Tag: holiday house tours

Osborne Homestead decked out for the holidays

The Osborne Homestead Museum located on 500 Hawthorne Ave in Derby is festooned for the holidays. Each year six regional garden clubs get together to decorate the house in accordance with a theme, this year the theme is music… and they are celebrating Holiday at the Symphony!

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Each room if the Osborne Homestead showcases the different musical components of the symphony orchestra. Upon entering the museum, visitors will see and learn about the musical instrument families and the Osborne family’s influence in the music industry.

Frances Osborne Kellogg, an accomplished violinist and secretary of the National Association of Conductors and Composers shared her love of music with the community by bringing world-renowned performers and opera singers to the Sterling Opera House in Derby. She was also the founder of the Derby Choral Society and hired the distinguished Yale composer, Horatio Parker to direct the choral club. This years holiday decorations showcase the love of Frances’ and her family’s love of music.

Recently renovated, the Osborne Homestead built in the mid.-1800’s encompasses the former Frances Osborne Kellogg Estate. This house was enlarged and remodeled in the Colonial Revival style during the 1920s. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the interior displays original contents of the estate that includes fine antiques and paintings.

This festive house tour, with each room lavishly decorated is sure to inspire you to decorate your home or apartment. The tours are free of charge although donations are appreciated. Tours of the house are available on Thursdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through December 20.

For a special treat, take one of the twilight house tours on Friday, December 19. If you will be touring the house with a group of 8 or more people, please call ahead 203-734-2513 to reserve a tour date and time.

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Westport’s Holiday House Tour and Twilight Soiree

The Westport Historical Society’s Holiday House Tour’s theme for this year is “Rooms with a View”. The tour will be held on Saturday, December 7 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and it will be followed from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. by the Twilight Soiree hosted by Lillian August’s flagship Norwalk store.

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This year’s five-house lineup in Westport and Weston will showcase homes owned or designed by well-known local interior designers and architects. The homes are diverse and include a Nantucket-style cottage at Compo Beach with a roof-top deck overlooking the water, as well as a hilltop Francophile’s chateau offering sweeping vistas.

Three of the houses are owned by interior designers, so this will be a good opportunity to see how the professionals decorate for the Christmas and Hanukkah seasons. A pianist will play at one of the homes, and several will be serving hot cider, hot chocolate, and holiday sweets.

Houses to be featured are:

Interior designer Olga Adler’s Saugatuck Shores residence: Rebuilt in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, this property went from a “tired rambler with multiple-personality disorder,” as Adler put it, to “a clean-lined, modern beach house with touches of global chic and a twist of Bohemia.”

Artist Kerri Rosenthal’s colorful mod colonial: Constructed in the late 1990s by award-winning builder Scott Buddenhagen, this home serves as a gallery for Rosenthal’s art. She works with D2 Interieurs as a color consultant, and their work has been featured in New England Home and At Home magazines this year.
1920s house designed by Frazier Forman Peters: One of Westport’s best-known and most original builders, Peters used native field stone and other textured materials to complement the landscape around his houses. This one is notable for the green Welsh quarry tiles on the fireplace and window sills, as well as for the pecky cypress ceilings in several of the rooms.

Designer Donna Gordon’s chateau in bucolic Weston ridge-top setting: A collaboration by award-winning architect, Judith Larson, with interior design by Gordon. Details, furnishings, and antiques reflect the owners many travels to France.

A Compo Beach house designed by Peter Cadoux Architects, built by Tiefenthaler Construction, and decor by Lillian August: This cherished family retreat built in 2011 on property that has been in the same family for three generations, was featured on the cover of East Coast Design Magazine in Spring 2012.

Tour-goers can visit the houses in any order they wish. Maps will be provided with tickets, and docents will be on hand to discuss furnishings and design elements.

The Twilight Soiree will feature savory hors d’oeuvres prepared by Garelick & Herbs, wine, holiday music, and an opportunity to take part in a silent auction. Up for grabs will be an America’s Cup Cruise, getaways to a Cape Cod vacation home and a mountain ski house, antique French pottery, and a painting by Weston artist Kerri Rosenthal, whose home and studio are part of the tour. Guests will also enjoy 10% off on purchases of Lillian August furnishings, with an additional 10% benefiting the Westport Historical Society.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit www.westporthistory.org, call (203) 222-1424, or stop in at Westport Historical Society, 25 Avery Place, across from Town Hall.

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Hotchkiss Fyler House Opens for Holiday House Tours

The elegant Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum, located at 192 Main Street, is decorated for the holiday season and will open for tours beginning December 14 and continuing to December 29th, Wednesdays through Sundays.

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Museum staff members will offer guided tours of the house which was built in 1900 and home to the Hotchkiss and Fyler families for more than half a century. The house has been maintained as a museum since 1956 when the last family member, Gertrude Fyler Hotchkiss, bequeathed the property to the Torrington Historical Society.

Much of the Christmas decoration is done in turn-of-the-century style with lavish displays of greenery, garlands, wreaths and flowers adorning the staircase, chandeliers, and mantles. This year, several local floral artists have created custom arrangements to set off the home’s rich interior of mahogany woodwork and stenciled walls. Seven Christmas trees, a number of them decorated by private individuals using vintage ornaments from their own collections, are displayed over the first and second floors of the house. Visitors can also view antique toys from the Torrington Historical Society’s collection, arranged beneath the trees.

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The dining room table will be set for Christmas dinner with the linens, china, and crystal that belonged to Gertrude Fyler Hotchkiss.

Guided tours of the Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum will be available Wednesdays through Sundays, 12 noon to 4 p.m., with tours on the half hour and the last tour each day at 3:30 p.m. The house is closed Mondays, Tuesdays, and on December 25th. Admission is $7 for adults, free for members and children under age 12. Children must be accompanied by an adult. For more information, call the Society at 860-482-8260 pr visit www.torringtonhistoricalsociety.org. For area information www.litchfieldhills.com

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