Historic Home Tours; Visitors are Expecting More
by Silas Finch
Few would disagree that the preservation of historic buildings, homes, businesses, churches, and state buildings, is an important part keeping a cultural legacy alive. The History Channel, most books, and sometimes even traditional museums struggle to provide the sense of the immediacy of the past and the keyhole view of the daily lives of our ancestor the way historic homes can. Beyond their profound artistic and architectural appeal the historic homes open to the public provide our society with a valuable educational tool and, in the case of many small towns, provide a center of community focus and local pride.
Why then has a there been a drop in the number of people visiting historic homes? There is much debate about the causes but there can be little doubt that despite their obvious appeal and educational value tourists simply aren't visiting historic homes the way the once did. Those interested in the matter see articles in travel publications and antique journals mournfully detailing the matter.
Well, detailing the individual stories anyway. As far as I'm aware there has been no serious study on the trends in historic home visits but the sad eyes and worried tone of voice found among curators is unmistakable. If you want to know if home and historic landmark touring is down simply ask the people who operate them.
Historic home directors say they have been facing a down turn in visits for years now. Opinions vary as to when the drop off really began but the consensus places the date around the September 11th, 2001 World Trade Center bombing and the subsequent drop in travel. The increase in gasoline prices that followed made things worse. Recreational travel declined sharply and in many travel niches never fully recovered the story goes. The kind of leisurely, meandering driving vacation that brought families to the out of the way places where many historic homes lie was in sad decline.
However the truth might not be quite as simple as that. Historic home tours might aught to consider the works of Catherine Fields, Director of the
Litchfield Historical Society
in Litchfield Connecticut. She believes the issue to be much more complicated than a simple decline in tourism. She says the culture offers so many entertainment and instructional outlets that historic homes are facing an environment that is more competitive than in the past and they must find ways to reach a distracted audience. In her 20 years on the job Ms. Fields has learned "A good historic home shouldn't be static, it tells a story".
When compared with waterparks, drive through safaris, interactive science fun centers, and even up to date museums, historic homes suffer something of an image problem. A common view of a historic home is one of an aged snapshot. A moment frozen in time, removed from the flow of human events. The room is there, the furniture is there but where is the viewer in relation the people that lived and worked there? Unless extremely interested in historic matters it is too easy to come away from home tours without much connection to the lives of those who dwelled there and less understanding of their relation to history generally. Architecture lovers and serious history buffs will find much to be fascinated with in a well preserved historic home but many people, especially the young, will find it frankly, dull.
Fields and The Litchfield Historical Society faced this issue in regards to their operation of the Tapping Reeve Law School and House. The historical society had opened the home to tourist during the 1930s and 1966 it was declared a National Historic Landmark. The house was built in 1773 for the jurist Tapping Reeve and his wife Sally Burr. Before long Sally's brother, future vice president, and America's most famous duelist came to live with the couple and study law. Before the law school closed its doors in 1833 more than 1100 students attended classes there. The list of graduates is startling, besides Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun a future Secretary of War and State and slavery expansion proponent, George Catlin the famous painter of Native Americans, as well as 101 US Congressmen, 28 US Senators, and 3 Supreme Court Justices all passed through the Tapping Reeve School.
About a decade ago the Society asked how do you communicate the dynamic notion of 1100 of America's best and brightest moving through a single location to the visiting public. At a time when the very definition of what it meant to be an American was being formed many that would help settle that definition were gathered together in a pair of unpretentious wooden building in Litchfield Connecticut studying law and arguing.
The static display failed to communicate the impact and dynamism of what was America's first law school and gave an inaccurate representation of how the building had evolved physically over the years. They performed a careful study of the building's various additions and the rearrangements that inevitably take place in order to provide the most historically accurate exhibit possible.
Just as important was creating an entire experience meant to educate and entertain. The historic home was made more like a museum, in the modern sense of the word. A video introduction was produced. Cards were printed and are given to visitors that describes one of the famous or not so famous law school attendees. The handouts tell of the travel to attend the school, where that person fell in the politics of the day, as well as providing a biographical sketch. They invite you to put a face on the furniture and provide a personal touchstone that keeps the visitor connected to what they are seeing. Throughout the tour you find portraits, writings, or personal affects that relate to person.
Efforts are made to show you the daily life of what must have been extraordinary place. On display at a students desk is a facsimile of one student's census of his class mates and his opinions of them. In one and two words he sums up his fellows in term such as "rich", "stupid", "kindly" and, "drunken".
Perhaps it is these kinds of touches that Catherine Fields said "personalize and make (the Law School) more human", that historic homes need to revive their sagging fortunes. Simply put, if historic homes want more visitors maybe they need to be more exciting places to visit.
Silas Finch is a freelance writer and regular contributor to New England Antiquing. He can be reached at:
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