Old House Tours » Historic Property Tours

Ephrata Cloister Part II

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:55:39 +0000

Here are the second batch of photos from my Ephrata Cloister visit. Hopefully, the creative license I took with the photo processing enhances the viewing and the spookiness, even though the Cloister gave me the opposite feeling.

Ephrata Cloister Visit

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:44:27 +0000

The Saal, the Meetinghouse

After a recent trip to photograph 120,000 Snow Geese during a migration stop at Middle Creek in Pennsylvania, I took a quick tour of the historic religious community, the Ephrata Cloister. Started in 1732 by German Settlers, it is one of the earliest religious communities in America. The buildings have been beautifully restored and maintained and it is an enjoyable visit if you find yourself in the area. The museum is also worth perusing as the textiles and artifacts are a joy to see. I snapped a few photos to share here on OHT.

Ernest Hemingway House – Key West

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:19:03 +0000

A few years ago I spent Christmas in Key West (which I highly recommend by the way) and toured Ernest Hemingway’s house museum. He moved there in 1931 and his wife collected the furnishings and chandeliers that are still present today.

You’ll see a few of the polydactyl cats (they have extra toes) in the photos from the many that reside there. They are descendants of Hemingway own personal cats.

[View with PicLens]

Oxford, Maryland Walking Tour

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:23:43 +0000

Oxford, Maryland is a beautiful historic town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It is one of the oldest towns in America, marking it’s founding in 1683. It is a quiet, water-lover’s paradise still populated with working watermen intermingled with Washington D.C. weekenders and retirees. This photo collection is part of a larger one, taken for other purposes, so I extracted some of the “old house” scenery to share here.

Cape May Walking Tour

admin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:59:25 +0000

My wife and I spent last weekend in Cape May, NJ; ground zero for Victorian historic homes. We stayed at the Queen Victoria on Ocean St. and it was a very enjoyable stay. The owners and staff are very cordial and work very hard to make sure you understand the basics of the Inn and are quickly able to get to the ralaxing part.

We spent a good bit of time just walking the streets to admire the homes. The size and scale of these old buildings makes you realize why today so many of them get rented out or turned into Bed & Breakfasts – they’re huge and could house a family of 15 if you were so inclined.

The Cape May oceanfront homes are seeing a flurry of rebuilding and restoration as you will see some of that in some of the photos. Click on the image above for a meager sampling of the hundreds of Victorians in Cape Mayor for the full-screen experience, see the slideshow, here.

St. Michaels, Maryland Walking Tour

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:29:31 +0000

St. Michaels, Maryland is one of my favorite places to be in the U.S. and is a great place for the appreciation of old homes. Imagine a quaint historic town with cute little shops and big-city caliber restaurants and you’ve got a good feel for the “downtown”. Drive away from the town area, down winding roads and past lush greenery, and you’ll find hundreds of miles of waterfront property and some of the most picturesque scenery anywhere. … and your historic home of your dreams can be right there at the water’s edge. … and you can catch Maryland’s treasured blue crab right in your back yard. I can’t take it. It’s just too good to be true. That’s why I see more smiles on peoples faces than anywhere else I visit on the East Coast.

St. Michaels is located in what I believe to be the most beautiful county in all of Maryland (but I’m biased), Talbot County. You can get a good overview of the region by seeing this map.

The photo above is of the Tarr House, purportedly one of the oldest houses remaining in St. Michaels from that era.

Each year St. Michaels holds a Christmas home tour and if you’re in the area in December, you should check to see if it coincides with the timing of Christmas in St. Michaels when the home tours run. Of course, any time of year is worth a trip to St. Michaels and during the warmer months it is at it’s peak.

The photo below will take you to our first photo tour from St. Michaels and only represents a small sampling of what is there.

Musical Wonder House Museum

admin — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:57:44 +0000

The Musical Wonder House is a 32-room mansion in Wiscasset, Maine that was built in 1852 by shipyard owners Henry Clark and A. Wood. Today it houses an impressive 5000+ restored musical boxes, player grand pianos and organs, spring-wound phonographs, musical birds, porcelains, clocks, steins, whistlers, and several musical paintings.

This tour is a two-for-one: The house and it’s furnishings via the Museum’s official site, and a great photo tour from CuriousExpeditions.com, whose photo set of the museum is here on Flickr.

Be sure to scroll down to the audio track at the bottom of the Curious Expeditions blog post and take a listen. It is from an 1898 Emerald Polyphon with 22-inch diameter discs and featuring 16 tuned orchestral bells playing in unison with 2 sonorous music combs.

Chatham, VA Victorian

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:15:01 +0000

Four Day, Multi-State House Tour – Guest Submission

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:32:21 +0000

Ralph Krainik, a friend of mine from his participation on my other blog just recently went on a four-day house tour through Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia with his photo model (and wife) Pam. I had never thought to take a multi-day house tour trip, but I like the way he thinks. He was gracious enough to share his photos with us. Their particular passion is Gothic Revival as you will see from the number of homes of this style captured on their trip. They are also owners of a Gothic Revival home named Seven Gables which we hope to profile on this site sometime in the future. Click on the photo above for the full set.

Oakbourne Park Water Tower

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:35:34 +0000

Although empty today, the water tower for Oakbourne Mansion’s purpose was to hold water in case of fire in the main house. I stopped by during lunchtime and snapped some photos of the tower and plan to go back for the main house in future. In the meantime, there are several more photos of the Oakbourne water tower here.