Tea & Talk Series, Downton Abbey and WWI themed tours
Staatsburgh State Historic Site will offer several special programs in the winter months of 2015. The site will not be open for drop-in tours between January and April 15, but special programs will be offered on select weekends. The site will re-open for its full season on Thursday, April 16. For more information or to register for a program, call 845-889-8851 or visit the website at nysparks.com.
Gilded Age Tea & Talk Series
Sundays at 1 p.m., Jan. 25, Feb. 15, and March 8
By reservation: Each program $30, or $25 for Friends of Mills Mansion
Attendees enjoy tea, scones and sandwiches while listening to a talk on aspects of Gilded Age etiquette: Jan. 25, “Dinner Etiquette”; Feb. 15, “Love and Marriage in the Gilded Age”; March 8, “Visiting Etiquette and Calling Cards.”
Downton Abbey Themed Tours
90-minute tour led by costumed guide
Saturdays at 1 p.m., Jan. 10 and 24; Feb. 7 and 21; March 7 and 21
By reservation: $10/adult, $8/senior; 12 years and younger free
Highlighting Staatsburgh’s real-life counterparts of the Downton Abbey characters, this tour explores how the servants prepared for a busy weekend of entertaining, and how the Mills’ daughter, like Downton Abbey’s Cora, married into the British aristocracy.
World War I and the End of the Gilded Age Theme Tour
90-min tour with a costumed guide
Sundays at 1 p.m., Jan. 18; Feb. 8; March 1 and 22
By reservation: $10/adult, $8/senior; 12 years and younger free
1914 saw the start of WWI and the beginning of the end of the Gilded Age. This tour explores how the Mills’ extravagant way of life withered away in the cataclysm of the Great War.
Staatsburgh 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 six sites and 15 parks administered by the Taconic Region of New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
