Touring a Gilded Age Mansion in Upstate NY

so so this so so so um so so so so so so so um hello everybody thanks for joining us uh just give us one minute as we uh adjust the camera here and then we'll get right into the tour uh welcome to the phelps mansion my name is joe schersh i'm the house manager here and i will be showing you guys around today um this is kind of a new thing for us given the situation right now so if we have any technical difficulties just kind of bear with us and we'll uh if we lose the feed we'll get right back into it as quickly as we can if you have any questions certainly uh ask them i'll try to answer any that come up mark dickinson our board chair is behind the camera and uh we'll be following around uh with us today we're just gonna give it another minute or so to let some more people join in on the tour if you're not from binghamton or even if you are from the binghamton area maybe comment where you're watching from be interesting to see where we're reaching so just give another minute or so and then we'll we'll get going we're really looking forward to uh sharing the history of our house and uh we'll also throw in some binghamton history as well especially for those of you who are not familiar with the city so virtual chores are not a new thing in fact they can be traced back to the 19th century in some aspects sir charles wheatstone created a binocular type device in 1832 called a stereoscope that enabled each eye to view each image separately thus creating a three-dimensional effect he originally used dargerio photos in 1840 sir david brewster tweaked wheat stones device and in 1851 at the great exhibition queen victoria took fancy to the to the device and what the queen likes the world likes in 1856 the london stereoscopic company had pushed mass production of stereo cards into most middle and upper class homes with their success the company began sending photographers around the world to create stereo cards of over one hundred thousand different places and views in 1861 with the help of joseph l bates oliver wendell holmes designed a handheld stereoscope viewer like the one you're seeing here on the camera now that allowed individual adjustments for viewing so we we talk a lot about the history of our building but i do think it's important that we recognize the history of the city of binghamton as well and um i i don't often i'm not i'm not an expert in binghamton history i'm more of an expert in this history so i got some cheat sheet notes here just to keep my mind up on track but binghamton sits at the confluence of the susquehanna and shenango rivers it was originally an iroquois indian settlement unfortunately the iroquois were pushed out of the area during the sullivan clinton campaign in 1779. uh they were basically forcefully removed from the area settlements were destroyed people were taken prisoner in 1787 the first settler started arriving here in binghamton and the area was originally known as chenango point around 1800 the village was laid out by a gentleman named joshua whitney who was working for william bam william bingham was a wealthy philadelphia merchant and uh he owned a lot of land here in upstate new york and he also owned about over 2 million acres in the state of maine it was known as bingham's purchase one of the biggest things that helped with the development and the growth here in the city of binghamton was the chenango canal which was begun in 1834 with the canal eventually going all the way up to utica and connecting to the erie canal binghamton started transitioning from more of an agricultural base society to more of an industrial society the canal was in use for quite some time but by 1878 um it was eventually filled in and paved over and it's today known as state street here in binghamton in 1848 the trains began arriving here in binghamton referred to as the iron horse with the trains binghamton became a central railroad cup and a lot of new industries started popping up so binghamton became a very industrialized city in fact if you if you had the time uh to research you would see that there were quite a bit of things made here in the binghamton area one of the largest manufacturers during the time of our house which was 1870 was cigars by 1890s cigar was the largest manufacturing industry in binghamton there were many cigar factories throughout the area employing many employees and eventually binghamton was number two in the production of cigars only behind new york city later in life as you get into the 1900s you have the bundy time recording company the endicott johnson shoot company ibm antsco film and the list could go on and on but i know that we're here to talk about our house so i think we should dive right into our tour we're standing in the front parlor i'm sorry the front doors of the phelps mansion here you can see they're quite large doors we're going to move into the parlor and come back to this area in a little bit but i want to talk to you more about the phelps family and who he was so if you would like please follow me into the farther so we're standing in the formal parlor before we talk about the house i just want to talk about mr phelps whose portrait you can see over here above the piano in the corner sherman phelps was born in 1814 in simsbury connecticut he was the youngest of nine children uh when mr phelps turned 14 years old he completed his eighth grade education and moved from simsbury uh to dundalk pennsylvania where he joined his two older brothers in the operation of a glass factory uh that they were overseeing there he worked in the factory alongside his brothers kind of learning the world of business until around the 1840s when he moved from dumdeth to tonkanic pennsylvania he opened a general store there the business became very successful and eventually he would start investing money in railroads and coal and that was one of the ways that the fortune kind of started the other way was that he married into wealth not once but twice so that's always very handy when trying to build a new fortune for yourself as well mr phelps married his first wife in 1842 her name was susan they did have a baby daughter named stella unfortunately stella only lived to be four months old and mrs phelps died three days later uh she was 21 years old when she passed away um he would not remarry till around 1853 when he met his second wife elizabeth they were wed and in 1854 sherman and elizabeth moved from tonkanic to binghamton and when he arrived here in town one of the first things he did was help to establish the susquehanna valley savings bank which was two blocks down the street later he was part owner of the gas and water company here in binghamton he was an investor in many of binghamton's earliest industries and in 1872 he was elected the fifth mayor of the city of binghamton mr mrs phelps had two sons robert and arthur they were both born here in binghamton as well unfortunately mrs phelps never saw this house she passed away in 1861 at the age of 35 years old at that point uh eventually an older niece joined the family her name was sarah sarah phelps ireland and she she kind of filled the role of lady of the house for for mr phelps and she would remain here even when they weren't living here but at their other house she came here when this house was built and she would stay here with the family until 1878 when mr phelps passed away she would go up to syracuse and live out the rest of her life up there so a little bit about the house sherman phelps had this house built in 1870 it cost 120 000 to build it and it was completed in 18 months it had all the modern luxuries that you could have of that time it had gas lighting it had central heat it had four bathrooms originally there were over 20 rooms in the mansion we have three floors plus a basement downstairs as well and all the ceiling heights are 14 feet through all the top three floors of the building uh mark if you could turn around behind the blue chairs there you can see one of the uh the heat vents supplying the central heat to the house there's a giant coal furnace in the basement that would supply the central heat to the mansion they also have nine fireplaces throughout the house as well to aid in keeping the house warm and comfortable on cold binghamton nights the light fixtures throughout the first floor were strategically placed opposite mirrors so that the light would reflect and help brighten up these big rooms and then during the daytime hours especially on sunny days we have these gigantic windows throughout the house that allow natural daylight to come through the building the house is filled with all different types of woodwork different types of marble in this room the lighter woodwork that you're seeing here is birdseye maple the darker wood is rosewood we also have a little bit of fiddleback maple here on the fireplace and you'll see some of the marble here as well of course the largest portion of marble throughout the house is the italian marble floor which is lined in the main hall of the mansion the furniture is not original to the family of their period pieces basically the only thing original to the management are the things that are built into the house today and i'll explain more about why that is as we continue along with our tour here on the right side of the fireplace we have a portrait of sherman phelps's daughter-in-law harriet harriet married the oldest son robert in 1879 just a year after mr phelps