Olmsted Manor

Olmsted Manor is a grand old country estate in Ludlow, Pennsylvania.  The Tudor style mansion on the grounds was built in 1917.

It's hard to get a decent frontal photo of the house because of all the trees.  That's one thing I love about Olmsted Manor: it seems to rise naturally out of the forest all around it.

Olmsted owned a handful of electric companies in New York City and Long Island.  It's said that during his working life, he lived in Manhattan during the week and took a train to Ludlow on Friday afternoon.

He spent the weekends here with his wife and kids in this beautiful place, attended the Methodist Church in nearby Kane, then caught a train back to New York at 4:00 on Monday mornings.

As I recall, neither of his kids had children, and when Olmsted's son died, he left the house to the Methodist Church.  They use it as a retreat center.  You can actually get a room here.

The grounds are part of the joy of this place.  It's got all these enclosed gardens, and bowers, and secret places to be alone with a book or your thoughts.

It's got some grand entrances, too.

At one time, the Olmsteds had 14 full time gardeners to maintain the grounds.

It's strange that only one family ever lived here.  The son never married and lived here into old age.

Sadly, there was a women's group meeting in the main house when I stopped to visit.  They were occupying the entire building, so I wasn't really supposed to be inside.

I was not able to get any photos of the grand rooms because there were women meeting in all of them, some with the doors closed.  So I had to limit my interior photos to hallways and stairs.

Still...it's a nice hallway, right?  

All the bedrooms were standing open with luggage and toiletries in most of them.  I really didn't want anyone to think I was there to steal stuff from the bedrooms, so I didn't linger long upstairs.  Still--here's a bedroom that was open and waiting to be cleaned.

My wife and I stayed in this room many long years ago.

It's a mansion without ghost stories.  How can you have ghosts when a single family did all the living that was ever done in the house--a family of devout Methodists who neither drank nor experienced tragedies...

A nice feature of this bedroom is the little sunroom that comes attached to it.

See the little summerhouse up by the edge of the woods.  Of the many little nooks for hiding, that would be my favorite. 

This place was designed with introverts in mind...

A view of the main house from the summerhouse.

Like I said, I love the way the landscaping sort of rises naturally out of the surrounding forest. 

There's a stone picnic area with a big fireplace up by the woods.

There's a slight air of disuse about the grounds, though the retreat center seems to be pretty well used.

When I lived and worked in Kane--about 10 miles away--I came here often to write.  The director at that time was a friend.  But everyone I knew here is gone now.