Historic House Tour in Ancram, NY

by Auntie M on Oct 16, 2008

The Ancram Preservation Group announced that it will host a house tour on Saturday, October 25, 2008, from 12 to 4 PM. The Ancram Historic House Tour will feature five private homes, all within a few miles of the hamlet of Ancram.

Ancram is in the Hudson Valley, one hundred miles north of New York City, an hour south of Albany, and a short drive from Northwest Connecticut and the Berkshires.
The theme of the self-guided tour is “Old Houses: New Life”. The houses are all old, from the 19th century and earlier, with histories that reflect Southern Columbia County’s heritage. The Ancram area is known for its largely untouched pastoral landscape, and for its history. Founded in the early 1740′s as part of the vast Livingston Manor – the town is named for the ancestral home of the Livingston family in Scotland – the town was home to the Ancram iron forge which played a significant role in the American Revolution.
Far from being museum restorations, the five are all living working homes, whose owners – several of them artists – have impressed their own personalities on the houses, while preserving the spirit of the past.
The tour will be followed by a wine and cheese reception at Simons General Store, an 1874 landmark in the center of Ancram, which the Ancram Preservation Group purchased in 2000. Tickets for the tour are $35 per person, $45 including the reception; $30/$40 for members of APG. Guests can pick up their tickets, with maps and directions, on the morning of the tour, after 11AM at the Ancram Town Hall. (1416 County Route 7, one-quarter mile north of the blinking light at the intersection with State Route 82.) The Bottle Tree, a gourmet café across the road from the Town Hall, will be open from 11 to 4, to sell snacks and lunches to hungry tour-goers.
The event is a benefit for the Ancram Preservation Group, a community based non-profit dedicated to promoting Ancram’s historic architecture and rural heritage. For more information about APG and the tour, go to www.ancrampreservationgroup.org, or call 518 398 6435.