passed away mr taylor her father was another wealthy businessman here in the area and in fact the tailors lived right down the street court street was once a row of mansions here today we are the last of the big houses left on the street all the other ones were torn down between the 1930s and 1960s as binghamton became more commercially developed we lost a lot of great buildings in the area but thankfully we still have some to enjoy today as well so over on the other side of the wall here is sarah mather rogers sarah is kind of like an in-law to the family she was related to norman phelps who was one of sherman's brother's sons so her portrait was donated by a family who still lived in the area to hang in our parlor because of the phelps family connection to the building so we're going to move from the formal parlor here which was where the family would entertain guests and cross through these beautiful pocket doors into the back parlor also known as the library today so the the back parlor also like i said referred to as the library kind of has an interesting story uh the large bookcases that you're seeing here on either side of the fireplace although they look like they they belong in this house they were never really in place until 1923 which was much after the phelpses were here some people say that they were originally meant to be here and the architect's granddaughter had returned them to the house in 1923. it's it's kind of a story that we're not really sure of the exact answer but uh you know as you can see they do look like they belong here so it does kind of make some sense that maybe they were actually meant for this house um on the fireplace you can see these beautiful bronze griffins the griffins are mythological creatures they represent strength and power and they appear on the phelps family crest so there are griffins incorporated throughout the architecture of the house i'll point out the others as we move through the mansion over on the wall we'd like to just give a shout out to the architect of the house here this is isaac perry isaac was from bennington vermont and later grew up in keysville new york eventually he moved to new york city where he was working and training under an architect there before coming to binghamton around 1854 he had won a contest to design the new york state and knee breed asylum here in binghamton it was the first facility to designed and built to treat alcoholism right here in binghamton and it was the first in the country and i'll show you a picture of that when we go upstairs so you can see the building that we're talking about isaac perry designed a lot of buildings here in binghamton he helped complete or help design the courthouse four churches other residences and then in 1883 he was called to albany by grover cleveland who was then governor of new york to finish the state capitol building the state capitol building eventually it took 32 years to build it in 1899 governor teddy roosevelt decided that he had had enough of the building uh of spending money on it so he declared it finished and so in 1899 isaac would return to binghamton permanently he was appointed state architect during his time in albany he designed several armories throughout the state and he would live out the rest of his life here in binghamton as well the capitol building is a beautiful building the the irony is that even though it took 32 years to build it technically it's still not finished if you ever have the opportunity to tour the capitol building the guides there will point out several parts of the building that are left unfinished and it doesn't have its dome it's the only state capital without a dome and it probably never will have a dome but uh there were four different architects and isaac was the last two to wrap things up up there so we'll move on are there any questions so far mark that you've seen or people just kind of watching yeah people are watching listen um we'll move on to uh the next part of the house i will point out um behind us here off in the corner you can see that room with the bright floral wallpaper in there today that's a bathroom it was originally built to be a closet but it was converted to a small bathroom in the 1900s [Music] uh another interesting thing about the house of course is that the phelps family did employ a staff um of at least three or four sometimes maybe even five people most of the staff lived here there were some bedrooms upstairs dedicated to the staff of the house there's also an area downstairs for the cook which is where the original kitchen was on the basement as well a long time ago when things were being done in the basement of the house there were actually speaking tubes found in the walls so it's believed that the speaking tubes were the original component of the house to be able to communicate from room to room at some point those were removed and covered over and the call bell uh like mark had just kind of showed you here um the call bell system was placed throughout the mansion instead so today we have these little buttons all throughout the house um the photograph up above is isaac perry holding his granddaughter lucretia and then up above that photo is another photo of lucretia when she was older she ended up marrying sherman phelps's grand nephew william g phelps jr around 1917 so with that being said we'll we'll move on and we'll continue our tour into the front hall of the house here and if i forgot to point out the woodworking library the woodwork in there is walnut which is also carried over out here into the hall we have the the hall is lined with rural accents so you can see the barrel here and lots of mirrors in the hall to brighten up the center of the house we do have a calling card table here nearest our back door uh calling cards were dropped off to the house at the rear uh by anybody wishing to call upon the family like most wealthy houses you couldn't just drop in unexpectedly calling cards would be sent down and then invites would be sent back uh usually within a week to let you know if the family would uh allow you to uh call upon them so that's what this table is here the top piece more than likely had more mirrors across the entire top and you can very faintly see where there are holes here now there once hooks there to hang your hats and things as you came from the back of the mansion in the middle of the hall we have a black walnut staircase it's estimated that the staircase cost about five thousand dollars to build when the house was constructed black walnuts are very hard durable long-lasting wood and as you can see when we have a lot of people who go up and down these stairs every year and uh they're still holding strong 150 years later at the newell post here we have these hand-carved cranes you can see the cranes there all carved out of wood and a beautiful light fixture here as well kind of helping to brighten up the middle of the hallway over on the other side behind us i'll let mark turn the camera here uh way up in the corner you can see those wing griffons again and in the crest are sherman phelps's initials there's a s a d and a p for sherman david phelps you can see the way this large mirror here which is surrounded by african mahogany wood reflects the grand staircase here so again it opens up the hall and makes the house feel more spacious as well we do have a cool little drawer here it's up to up for debate as to what it was actually used for we call it our glove drawer today we do a little pair of gloves in here but it's just kind of a neat little neat little drawer if anybody actually has seen one or knows what it might have been used for let us know in the comments you can help us solve a mystery so with that being said we're going to move up to the front doors of the house here and show you the in between spaces of the double doors so these are a little bit of a tight space in here but um tall kind of feel like you're in a fancy elevator so to speak we have beautiful mahogany woodwork throughout the room and if you look up in the four corners you'll see these beautiful corinthian columns with their very ornate capitals carved out of wood up above you have a coffered ceiling up there kinda looks like someone stuck a door on the ceiling up there so a very nice entryway as you're coming in the front of the house i was gonna pop the front doors here for just a minute to show you that the front doors have no door knobs um because again this was a house you had to be led into you would have received your invite and the maids would know basically who was showing up at the house at any given day and so somebody would be here to show you into the to the house all of the hardware on the doors is original to the building there's a little keyhole here so if the family came home and wanted to use their front door they certainly can um do you want to take a look out front real quick okay it's a little bright out here so i don't know what the camera is going to do as we step out um but right next door here where our library is today was once uh location of the mansion then there were a few more going down that way uh the cast iron fence surrounds the entire property there were there was a fountain in the front yard where this big tree is today and then there were raised flower beds throughout the yard as well um if you guys are getting a little peek of the church across the street that was built in 1893 saint mary's church and really this was the end of the road uh we're