Get your ‘Downton Abbey’ fix at this mid-Hudson mansion
Nickie Hayes
If you are a fan of shows such as “The Gilded Age,” on HBO, or movies like the “Downton Abbey” film “A New Era,” the Staatsburgh State Historic Site has an interesting event to take you back to that time.
At 11 a.m. Saturday March 23 and 30, the Staatsburgh State Historic Site is offering themed 90-minute tours, showing the real-life characters at Staatsburgh, in the same way the shows you love portray.
Staatsburgh State Historic Site was the country home of Ogden Mills and his wife Ruth Livingston Mills, who in 1896 transformed the great estate, a 25-room Greek Revival style home, into a BeauxArts mansion of 65 rooms and 14 bathrooms.
A glance into the real-life Gilded Age
A costumed guide will lead you one what the site has dubbed “The REAL Gilded Age” tour, where you’ll peer into a busy weekend of high-society entertaining, as the servants and Mills family would’ve conducted during the time.
If you watched “The Gilded Age,” or are familiar with the time period, high society engaged in extravagant parties, lavish meals and entertainment, including the Mills family, with house parties held at Staatsburgh.
To have these events, they needed a full staff of servants to make it happen, catering to the needs of the family and the guests. At the tour you’ll be able to get a historically accurate glimpse of what it really would have been like.
The Staatsburgh State Historic Site also has a connection to the storyline of the show, “Downton Abbey,” as the heiress, Cora, married the fictional Earl of Grantham. Beatrice Mills of Staatsburgh married the actual Earl of Granard.
How to go to this event
Reservations for the tour are required and can be made online. Regular admission is $12, students and seniors admission is $10 and children 12 and under can go for free.
After the themed tour, they’re welcoming anyone to take the self-guided landscape tour or walk the trails in adjacent Mills and Norrie State Parks.
To learn more about Staatsburgh State Historic Site’s programs and events, check out their reservations page at Bookeo.com/StaatsburghSHS.
Nickie Hayes: NHayes@poughkee.gannett.com : 845-863-3518