Monday 17 July.

 Billie and Naomi day. Billie was a childhood friend of QB.  They drove here from Connecticut. Oldest tavern at day’s end.

George’s vegetable pancakes; he made these fine tasty treats for dinner.  Went well with wine, salad etc.

The oldest extant structure 

Tuesday 18 July An extremely hot and humid day.

Chepstow and Stables

Chepstow: named after a Welsh castle that was razed in the English civil war (the family eventually became part of the new York 400) was built in 1863 or so.  Before the guilded over top ones of the late 19th century.

Exterior is Italianate style, or so the tour guide said. Lived in until the 1950s it has been enlarged.

Furnished with as much stuff as possible on the walls, named artists, named furniture. More pics on Flickr.

Above piece, Flemish, from mid-17th century. Quite lovely.  Many Hudson River school pics as well as portraits galore.  Many of the declaration of Independence signing Morris’s.  We were expecting the arts and crafts Morris. 

Lovely grounds of course.

Vanderbilt stables, maybe a mile from the breakers house, put there to keep the flies and manure smell away from their summer residence.

Many fine carriages. This one has a good story, below.