two blocks from downtown binghamton but this this really was the the edge of the city when mr phelps had this house built as binghamton grew in population then with you know it expanded outward at that point so we're gonna go back inside and we'll head into the receiving room next so the receiving room of the house is basically like a fancy waiting room it's where guests would typically be asked to wait this is also walnut in here as well you can see around the fireplace so this beautiful tile with english ivy pretty good looking considering how old it is still bright as ever a light fixture in this room is from new york city it was made by a company called pottier and stymus and they made furniture and light fixtures for these uh yield age mansions you can see the figure on this on the chandelier there is athena the goddess of wisdom war and justice now it just so happens that mr phelps while he was still living in pennsylvania served as a judge for two years in the wyoming county courts he was an associate judge and so for the rest of his life he preferred the title of judge phelps or the honorable sherman phelps which is why if mark pans down there you'll see we have a judge's gavel on the table there but oddly enough that's not the only place the gavels appear in this room if you look around the room there are gavels carved into the woodwork on all four sides of the room here so that you did not forget that you were in judge phelps's house so it's a little a little throwback to his uh title preference here some may say he had a little bit of an ego and giving that he was a very wealthy man he probably did so there's no we won't dispute that back so but again you see nice bright room here throughout the house with all this light coming through these giant windows on rainy days of course the house is a much different environment because it's very dark and dreary in here the windows do have shutter systems so you can close the window completely off from the sunlight or you could open up both sets of shutters or go half and half however you prefer to do it they probably would have kept the bottom ones closed for privacy and had the top open for light during the summer months we you could close all the windows off and help keep the house dark and cool by shutting the shutters shutting the shades you know drawing the curtains those types of things so anybody have any questions so far or are we still just watching watching okay commenting on how wonderful it is okay good well i'm glad you guys are having a good time uh we we certainly are are excited to be able to share this building with you um we were kind of saddened when we had to close down and uh you know everything's kind of up in the air so who knows when we'll be able to get back in the building again after this point so uh we're going to make the most of this tour because it could be a while before we have another one so we're going to move to the dining room next as we do i don't know if the phone will pick this up or not but as we leave this room if you look at the placement of the hall mirror out in the main hall in the dining room here it does look like hallways that go on forever i'm not sure if you guys can see that um on the camera but it's kind of a cool illusion so it makes the house feel bigger as you come in the front doors so with that being said we're going to move to the dining room next so this is the one and only dining room in the house um by some mansion standards this is not a very large dining room um in fact mr phelps this diner only typically would seat about 10 guests um he really wasn't much of an entertaining kind of guy you know especially after he lost his second wife um you know he kept entertaining minimal and if he did it was it was on a smaller setting so he did have a large billiard room on the third floor of the house though so if in the event they needed a bigger space they could typically use the billiard room on the third level of the house as you look around the dining room today you see this beautiful oak woodwork the chair rails are lined with burl the wall covering is not original to the house it was put up in the 1970s because by then the original wall covering was about 100 years old um and not looking very fitting for a grand house like this so it was it was changed at that point um mark probably just got a quick glimpse of the chandelier there i don't know if you guys caught the squirrels at the top there the chandeliers from england there are three squirrels up there uh holding what i believe are walnuts or egg corns and then we also have the egg corns and oak leaves all around the chandelier here which again is spinning because we're in a we're in an oak a room filled with oak woodwork over on the original sideboard here i'll let mark slowly tap the camera around so you guys can see the sideboard there's a lot of decorative detail in it beautiful beautiful carvings throughout the sideboard i'll point things out and let that heart be a little bit closer but you can see with a lion's head here and then up above the mirror there's a fox's head and then directly underneath them there are carved grates on either side of the mirror and just above the mirror there so the maids can set things down here and then serve to the guests or the family that was seated at the table as mark moves around the dining room here i'll point out the fireplace uh you can see on either side of the fireplace there are carved fish the details are amazing you could actually if you were to touch it you could feel the scales of the fish carved into the woodwork there we also have a cluster of fruit directly below the mantle here as well and then of course the most interesting thing in the dining room is uh what's up above the fireplace uh those are stuffed european woodcock behind glass with a painting like diorama setting behind them there and believe it or not those those are original to the house that box has never been disturbed no one's been brave enough to attempt to touch them thankfully and so they're there they stay for who knows how many more years hopefully a long long time so we're going to quickly just show you guys the conservatory which is also off the dining room you see he's got these glass pocket doors here so it allows the light from the eastern side of the house to kind of flood the dining room if you a long time ago the conservatory would overlook lawns and gardens that were out there on the side of the mansion and uh not a parking lot which is what we have out there today the room itself was filled with plants and according to the inventory of the house the salsas had 16 birds living in the room there was always a fountain in here as well the one you're going to see as mark moves into the room is not original this one was added later the original one actually stood in the middle of the room and was removed at some point um also in there you'll see a photograph of the original carriage house that stood on the property that carriage house would have been there until about 1904 and would have stood right outside uh the side lot here as well so i'm gonna step back and let mark take you guys into the conservatory for a minute and then we'll move to the butler's pantry couple quick questions here okay are all the fixtures original to this room to this room as far as we know yes um we do know that at some point um as the years went on some fixtures were added to the house or changed but it it's our understanding that uh especially this one in the dining room has always been in place all right there's another one here uh what are the tubes in the corners of the room i'm guessing the heating tubes if you're talking about these these yeah these are radiators um so this is the pipe work for the radiator which you can see they've they wrapped in wallpaper to kind of blend the pipe in here the radiators were added uh later um and eventually the fireplaces were all taken out of service and are no longer operational so the radiators were added so that there was still two sources of heat to keep this building comfortable in the winter time all right we're going into the yeah if you want to take them into the conservatory i'd like to point out as joe mentioned earlier all the rooms in the house have shutters they are all pocket shutters and they fold up so they do not interrupt your view of the beautiful outdoors and then this is a picture of the carriage house oops trying to get the glare on here and that's the carriage house right there and it is believed it would have been right outside this window here just around oh i can't see it because of the curtain no but there's a tree here on it would have been right out here one side of the road there are these the tie backs you want to see right here those are some pretty impressive high backs there pretty forgiving too i've hit my head on more than once coming up after turning off a painting like they don't budge excuse me any more questions are we good uh let's see how tall are the ceilings uh 14 feet on all three levels the only lower ceilings which really aren't that low either are in the basement the house stand stands on a very large stone combination and there are large pieces of sleep making up the floor down there some of that you can still see down in the basement but some of the basement has been modernized as the years went on so uh any others before let's see oh chelsea popped in saying all the fixtures are original to the house gasolines