Now through January 6,
2013, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is presenting “Grand Holiday at
the Mansion: From Victorian to Modern.”
This exhibit features
glorious Victorian holiday exhibits displayed throughout the
first floor. Period rooms will be decorated to show changing traditions from
the 1850s through the 1890s with many different Christmas trees, a holiday
table setting and Victorian children’s toys.
A special treat this
year will be a display of holiday traditions from the early 1930s
drawing inspiration from a letter written by Florence Mathews, the last
resident of the Mansion, in 1933.
Regular
tour hours are noon - 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday and General
Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $6 for children and
young adults ages 8-18. For more information visit www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com. For area information visit www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com .
About
Lockwood Matthews
Mansion
Your first stop is
the Lockwood Matthews Mansion,
on the National Register of Historic Places and often described as "one of
the earliest and finest surviving Second Empire style country houses ever built
in the United States".
This 62- room
mansion predates Newport's mansions by more than twenty years. Built in 1864 by
LeGrand Lockwood, who made his fortune in banking and the railroad industry and
designed by European-trained, New York-based architect Detlef Lienau, the house
was completed in just four years.
Many American and
immigrant artisans put the finishing interior design touches on this opulent
house. The estate was foreclosed in 1874 due to Lockwood's untimely death and
financial reversals.
The
property was sold to the Mathews in 1876 and the family resided in it until
1938. In 1941 the estate was sold to the City of Norwalk and designated a
public park.
