Just before Halloween I was lucky enough to visit the Lyndhurst mansion.
The mansion is in Tarry Town New York and was built in 1838. Its done in a European gothic style and is smaller then a lot of other mansions along the Hudson River that were built at a later date. Situated in the middle of an English style park it was a weekend retreat for several powerful industrialists. The last resident of mansion was Anna, Duchess of Talleyrand-Perigord, the daughter of rail way tycoon Jay Gould who lived in the mansion for many years. After her death in 1961 Anna donated the mansion to the national historic trust. Its been used as a back drop in several movies, particularly two TV movies based on the Dark Shadows soap opera, and its open to the public. The best part of the mansion is that its gorgeous grounds are dog friendly. On the morning we went with Norbert and Weasley the grounds were nearly deserted and it was absolutely beautiful.
Since it was almost Halloween there was a scare crow festival at the mansion. The scarecrows had been designed by local high school students and they were really amazing.
I found myself coveting some of the vintage outfits on the scarecrows, a few of the dresses were pretty nice. Speaking of vintage clothes I wore a really lovely 1930s style sweater from Vintage and Cool Knitting. She makes really beautiful sweaters from old patterns and I am so thankful to the beautiful Jessica at Chronically Vintage for posting about these sweaters on her wonderful blog.
Its so amazing that there is a special place like this, one full of beauty and history, that people can share with their dogs. Sadly, many parks and estates don't allow dogs on the grounds, perhaps because of irresponsible owners or mistaken beliefs that owners will be irresponsible. I was quite relieved that while at Lyndhurst I did not see one speck of dog poo, an unfortunately constant site in my neighborhood park. Hopefully, if owners keep things beautiful we will have more places like this to enjoy with our dogs.