have been removed to different locations over the years yes that is true thanks chelsea how are you doing chelsea's our treasurer so uh so uh as much as the phelpses are a very important part of the history of the house unfortunately their stay here was very short um i mentioned earlier that mrs phelps had died before the house was built mr phelps died in 1878 like i mentioned earlier the niece moves to syracuse the son and daughter-in-law take over the house and arthur's still here as well the youngest son but tragedy would strike the family just two years after dad's death in 1880 arthur phelps died at the age of 21 years old from spinal meningitis and then if that wasn't bad enough the very next year the oldest son robert died at the age of 26 years old from apoplexy which from my understanding is kind of like a stroke in today's terminology and then in 1882 just one year after robert's death his wife harriet died also at the age of 26 years old from what is described in the obituary as complications of rheumatism and when harry and phelps died there were they had no children so basically if you look at the family tree this line of the family tree goes extinct dies off the house was closed up and kind of sat here for three years or so waiting for the estate to be settled finally in 1885 the house was sold to george harry lester whose father operated the leicestershire boot company which later becomes the endicott johnson shoe company unfortunately george made a lot of bad business deals and lost a lot of money and eventually the house went into foreclosure so his his stay here was very brief in 1889 the house was rented by james truman who was at that time host master general for the city of binghamton and he lived here with his wife his son and his daughter uh and the son liked to play tennis at one point off the conservatory there there were tennis courts out on the side of the mansion for mr truman's son well they left in 1904 and moved out of the area um at that point the house was then sold again and this time in 1905 it was sold for the last time to 20 very wealthy ladies here in binghamton called the monday afternoon club they were a club focused on the idea of educating ladies they used their club as a way to educate other other women and they bought this house to use as a meeting place uh one month after they bought the house they were gonna they were hosting the uh women's federation of uh i can't think of the exact name uh but it was basically all the other ladies clubs from new york state and so they knew they were going to need a bigger place so in 1905 they had a very large um auditorium what we call our ballroom today um built off the back of the house which will be our last stop on the tour today the ladies club grows over the years eventually approaching a membership of about 500 ladies with a waiting list and the way this house is furnished today is the way the ladies club continuously filled it with things between the years 1905 and 2005. in 2005 the club voted to disband uh they could no longer afford to operate as a private club and they they knew that they had to do something different and they thought the best idea was to turn it into a historic house museum open it up to the public for support and so today we are at new york state historic house museum they're a 501c3 non-profit and we are chartered under the board of regents as an educational facility as well so so that all kind of ties into the museum's mission and so we've been at historic house museum since 2005 we are a staff of two myself and our executive director and then we have a board of directors and about anywhere between 25 and 30 volunteers depending on the time of year a lot of our volunteers are students from binghamton university's history department so uh when they're here for school we have a lot of extra help and then of course when they go home then we rely on our local people to help us get us through some of the busier times so a couple questions okay where did the ladies get the funds uh to build the addition club dues perhaps um well they took out a mortgage um for the house well not them personally they had to actually ask their husbands to take out the mortgage to buy this building because uh ladies weren't allowed to do that type of thing um the house was the original asking price for the house was 25 000. um but the owner of the house at the time his wife was a member of the club and he had given the club ten thousand dollars to put towards the mortgage so it's possible that's a really good question no one's ever asking that before it's possible that maybe with the discount that they got that they used some of the funds to build the auditorium on the back the it is said that the ballroom cost about five thousand dollars to build in 1905 uh but again they didn't always call it ballroom it was really referred to as an auditorium during the days of the ladies club when did the monday afternoon club stop so um in in 1986 there was uh there was kind of a dual entity here we had the phelps mansion foundation and the monday afternoon club but by 2005 when the the club voted to operate as a non-profit uh historic house museum uh that's basically when the club ceased well wasn't 89 the foundation 86 what was it any other questions now you might ask why did i tell you all that right here the reason i told you that right here is because this next room is where we'll start to see the ladies club begin to make changes to the house to uh to update it from a private residence uh what they call their clubhouse so uh so we're gonna see some uh updates to the house as we move into the next area of the building and we'll also show you some more changes that they made um as we go so some you'll like some you probably won't but we're stepping into the pantry of the house the original kitchen was in the basement there were two dumb waders that served the house in fact if you look over on the corner here where our dishwashing crates are stacked today that is where one of the gun waders would have come up from the kitchen downstairs the ladies had the dumb wader shafts closed off and sealed up because they weren't using them and it was a fire concern to leave them in place so they took them out and so the dumb waders are one of the dumb waiters are stuck in the basement but the other dumb waiter has been gone for many years and then behind me we have a very modern commercial kitchen today it's believed and it's probably a little dark in here can you see anything um it's believed that this room may have been used by the phelps staff as a work area here on the first floor of the house there are access to the back stairwells here in this room i'll pop this door open so you can see the backs this is the staircase going to the second floor of the house there are three sets of back stairwells of course one to the basement one to the second floor and one to the third floor of the house kind of a winding staircase there and then over here in the corner where this outline is on the wall this was the location of the other dumb waiter there's nothing back there it's just a false wall basically hiding the the dumb wader shaft so if someone came to the back of the house the carriages would pull up back here there'd be these big windows here so they could see the carriages pull up under the covered driveway the maids could sneak out this door here to answer the back door of the house and uh you know see what see who was there basically so uh so this really was kind of a a work area for them so is this staircase made of walnut as well the servant staircase yes i believe that it's walnut in there yes yeah yeah uh lots of walnut in the house uh ryan wants to know if he can get some of those clorox wipes maybe for a premium yes maureen uh the back staircase is walnut yes and this is the surface of the basement yeah okay these are the basement stairs and this would lead to the kitchen which would be on the left and the this way is to the house utilities okay okay like i mentioned earlier we're gonna make our last stop into the uh auditorium slash ballroom um but now we're gonna head upstairs show you the second floor of the house we have a little seating area out here there's an empire style mahogany sofa under the stairs here it's stuffed with horse hair a very heavy solid piece of furniture doesn't move too much except for during the holiday times it slides down just a little bit because we do have a big christmas tree that goes here in the corner under the stairs you can see how nice the underside of the staircase is done so this would have been like a little seating area um you know a lot of houses some houses have angle nooks uh some more fancy than others um but this is probably like maybe our version of an angle nut but not quite as uh as elaborate as some other houses so so head upstairs and check out the second floor servant stairs are generally steeper right yes yes these are steeper and narrow trends we don't use them too often i sneak around them every once in a while but we don't typically take the public up and down those stairs because they are so because they are pretty treacherous yep all right well i'm gonna i'm gonna work my way upstairs and then remark we'll follow behind we'll go check out some of the bedrooms what are the pictures on the wall here joe someone is asking the stairs yep um over there well do you want to say it okay over the years the ladies collected art as well to adorn the