The Yaddo Mansion is veiled in secrecy.
Visitors of the infamous Yaddo Gardens can gaze at its looming majesty as they admire the fountain that marks the end of the great lawn, or catch a glimpse through the leaves of the clustered trees as they drive away along a winding path.
But that veil will be lifted for one day when mansion tours are given on Sunday, Sept. 18, the first time the public has had access since 1993.
“There’s still a lot of interest in the house. We stopped giving tours because it takes a lot of time,” said Lesley Leduc, public affairs coordinator.
Behind the ornate stone walls and turrets, beyond the expansive and perfectly manicured lawn, lies a world stuck in the days when owners Spencer and Katrina Trask wandered the halls.
The Trask’s books line the bookshelves, dusty and categorized. Furniture fills the music room, the drinks room and common areas that the Trasks and their parade of guests sat on. There’s artwork and souvenirs from frequent trips abroad and family portraits dot the walls, an artistic reminder to the mansion’s current guests of why they’re there.
“It’s not a museum but it’s pretty much like the way the Trasks had it,” said Leduc.
As was typical for the Trask era, the dining room is still a central part of the mansion. The chairs that surround the darkened oak table are carved with knights, relics of Katrina’s affinity for the age of chivalry. Katrina’s jeweled coronation crown sits in a cabinet above precious silver, a punch bowl made by Tiffany Studios and other trinkets.
“I think it sort of has a special meaning to most of the guests who come to Yaddo because you eat dinner and breakfast together here and it’s when they make friendships. Sometimes conversations lead to a collaboration at some later point,” said Leduc, who said as many as 34 artists take meals together. “There are older artists, younger artists and they feed off each other’s energy.”
A chef and full kitchen staff nourish the resident artists, working out of one of the mansion’s only rooms to receive significant upgrades. Down a short corridor from the dining room is a common space with a basket for mail, a sign up sheet for taxi service to town, the day’s menu on a chalkboard and along a counter, lunch bags lined up to take to the art studios.
Curious tour groups will enter the mansion through the front door (commonly assumed to be the back of the house). The bright foyer is home to a fountain that aligns perfectly with the main fountain at the end of the lawn (I like to call it Katrina’s early feng shui, said Leduc) and boasts a breathtaking Tiffany stained glass window designed by Katrina (one of the largest in the house).
“It’s based on a story that Katrina wrote about the Native Americans that first settled this piece of property,” said Leduc. “The glass is pounded in from behind to give it depth.”
Many people think the clear, leaded glass window sandwiched between colored glass on the adjacent wall is a replacement from a broken window, but that’s not the case, said Leduc.
“It was always clear because the circle of trees outside the window, when they weren’t so big, functioned as a natural sundial,” said Leduc.
Flanking the entryway are two sleighs gifted to the Trasks from the Queen of the Netherlands. There’s a rumor one sleigh took a trip down the grand staircase after a night of drinking, said Leduc, but she doubts the sleigh or its occupant would have come out in one piece.
Some tour groups will tour the downstairs first. They’ll admire the woodwork carved by Italian artists (Katrina was fond of cherubs and angels) and will walk by the floor-to-ceiling window facing the lawn (that opens like a door with a pulley) to get to the music room.
“It’s a music room now but it served as a library when the Trasks were here,” said Leduc. “There’s a balcony because they produced house pageants around the holidays.”
Between 50 and 60 composers make use of the music room each year.
Other tour groups will be ushered right upstairs. They’ll walk past the Tiffany grandfather clock at the base of the stairs, now silent to spare artists the passage of time. They’ll climb the carpeted stairs toward the second largest stained glass window and past walls of murals.
There are 55 bedrooms (and an unknown number of bathrooms) scattered throughout the top floor. A common space attracts artists at night and a large screened porch has been the site of many game nights, Pilates and cocktail parties.
Some bedrooms are solely living quarters with separate artist studios elsewhere on the property. Other rooms serve as living and working space, like Katrina’s bedroom, a coveted place at Yaddo.
“Even though it’s a lot of pink, guys like it too,” said Leduc.
A bottled glass door reveals a room that is blindingly white, from the furniture to the walls. Roses were Katrina’s symbol, so stained glass panels of the flower of romance line the top of the walls. A door leading to a porch is etched with a poem by Katrina that Princess Diana’s sister read at her funeral.
Up a steep staircase to the third floor is Katrina’s tower room where she did her writing. Though it’s not included on the tour (it’s stuffy, hot and is a workout to get there), its most striking feature is undoubtedly the expansive picture window, lined with another etched poem (“Look out and see the glory of mountain plain and sky, look in and see the light of love that nevermore shall die”) and looking out to what’s now a forest of trees but was once the mountains of Vermont.
Artists aren’t encouraged to leave behind artwork, said Leduc, because the house is filled to the brim with pieces the Trasks accumulated. Some artists can’t help it, though.
“Some people just can’t resist and leave something here anyway,” said Leduc.
Pulling out a small drawer at the base of a bookcase, Leduc revealed a figurine made of cardboard and glue.
“It’s adorable. I have no idea how long it was here before someone found it,” said Leduc.
Separate artist studios are down a gravel pathway leading away from the mansion and beyond that are tennis courts and a swimming pool.
Yaddo welcomes about 220 artists each year, carefully plucked from a pile of about 1,200 applications. More than 100 of them are writers and the rest are visual artists, photographers, sculptors or composers.
When tour groups invade the mansion there will be no artists in residence since they don’t return until October. The first tour in 1993 was held in honor of Yaddo’s 100th anniversary and drew an unexpected and overwhelming response.
“There was a traffic jam on the Northway. People waited in line for hours and most didn’t seem to mind. We toured until it was too dark to show people around and still turned 1,000 people away,” said Leduc.
Tickets are only available via presale and already about 800 have been sold.
Opening the mansion’s doors to the public once in awhile is good, said Leduc, if only to satisfy curiosity.
“We create our own mystery. It’s a beautiful house that represents a different era,” said Leduc.
Leduc said the mansion’s exclusivity is important to preserve artists’ creativity and privacy.
“We like to think that art is part of our culture and it’s an important distraction, especially in times of trouble and economic stress. Public support for art, especially at government levels … have dwindled,” said Leduc. “Not a lot of artists make money at their art so giving them the time they need to create is ever more important nowadays.”
Tickets are available online at www.yaddo.org. General tour tickets for Sept. 18 are $40. There will be four two-hour tours given. Deluxe tour tickets for Sept. 17 include a cocktail reception and are $200. Proceeds support the artist residency program and repairs to structures in the gardens. More information about the artist residency program and Yaddo’s history is also available online.