site. Perhaps you align yourself with the likes of the Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey or Bertha Russel from HBO’s The Gilded Age. Or you identify more with the working-class servants downstairs in the grand Gilded Age mansions. Staatsburgh’s popular “The REAL Gilded Age: America’s Elite in the Downton Abbey Era” and “A Life in Service” theme tours, offered this March, will explore two separate topics of Gilded Age history. Advanced reservations for both tours are required at https://www.Bookeo.com/StaatsburghSHS.
Led by a costumed guide, “The REAL Gilded Age” tour explores the real-life characters and themes at Staatsburgh that parallel popular shows such as Downton Abbey or HBO’s The Gilded Age. This 90-minute tour shows how servants and the Mills family conducted a busy weekend of high-society entertaining, comparing Staatsburgh to what viewers saw in the popular period dramas. The fictionalized romances of Downton Abbey had their historical counterparts at Staatsburgh: Downton’s American heiress, Cora, married the fictional Earl of Grantham; Staatsburgh’s Beatrice Mills married the real Earl of Granard. The tour will take place on Saturdays, March 8, 15 & 22 at 11:00am. Reservations for “The REAL Gilded Age” are required and can be made at https://www.Bookeo.com/StaatsburghSHS. Admission is $12.00; $10.00 for seniors and students; children under 12 are free.
“A Life in Service” will show visitors the mansion through the servants' eyes. Led by a costumed guide, this 90-minute tour focuses on the lives and duties of those servants who worked in the mansion – the English butler, the French chefs, and maids and the footmen. Visitors will be led through additional parts of the mansion not on standard tours, including the unrestored servants’ hall. Even in its unrestored state, this unique area of the house is a striking artifact of servant life, featuring the servants' dining room, the footmen's bedrooms, and the tiled kitchen with its massive coal stove, where Staatsburgh’s French chef prepared gourmet meals for society’s elite. “A Life in Service” will take place on Saturday, March 29 at 11:00am. Reservations are required and can be made at https://www.Bookeo.com/StaatsburghSHS. Admission is $12.00; $10.00 for seniors and students; children under 12 are free.
Visitors to Staatsburgh may also wish to stroll or picnic by the Hudson River, follow the site’s self-guided landscape tour, or walk the woodland trails in adjacent Mills and Norrie State Parks. A full list of all Staatsburgh’s programs and events is found on the site’s reservations page: https://www.Bookeo.com/StaatsburghSHS
Staatsburgh State Historic Site and the Ogden Mills & Ruth Livingston Mills Memorial State Park are located on Old Post Road in Staatsburg, off Route 9 between Rhinebeck and Hyde Park. The historic site is one of 6 sites and 15 parks administered by the Taconic Region of New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. For more information, call 845-889-8851, or visit Staatsburgh’s websites at, https://www.Bookeo.com/StaatsburghSHS , www.facebook.com/StaatsburghSHS, and www.staatsburghstatehistoricsite.blogspot.com. Staatsburgh’s events are also listed at parks.ny.gov
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation oversees more than 250 parks, historic sites, recreational trails, golf courses, boat launches and more, and welcomes over 80 million visitors annually. For more information on any of these recreation areas, visit parks.ny.gov, download the free NY State Parks Explorer app or call 518.474.0456. Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), the OPRHP Blog or via the OPRHP Newsroom.
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Contact:
Zachary Veith | (845) 889-8851 x 355 | Zachary.Veith@parks.ny.gov