Hi everyone. Happy Tuesday/T day once again. We'd been having some lovely October weather, but, now autumn has really arrived. Brr. It was chilly today.
For T this week I am going to take you on another little road trip I took a few weeks back, this time with my daughter. Yes, this has been a great early fall for road trips. I love it!
I met my daughter right over the Vermont border (New Hampshire and Vermont share a long common border on the west side of New Hampshire) at a park and ride. I wanted to go to the King Arthur Flour baker's store to stock up on some not so easy to find baking supplies for my fall, winter and holiday baking. My daughter had a few errands to run also.
After our morning at the baking store and some lunch. we also decided to visit a national art historic monument, St. Gaudens National Monument, in Cornish, New Hampshire. The house and grounds had been the summer home of Augustus Saint Gaudens. St. Gaudens was a popular and prolific sculptor in the late 1880's and into the very early years of the 1900's.
His works can be found in many places including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, the Boston Common, in Chicago, Central Park in NY, and a few places in Washington DC. He also designed some US coins during his lifetime. I even discovered on Wikipedia he has a statue in Dublin, Ireland, as he was born in that country.
This area is now owned and operated by the United Sates National Park Service.
Here we are in a selfie.
It's been many years since I visited this park. There are several original sculptures and copies of some of St. Gaudens' sculptures on the grounds. He was a man of his time, and the art is very classical. Several of the sculptures have to do with events or people from the American Civil War (1860-1865), which occurred when St. Gaudens was a young man.
One of the most "wow" places on the grounds is this courtyard.
This frog wasn't too impressed with the art, but he loved the pool.
It was a grey day, and the gold leaf really popped.
The first floor of St. Gauden's home was open for a few hours while we visited. He used this as his summer home until the last few years of his life, when he moved here permanently. After he died, his wife (interestingly named Augusta) went back to using it as a summer home. We went and checked it out.
It was a pretty classic New England colonial home, one of my favorite kinds. And it is not a very big home either, even though these outside photos make it look that way. There was 4 rooms on the first floor, the with kitchen expanded off the side of the house.
Because St. Gaudens' wife and son made this home into a park, (which was then later picked up by the US National Park Service), all the furnishing are original to the family.
In this next photo dinner is served for us. The wine is already poured.
Let me end this post with a few pretty outside views.
Sadly, there was some antisemitic vandalism in the park recently (since I visited) and some of the monuments were spray painted. First of all, it is sad that people are still antisemitic in this day and age. Actually more than sad. Who you are should make you more interesting if you respect others. Second of all, why ruin something that is there for anyone to enjoy? I'm not sure what the spray painters hoped to accomplish, but I hope if they are caught they are charged with the cost of getting the monuments cleaned up. They say that it will expensive to do that.
Next week for T, I will show you more of the grounds and sculptures, pre-vandalism. You can read about the sculptor St. Gaudens here:
St. Gaudens.
I hope you enjoyed this little visit. Have a wonderful T day and rest of your week.
And as always, thanks for visiting.