house and this is just some of the collection on either side of the middle painting those are uh m van wick who uh research has escaped us we can't really find much out about an m-van wick these paintings were done around 1870. the one in the middle is harry roseland it's called the fortune teller this was a series of paintings that he had done based on the fortune teller topic so the ladies definitely did not experience expense when it comes to artwork we have some beautiful hudson river school paintings up here too someone mentioned the skylight it probably would have been up in this area we'll talk about this in a little bit so this house is a little bit different i visit a lot of historic houses and it's kind of strange to [Music] come right at the top of the stairs and the first thing you do is walk into the master bedroom but that is the case here in this house this was sherman phelps's master bedroom he actually had this whole kind of l-shaped corner of the house here the room has a dressing room over here with two built-in closets inside it the ladies club had used that as a records room or storage room for a long time thus there's a very more modern carpet in there than we'd like to see hopefully at some point maybe we'll we'll take that room back to the way it would have looked like when mr phelps was living here um a kind of a cool little story about this bed um the bed that's in the master bedroom uh belonged to one of the woodworkers who did some of the woodwork in this house his name is orville ronk this is this is orville here orville had a wood shop down on water street and he was involved in the carving of the wood in this house not all of it but some of it uh we do believe that he did some work uh on the staircase and uh actually in the butler's pantry downstairs i should have showed you guys um there's a drawer down there that's actually signed by ohoranko it's a date of 1872 but it has his signature on the on the back you have to pull the drawer out to actually find the signature but he made this bed for his wife for their wedding in 1872 and it was gifted to the donated to the museum around 2009 the family also donated orville's tool chest so we have some of his original wood carving tools here in the house as well upstairs here is where we also start to see some different light fixtures again the ladies club like to move things around and also change things from time to time so i can't say with certainty that these ones have always been here but nonetheless this is a cool fixture um it's a it's a wedgwood fixture and you can see the the weights and the wheels up top there it's actually designed so you can lower it by pulling it down and then you could push it back up uh when you were done with it so that's kind of a neat fixture it's the only one in the house that does that so but again up here i cannot say with certainty that this would have been the fixture that was in the room when mr phelps was in this bedroom you also see the woodwork up here is a little bit more toned down which is typical because these are just family spaces even the fireplaces although still nice they don't have the big mirrors over them and again you don't really see as much decorative detail carved into the woodwork as you did downstairs this corner door here leads to the museum's office today but that was believed to be a sitting area off the master bedroom and then of course we do have a master bath over here now the bathroom is very much different than what it would have looked like when mr phelps was here the ladies club was growing in size there we go we lost you guys temporarily i'll just say the ladies club uh was growing in size and needed more bathroom space uh so that's when the bathroom was changed probably in the 40s or 50s at the height of their largest numbers see i think there's a couple questions here let me scroll down a little bit yeah and i promise if we try to do our best to keep up all right let's see oh what are the pictures in the hall i think we got that one right oh yeah let's see oh please show the hudson river school painting oh okay yeah we'll let mark step out under the hall here for a minute these paintings were all done by edmund d'arch lewis who was a hudson river school painter and a couple of them are from delaware river delaware water gap um i think the one in the middle is the the tiafan yoga river is that how you say it it's always a good one to say and then of course i think the other one down the end there's um another one down delaware river delaware river yeah they're beautiful paintings though they were all donated by different members of the ladies club we actually do have a art tour where we talk specifically about uh the different pieces of artwork in the mansion that's uh done by one of our other docents who uh took the time to research all the information and and and was able to develop a tour that we're hoping that we'll be able to share with our other docents uh when we do reopen so that we can continue to talk more about the artwork too hope we flipped around here help me out here john what'd i hit hey how's it going guys hit the wrong button scrolling sorry about the close-up sorry about this didn't even scare anybody there oh yeah oh [Music] wreath on the wall by the bed ah yes yeah mark you can talk about that this is a memorial wreath it's made of wax um they used to make them to memorialize when someone died these are calla lily calla lilies actually or oftentimes to remember an event or uh some other sort of group gathering but usually with the horseshoe shape here it was meant to represent the openness to heaven if you will which is why it was a memorial thing this is made probably in the 19th century judging by the looks of it i i don't know which is this one this isn't a part of our collection this one is part of our collection but it was probably 1860s between 1880s something that was very popular morning memorial item and you can learn more about those on our death and morning tours of the 19th century in october so i'm going to slide you back over to joe we're going to look at the room again real quick someone was commenting about matilda van wyck um we have looked at the the only m bandwidth we can find um but according to what we've seen uh she was born in 1869 and those paintings downstairs were done in 1870 so um we we unless unless somebody added a date to those paintings after the fact but i don't know so the m van wick is kind of a mystery to us but uh um i think that was miss blackburn right yeah she's one of the teachers in college so uh miss blackburn if you if you can help us with that uh let me know because uh we appreciate any information we can find out about herself or him so this huge mirror was a later edition yeah um at one point the ladies of the monday afternoon club rented the house for wedding parties and wedding receptions and this room was where the bridal party would get ready so it's probably safe to bet that this mirror was put up during those times when the when the brides were getting ready here in this room no not the bride's the bride and then the rest of the bridal party oh that was deborah hi deborah all right so we're moving into this uh front room here uh this front room is another sitting area um may have also served as a small office space for mr phelps up here on the second floor this marble fireplace here you know is drastically different than the rest of the fireplaces in the house we actually have two marble fireplaces up here but the ladies of the monday afternoon club would typically use these rooms up here for offices or sitting areas they play they have bridge parties so if they have a big bridge party they come up here and hang out rather than using the larger auditorium we do have another hudson river school painting above the fireplace that's peter hansen and i don't know if you guys caught a glimpse of the family photograph near the door there but that's uh mr ronk's family uh those are his 10 grandchildren on the picture they're surrounded by the uh the gentleman and the lady there off to the left side of the paint part of the picture but we actually used to have the bed in this room uh it's called they call called the wrong room um but a couple years ago we actually took the bed out of this room and moved it to the bedroom so that we didn't have to come upstairs and say pretend there was a bed here we just put the bed there so uh so this room was set back up to look more like a sitting area today over in the corner there is a portrait of mrs edward cattell she was one of the she was one of the founding members of the club uh originally the club was meeting as early as 1890 taking turns at each other's houses uh reading books they had subscriptions to magazines and books and they would get together and talk about what they read but but as the years went on the club like i said was growing in size and they started looking for uh their own place to meet eventually they were meeting in hotels you know in like little conference rooms or whatnot and then in 1905 they just decided to buy their own building and uh and then that's when the club really uh continued to grow in numbers and we'll talk a little bit more about the ladies as we move out into the upstairs hall here as well there we go so it's a little dark up here on the front side of the hall here but i'm hoping you guys can see these these pictures here um these are the charter members of the monday afternoon club