23rd Annual Country Seats Tour
Historic Hudson Valley Farms
Saturday, October 15, 2011, 10:00am to 5:00pm.
Join us for a memorable autumn day in the Hudson Valley as we explore important and historic farmsteads, their barns, and iconic landscapes. The 2011 tour will showcase historic Hudson Valley farms within the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District. The self-driving tour winds its way along scenic lanes through the towns, hamlets and countryside of Staatsburg, Clinton, Rhinebeck, Red Hook, and Clermont in Dutchess and Columbia Counties, New York.
Three of the sites include significant and impressive barns that may be toured in addition to the historic homes: Kross Creek Farm, The Locusts, and Cedar Heights Orchard, which also features stunning gardens. At Willow Brook Farm, the adjacent Dutch barn is no longer part of the same property, but may be admired from the outside. The barns at Clermont and The Ridge are gone, but other outbuildings remain to offer some of the original context, and Clermont, too, has gardens that beckon visitors to explore.
This year’s tour literally spans the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, from its southern boundary in the hamlet of Staatsburg where, in addition to The Locusts, visitors may elect to go “off tour” to visit Staatsburgh (Mills Mansion) and Norrie-Mills State Park (site of Calvert Vaux’s “The Point”) as well, up to Clermont in southern Columbia County. Other possible extra-curricular stops along your way include Montgomery Place and Bard College, in Annandale. The routes between the tour sites have been selected to offer characteristic views of the local landscape, with rolling meadows, stone walls, wooded lanes, farms, hamlets and villages, set against intermittent glimpses of a backdrop of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains.
Start your tour at the Rhinebeck United Methodist Church at 83 East Market Street in the heart of historic Rhinebeck Village. Local options for morning coffee and breakfast abound, with plenty of parking on the street or in the municipal parking lot a block away. Preregistered guests will find their CST admission wristbands waiting for them, along with coupons for the optional boxed lunch catered by Gigi’s (to be picked up at Clermont) and the optional tour of Clermont itself. Then head either north or south, following the directions and map in your tour packet. Both tour routes bring visitors to Clermont in the early afternoon, allowing time for lunch on the grounds and a tour of the house, if you wish, before continuing to the remaining sites on the tour. Of course you may visit the sites in any order, choose to skip one, or to stay longer at another as you wish. And if a boxed lunch does not meet your needs, many other options for a quick lunch at local eateries exist as well, with a list of some of them provided in your tour packet.
So come early, plan to arrive at the first site at 10:00 am (our tour center opens at 9:00 am), and spend the day enjoying all the beauty of the Hudson Valley in mid-October.
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