919 Touring Houses

Sunday, October 8, 2006

Today I toured these buildings:

Photos and text are from the brochure provided to the tour participants by Hudson River Heritage.

I discovered that the Coykendall Coach House is the home of the Coach House Players, the local amateur theater group. In 1970, I joined the group, worked on scenery for a play, and then Ex#1 informed me we were moving to St. Louis. I never even got to see that play. I've been thinking about rejoining, so today I did! I mentioned that I wanted to paint scenery, hammer nails, sew costumes, and learn lighting. The guy I talked to was very happy to hear that. Most people who join want to be on stage. I don't.

The one I wanted to see most was the Cordts Mansion. It's a lot bigger than it looks in the photo - it extends quite a bit back from the front. Back in about 1994 or 1995, two young men had purchased it, planning to open a B&B. It was in very bad shape then - peeling wallpaper and paint, dangerous staircase, so on. But they were enthusiastic about its potential, and had made a good start on the ground floor. It had been included on a Victorian house tour Jay and I went on then.

So I was looking forward to see what had been done with it.

I don't know what the young men accomplished. I heard that it had in fact been a B&B for a short time. There are several parlors, and something like ten large bedrooms. The current owner had purchased it in 2001, and has done a lot of interior decorating.

The owner is apparently fabulously wealthy, owns plantations and homes all over, spends only a few weeks a year in this house. He has furnished the house with antiques, mostly Renaissance Revival, a lot of heavy baroque, some Chinese. Many huge pieces. There was even a full-sized copy of David (with fig leaf). Most of it is pretty fantastic, but the overall effect is overwhelmingly excessive. It wasn't one or two spectacular pieces in a room with more subdued supporting pieces - everything was spectacular. Just too much too much. Several of the bedrooms have a color scheme, but a bit overdone. The rose bedroom, for example, is too much pink. Everywhere, everything. The only thing in the room that wasn't some shade of rose was a beige lamp, which stuck out like a sore thumb. The blue bedroom was downright depressing.

A lesson in decorating.

The Griffiths Thompson House was the most beautiful inside. Again it was full of antiques, but more livable pieces, lighter, warmer, cosier.

In most of the houses, the owners were not there. Instead, there were Heritage docents. Two of the houses did have owners present, and I had to giggle. You know Mrs. Bucket of Keeping Up Appearances? Heh heh. Never heard so much syncophantic name-dropping and boot-licking in my life. I think some people went home dreaming of being invited to tea at the manor house.