ms hills who's here and miss childs here were the original founding members both teachers and again they were using their club as a way to educate other ladies eventually they put themselves on a speaking circuit and hosted several different well-known speakers of the time and off the top of my head i can just name a few but there were many jack london carrie chapman cat who was involved in the suffrage movement amelia earhart and in fact you can actually see this is amelia earhart check these are checks written by some of this written to some of the speakers for payment for their speaking fees but emilia was uh scheduled to speak here to the club just a couple years before she disappeared but uh they had to move it to the high school uh because the the interest in hearing her speak was uh much larger than uh the auditorium of the monday afternoon club could handle so the high school had a bigger auditorium and so she spoke there um i can't think of any other ones now but uh if you guys are curious to know more about the speakers i'll uh uh i'll i'll update it in the comments later with some of the other people who spoke here but there were many and there were some really good ones too so we do have some old pictures here of different buildings here in binghamton this four-story cast iron building here is known as the perry building it was the home of isaac perry he actually lived on the top floor and the third floor was his architectural firm it's a masonry constructed building but the facade is all cast iron it's the only cast iron building in binghamton still standing today the top three floors are used as apartments by university students and the first floor uh retail space kind of changes out from time to time then of course we have the picture of the mansion shortly after it was built uh and then that's mr phelps's bank which was built the same year as the house you can see here under construction it stood until 1929 and then unfortunately it was torn down and replaced with the building that's uh down on the corner of court and shenango street today and then of course this one's one of my favorite pictures you can see here's the mansion with the other houses that were once on the street it's a 1894 view there's the fountain in the front yard uh there's the covered back driveway so the ballroom is off the back here now and this port kosher was moved to the side of the house when the ballroom or auditorium was added to the back of the building this is downtown binghamton so here's the perry building here's the phelps bank uh and then the mansion's right down the street and we're two blocks away depending on a nice day you could walk broom county courthouses across the street and this photograph is definitely pre-1904 because the security mutual building is here now and then that was built in 1904 so um we also have these kind of these are kind of cool pictures here this is showing the corner of court and shenango and this was the bank that mr phelps this was the building that mr phelps originally started as bank and uh but again this one was taken down and replaced with the the one that you see here in the picture the bottom picture shows a photograph around 1908 when the building had a fire the top floor of the bank building was destroyed and was removed after 1908 you if you see photos of the building you won't see that monster type roof just like the house has a monster roof the bank building did as well and then the last building is the dwight block which was actually built to be a hotel but was later converted to um like apartment style housing almost like brownstones and it's considered to be the birthplace of the monday afternoon club um it's where the ladies originally were meeting and where the club was first uh thought up so uh any questions or anything oh let me see yeah the video will be available after guys for sure um we will share it to our facebook page so that uh anybody who might not have been able to join us can um can watch it and anybody who wants to re-watch it can watch it um and and we'll of course still be monitoring all of our social media so if you have any questions while you're watching it just leave a comment and somebody will get back to you for sure so i'll show you this one yeah we got plaster beautiful plaster archways up here uh this light fixture was added later um because uh the front of the hull can be quite dark at times base up here yeah oh there we go we're back disconnected for a second twice yep on this corner just enough so far so this whole side of the house here guys was once converted to an apartment for caretakers that were hired to to work for the club they were allowed to live in the building and they actually lived uh in this corner bedroom all the way down to the other side there are four rooms on this side of the house so we use two of the rooms for offices today that's down the hall here this room unfortunately is now a an elevator lobby in 2002 an elevator was put in the building so that the building could be handicapped accessible so the bathroom was removed so that people could get on and off the elevator without having to walk through a bathroom to do so so here you're seeing the little elevator tower um this is the back wall of the house here this used to be a window that i'm standing in now and the elevator comes up right here um if you look out the window you can see this link between the mansion and then the roof to your left is the ballroom roof and also unfortunately at some point um they thought it was a good idea to paint over the woodwork um in most of these rooms on this side of the house which is another reason why we um basically use them for offices and things today because they're not historically accurate at this point um maybe someday we'll be able to get the paint off the walls and uh and use these rooms for other purposes but uh for now they are as the way you see them so colleen's got a question uh what's the dwight black fancy yes it was at the time it was a technically high-end apartment uh living yes towards the end it was a bit of a shame yeah unfortunately it was torn down in 1982 it had uh it had been neglected and run down and uh it was torn down then but uh in its heyday back in the 1800s it was one of the most elite addresses in binghamton for sure so then of course this room guys uses a classroom today um since we are a educational facility uh this is like a classroom slash meeting room um you know depending on the size of the groups we don't we don't use this room too too much because we have the bigger room downstairs off the back of the house but we do have some things on display here so when the kids come we can talk about different things over here on the table we have paper theaters which were sold almost like a subscription base um you could buy uh black and whites for like a penny color sheets for about two and a half cents uh you buy these kits put them together they come with a full cast of characters and scripts and um you could put on a little show for your family um there's some pictures here of families gathered together doing a little show they have backdrops just like you'd see at a a real theater where you know as the as the scenes change you could uh pull the curtains up to reveal the next scene of the play so um and judy was a very popular uh puppet show back in the 18th century but that punching duty goes way back centuries before that uh they used to have political undertones uh they used to mock the king and all that fun stuff and some deemed them to be too violent but they are still around today and go any anywhere in england during the summer time and you'll find at least one punch and judy show going on and they still have a few here in the u.s and they also have teaching resources that you can put on your own punch and judy show which right now a lot of people are looking for things to do yeah so paper theaters you could uh you could build some paper theaters put on a punch and judy show all sorts of stuff for a while yeah exactly so here in my hand i'm i'm holding a picture of the new york state and nebraska asylum um again opened around 1858 this was one of many buildings on the campus it was a self-sustaining place really i mean everything they needed was right there in in around i think it was around 1879 or so the state actually converted it from an inebriate asylum to an insane asylum later in life later in life it was referred to as the binghamton state hospital treating mental health patients and things like that unfortunately the building was closed around 1993 they put a new roof on it right before they closed it they chopped down these towers because they were crumbling and they're afraid they're going to fall on somebody and the state still owns it it's actually in remarkably good condition despite being empty for you know over 20 years it they turn the heat on every winter it's secured their security up there all the time and the university is is working with the public and the state to figure out what could be the next use for this building it's still on a state hospital site so that kind of limits the um the opportunities for what it might be but we are hoping that um at least part of it will become a museum to tell the story of the asylum um because as you i'm sure all are well aware um they did a lot of crazy things up there uh you know different medical experiments and things so um those those stories should should be told um and it's also