Upstairs, Downstairs
A Social History Tour
Travel back to the 1820s and 1830s when the Mount Vernon Hotel was visited by affluent guests and staffed by working-class immigrant New Yorkers. Constructed in 1799 as a carriage house for a 23-acre estate, and converted into the Mount Vernon Hotel in 1826, this stone building sits on land originally owned by Colonel William Stephens Smith and his wife Abigail Adams Smith, daughter of President John Adams.
The fashionable country resort was popular among New Yorkers who wished to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, which at that time only extended as far north as 14th Street. Guests could take a steamboat from lower Manhattan up to the hotel. The Hotel advertised itself as “free from the noise and dust of the public roads, and fitted up and intended for only the most genteel and respectable” clientele.
Join Royal Oak as we learn about both the well-to-do ladies and gentlemen guests, who might be sipping turtle soup in the dining hall, as well as the African American and Irish employees who waited on them. Following the one-hour tour, we will enjoy tea and scones in the Tavern Room or, weather permitting, in the garden.
Ladies’ Parlor, Mt. Vernon Hote and Museum