on the national registry of historic landmarks which is a higher status than the national registry of historic places which is like you know we're on the national registry for historic places but this is the national registry of historic landmarks i also employed a lot of local people for many years it did yeah it did it did um and here guys you can see this is an old map of binghamton uh this one dates to around 1873. here you can see the canal so here's the rivers coming together at the confluence here's the canal that ran through binghamton and then of course over here you can see the rail yards um and this is where we are so that's our house there with our little red flag there so his bank was right here and unfortunately you can't see the castle it's it's further up off the map here but uh there's where the courthouse is right here yeah yeah this is a 1882 map here you can actually see the castle up there in the corner it's uh sits way up on the hill here in binghamton so um the other thing i'll mention real quick uh is the fireplace again is a marble fireplace and if you notice in this room and the room next door when we go into the room uh next both of these fireplaces have windows over the tops of them so the chimney actually splits and goes around the window isaac started messing around with this idea of letting more light in the house and and putting windows over fireplaces and so uh he did it in this room to run that store the last thing that i want to talk about in this room is probably the biggest change the ladies ever made to the house in 1941 they really weren't using the third floor very much and it was discovered that it was suffering from really bad water damage there was a leaking skylight poor drainage the walls were crumbling the windows were falling out it was just a big mess and eventually after hiring an architect they ultimately decided that the only thing they could do at the time i guess because it was cheaper was to remove the entire top floor of the house so after 1941 mark would you show them this is what our house looks like when it's first built you guys can see here's the the monster roof with the iron cresting uh beautiful top floor there after 1941 this is what the house looks like when the third floor was taken off and i can hear all of you collectively gasping right now um at the major change in appearance uh that occurs when this happens so this roof um was was the replacement so all the rooms that were up there disappeared in 1941. we have no photographs of showing what the third floor looked like all we have are blueprints um that basically show the layout of the third floor oh and uh with the records from the the will or whatever oh yeah because there's a billiard table yeah and a couple chairs or something right yeah after after the sherman clubs there was an inventory done um and that's how we kind of know what was up in those rooms now if you ever find yourself in binghamton uh today if you drive by the building the house looks like this again uh because around 1998 or so uh the the club decided that they wanted to replicate the third floor and so they started raising money and by 2002 they had raised about 1.7 million according to some of the minutes of the monday afternoon club and they they had the third floor restored sort of it's just the facade there is nothing behind the walls anymore the only thing that's upstairs on the third floor today is this roof it's contained inside the new structure um it's just an attic that we use for storage now because you know they just didn't have the money to put the whole third floor back together the pieces were built here by a local company designed by a local architect all of these pieces were built ahead of time and then stored in a parking lot here you can see the picture without the third floor and every day for quite some time these pieces would show up on a truck there was a giant crane outside and it would basically lift these pieces onto the building to eventually give the appearance of the third story so today you know again the house looks like that um but nothing behind the walls that's uh probably one of our best kept secrets because if you didn't know any better you if you were just driving by you would just assume it was a real functioning third floor but that's not the case anymore so um it's unfortunate uh but in other aspects and you know just would be another floor i'd have to clean or heat so in some ways you know there are pluses and minuses although i personally would think it'd be cool to see the billiards room up there and where the staff would have lived and slept and of course you come through this little passageway here into the other bedroom this room here may have belonged to the niece when she was here this light fixture is not original i do know that i found a file that indicates that it actually came from an old house in norwich new york and the ladies had it installed here in this room what the original fixture looked like we don't know no no evidence of what that other fixture might have been in here the fireplace again has the window over the top it also has the shutter system so that you can close the window off if need be we do have a large collection of clothing from the early days of the ladies club we do bring them out from time to time and put them on mannequins and display the dresses and the clothing just depends on the time of the year and if we have the people to be able to do that because obviously with old dresses you know you have to be able to handle them very carefully so they are stored appropriately in their boxes with their acid-free tissue and that's where they stay when they're not on display over on the other side of the case we have some clothing from lucretia perry that's a little boy's shirt up in the top right corner but the other clothes and accessories were donated by lucretia perry who again was isaac's granddaughter they'll use this room basically to house parts of their collection kind of like an extension of exhibit space i mean that's that's basically what we still use it for today cabinet over there full of all different types of ceramics and pottery we have this beautiful quilt here from 1901 that was purchased at the new york state fair by the ladies club it won first place there we go brought it here ever since what is the little doll in the dress display that is a china doll more than likely made in germany uh its body would have been stuffed with either sand sometimes straw or dog hair or not dog hair i'm sorry horse hair but this is probably more like sand but it's a very popular toy in the uh 19th century there's a little bit of information here i think on it that's i think more about like what's in the case did i answer the right question alright let's start over from austria um the story goes that it was shipped over from europe and one of the ladies uh had it had asked to store it here temporarily and then nobody ever returned for it um so many years ago uh legal documents were filed to accept ownership of the desk as a abandoned property so to speak so today it is part of the museum's collection cool piece very fragile so um we really can't open it um there are drawers on one side and then like a filing cabinet type drawer on the other side there are kind of like wings that swing open with slots to put letters and things and when you open this up actually there are slots in there too so you could store things as well these drawers were spring loaded and the button was located along this metal trim here so you have to know where the button was so that you could get the drawers to pop open by way of the spring releasing so any other questions any questions questions i don't see any nope i don't see anything looks like we're good all right moving on so we mentioned earlier as we came up the top of the stairs that there was once a skylight in the house and that's because there was actually another uh grand staircase that would have started right here and gone up to the billiards room um i don't know if you guys can see the line in the wall there but that's where the stairs would run so you come upstairs go up another flight so the ceiling that's right here now was put in in 1941 when the third floor was taken off they closed this opening in the middle of the house and so prior to that you would have gone up about another 20 feet and there was a skylight up there and so all that light from up above on the roof would come down in between the stairwells and obviously lighten up the middle of this house much more than this today because as we mentioned downstairs earlier it's pretty dark in the center of the house but but that's why because originally it was designed to have a skylight up there that was taken out unfortunately so we're going to move downstairs at this point and uh show you the ballroom and uh we'll wrap up down there for you guys quick pan up here real quick oh yes and for those curious i'll show you actually where the dumb waiter was this is the dumb waiter right here well it no longer exists we do have a lovely photograph of what it looked like before it was taken out as you can see there's nothing anymore in here just a uh it's kind of like a closet now you have the rail here which the uh the dumb waiter would have worked out but other than that and then over here yeah carol i'll give you one more shot of the bedroom here real quick this is the stairwell that leads to the uh third floor which of course is now just a facade but this is the servant stairwell as you can see narrow steps and all this goes up to the third floor or the attic as it's now called i'm sorry about the darkness here and then um give you one more shot of the bedroom how many original bedrooms joe uh nine there were four here on the second floor and five upstairs why is it called a dumb waiter that's a good question um i can't say a scholarly answer here but i would imagine it's because it was a inanimate member of the staff right and uh if you're for the curious the service quarters there's three service quarters upstairs right if i'm correct there was five bedrooms up there dedicated to staff oh upstairs yeah and um was a storage room from when i saw the blueprints they were along this wall here yeah so there was there were three yeah i'm sorry three nothing yeah three and then you had the other one over here that was a large bedroom correctly this house is all all brick so basically the floor plans are almost identical all the way up i mean the brick walls just run everything is stacked on top of each other this second floor has the exact blueprint of the first floor of the house and it would have been almost the same thing at the top of the house yep barbara yes the third floor did have the servants rooms and in front of us directly above would have been where the billiards room was and there's also rooms for storage yeah straight up there yep right up there so the stairs would have gone right up and you would have walked right into the billiards room and then service quarters were on the left side of the house of course they were isolated too so there would have been a long wall running upstairs that kept those separate um from the billiards from um you know the family spaces on the top floor yeah and something said bathrooms earlier yes uh there were there was four bathrooms they had one in the basement um two on the second floor and one on the third floor the one on the second floor is here yeah that would have been sherman's and then the other one for the rest of the house would have been right there and then directly above it on the third floor we have no original bathrooms to show because they were either removed or changed and updated by the ladies club at some point so we're now coming down the stairs do do you want to go outside and show them the front of the building because a lot of people might not really know we could if it looks like if you want yeah might be a little windy out there so a little bit brief but for those of you who are following us from afar um it might be nice to see the uh itself will we lose the internet will we lose internet well i don't know i hope not hopefully we don't lose anybody stay with us if we do we'll come right back yeah so here's the front porch of the mansion i don't know how far we can go without losing the internet we can't go too far we'll post a picture of the front of the building later so okay we're back all right we'll make our last stop here in the ballroom kind of wrap up our tour for you guys there we'll give you one more quick look at the mansion and all the woodwork so theoretically this is the original back of the house right here when i shut this door this is the actual back of the house now we are stepping into the extension cover driveway would have been right over this door um and then this is the elevator that was put in in 2002 so the building is fully handicapped accessible and ada compliant because of those updates that were made and this is the the auditorium slash ballroom you can see it's quite a large room it does have a tin ceiling all of the light fixtures in the room were changed the original light fixtures weren't always so sparkly but again when they were renting the room they decided to spruce it up a little bit at that time so new curtains were added the walls were painted these crystal light fixtures were added throughout the room and on the ceiling as well those were all changed out the chandelier that's hanging here in the middle of the road today is also a replacement the original light fixture that was hanging in this room had fallen overnight also in 1941. and as you can very well imagine it didn't survive the fall and so for a long time there was nothing up in the dome and in fact at one point the ladies club actually covered the ceiling with the acoustic drop ceiling tiles and all of this tin work was covered for a long long time around the early 90s somebody was here working and they happened to take a ladder and poke their head up above the uh drop ceiling and that's when they realized what that feeling was hiding it basically been forgotten about all these years um and so at that point the decision was made to rip the ceiling down clean up the tin work and uh and then spruce up the room at that point so of course the last piece of the puzzle was getting the chandelier so this one here actually comes from an antique store in syracuse and it has a fascinating history though because it dates to around 1890 it actually hung in sherry's restaurant in new york city and if you can imagine there were 16 of these beautiful chandeliers hanging in sherry's restaurant sheri's was catering to the clientele that was living on fifth avenue in new york city much like delmonico's steakhouse well anyways they tore the restaurant down in 1917 and this chandelier many of the chandeliers were sold off this one ended up in keith's theater house on salinas street in syracuse new york and it stayed in the lobby of the theater until around 1967 and then that theater was torn down and an antique dealer who's still in business um had acquired it and it remained in his collection until he sold it to the ladies club in 1998. the receipt for the chandelier is upstairs it was purchased for around 38 000 with money that was donated by two members of the club and so that's how we have chandelier here in our room today uh the stage of marco's pan around to the stage for a minute the stage was added in 1931. uh we do have a steinway piano that was bought in 1934 and we do a lot of functions here in the ballroom today we have classical music concerts we have a place we have history programs we have teas we have dances this room is always being used for something it holds it seats 120 but capacity is 156 for standing crabs too so um and then of course beyond the double doors is the last part of the building that was added in 2002 when they were renting they wanted to have a bar are we losing they wanted to have a bar for functions they wanted to have new bathrooms so this new wing was added then the bar is used primarily for checking of our visitors today and also doubles as our gift shop mark's panning up to the monday afternoon club sign that would have originally hung uh out of the front of the building it was brought in and hung here when the museum took over ownership of the building because this is a wooden sign it's better in here than outside also too before this addition was added on in the one for the elevator was just steps that led into the door yeah to uh to enter the ballroom yep so there's a couple questions here yeah let's go back in the ballroom i'll answer questions when was the acoustic ceiling removed right around 1998 or so okay what uh do you know what year that they covered the original ceiling the uh um you know that's a good question i can't say with certainty when it was covered but um it was it was probably shortly after the chandelier fell they thought this room was too loud and they also worried about how much it cost to heat this big space because the ceilings as you can see are quite high i think we have i think they're 18 feet to the lowest part and uh 20 to 22 feet to the top of the dome so we're short probably shortly after the chandelier fell that the acoustic ceiling tile was put in so yeah any others any final questions well if there's no final questions if you do have more questions you more than certainly like i said you can ask them and we'll we'll get back to you on them um i just wanted to say thank you guys so much for joining us um typically our chores last an hour um but as a standard i always talk more than i should um so we went a little over but um i hope uh wherever you are you stay safe and uh if you can come visit the museum and reopen uh we appreciate it we'd love to see you if you enjoyed your tour we'll be posting a link to a donation page um obviously these are uncertain times for a lot of historic sites um and so uh donations will help get us through uh the next couple of weeks until we can figure out uh when it's safe to reopen the building to the public so that we can start offering our tours and programs um as you know we've closed down completely our tours are cancelled our our classroom our school tours are we've had to cancel events already three large events that we've had to cancel those all represent significant income to the museum and we are a self-sustaining museum we we do not get any funding from the state the county or the city it is it is up to us to raise the funds to keep this building preserved and open and going uh for future binghamton residents and people from all around the world to be able to come here and uh and see our building so thank you so much and have a great day

Channel: Phelps Mansion Museum

Views: 12,239

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Id: 1yI7if_4Soo

Length: 104min 55sec (6295 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020