VICTORIAN HOUSE TOUR | 1872 Time Capsule Home | Clouds Hill Museum | Warwick, RI

There's a Victorian house in Warwick, Rhode Island where you feel like you've stepped directly into late 19th century Victorian life, making this home a living example of a true Victorian time capsule. Four generations of the same family lived here, leaving behind more than 150 years of furniture, clothing, china, photographs, artwork, textiles, and personal belongings that are still preserved inside today. Everything in the home has survived because it was passed down through the eldest female descendants and is still cared for by that same family today. They even kept records documenting the building of the house and the original purchase of its contents, giving us an incredibly authentic look at Victorian life that very few people ever get to see. The interiors are so beautifully preserved that this home was even used as a filming location for HBO's The Gilded Age. This place is packed with original pieces from the family who actually lived here, and tours have to be scheduled in advance to help protect the house and everything that's been preserved inside. So this really is one of those hidden gems that not many people ever get the chance to see, and I can't wait to tour it with you all. Welcome to Clouds Hill Museum, a rare Victorian time capsule given as a grand wedding present in 1872, a home that has remained in the same family since it was originally built and is still filled with all of the belongings and collections of the family who first called it home. Hi I'm Allie and welcome back to Fab Little Dish where we celebrate the love for historic homes, vintage interiors, and the stories that keep these places alive. If you love historic house tours, make sure to give this video a big thumbs up because it truly helps all of these homes get their names out there so they can continue to tell their stories. Now let's head to New England and step inside this incredible piece of history. The story behind the family is just as fascinating as the house itself, and honestly much more complicated. Clouds Hill was built by William Smith Slater, one of Rhode Island's wealthiest textile manufacturers. William built this home for his daughter Elizabeth Ives Slater after she married Alfred Augustus Reed Jr. But there's actually more to this wedding gift than just a very generous father. William apparently didn't have a whole lot of faith in his new son-in-law as a businessman, so the property was placed in Elizabeth's name alone. Alfred's name wasn't even on the deed. William wanted to make sure his daughter would always have a roof over her head if Alfred failed financially, and interestingly enough that's pretty much what happened. Alfred's business decisions eventually left the family in financial trouble, so he and Elizabeth eventually separated. That father's intuition was correct. They had four children together before Alfred died of a heart attack in 1895 at just 50 years old. And the money that created this house didn't just come from one of Rhode Island's wealthiest textile manufacturers, it came from one of the most important textile families in American industrial history. William's father was John Slater and his uncle was Samuel Slater, who both helped launch America's textile industry. The family eventually created an entire network of mills and mill villages, including Slatersville, Rhode Island, which is considered America's first ever mill village. And there's also a dark side to that success that's critical to mention here. From the beginning, the textile industry relied heavily on child labor, with children working long hours around extremely dangerous machinery for very little pay. And by the time William Smith Slater was running the family business, the connection to slavery was even more direct. In 1843, William built another mill in Slatersville that produced an inexpensive fabric material that was sold to southern plantations specifically to clothe enslaved people. At the same time, northern textile mills were processing cotton that had been grown and picked by enslaved labor. So even though these mills were here in New England, the northern textile economy and southern slavery economy were deeply connected with one another. And this is another side of the Slater story that gets complicated. William's brother, John Fox Slater, was an abolitionist who eventually donated $1 million in 1882 to establish the Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen. That money went on to support Black education throughout the South, and the fund even helped support the education of W.E.B. Du Bois and the work of George Washington Carver. But even at the time, people questioned the contradiction, because much of the fortune being given away had originally been created through an industry dependent on enslaved labor and poorly paid mill workers. And through all of that complicated past, we come back to the women of Clouds Hill, because they're ultimately the reason why we're able to walk through this house today. The home passed from Elizabeth to her daughter Helen Slater Reed Allen, and then to Helen's daughter Anne Crawford Allen Holst, and finally to her daughter Anne Dietrich Holst, who still cares for the family home today. And Anne Crawford, who went by Nancy, has a pretty incredible story of her own. In 1931, she actually bought a fire truck to protect the estate, because there wasn't adequate fire protection in the area. She began responding to fires beyond Clouds Hill, eventually becoming a forest fire warden, and what the museum describes as the first female fire chief in the world. So when we talk about Clouds Hill surviving in the same family for more than 150 years, it really is a story of generations of women protecting this place. And because they held on to not only the house, but the furniture, clothing, photographs, documents, china, and everyday belongings of their family members who lived here and came before them, we're left with the incredible Victorian time capsule that we see here today, where you feel like you've stepped into a completely different century. Clouds Hill was constructed throughout the 1870s, completed in 1877, and designed by prominent Providence architect William R. Walker. He designed Clouds Hill as a grand gothic revival country house. Walker designed buildings all over Rhode Island, but Clouds Hill is actually one of the few large-scale residential designs that still survives today of his. And this is a big house, sitting at about 15,000 square feet with 27 rooms, and some of the windows are around nine feet tall, designed to take advantage of the out toward Greenwich Bay. The house wasn't finished until 1877, five years after construction began, and William Slater ultimately paid around $136,284.53 for the house and its interiors. That comes out to roughly $4.3 million today for a 27-room, 15,000-square-foot home. And there are so many classic gothic revival details right on the exterior here. The steep cross gables, pointed arch windows, tall narrow windows, decorative woodwork along the roof lines, gabled dormers, tall chimneys, and this huge porch that wraps around the entire house. All those vertical lines and pointed shapes are what give the house that romantic, almost storybook, gothic look. One of my favorite details is actually the stone. The house was built using two different colors of Rhode Island granite. The pink granite comes from the Tarbucks Quarry in West Greenwich, while the contrasting blue granite comes from the Welcome Whipple Quarry in Lincoln, and was used around the windows and on the corners of the house. And we know this because the original bills and construction records were actually saved by the family. And the exterior wooden looked even more elaborate when it was first completed. The roof was originally covered in cedar shingles and copper, with decorative cast iron railings running along the roof ridges, another detail that would have really emphasized those dramatic gothic roof lines. This house was intentionally designed up on this hill to catch those cool summer breezes from Greenwich Bay. And can't you just imagine yourself sitting out here with a cup of tea, or reading a book? I just love the atmosphere here. And right away, this entryway really sets the stage for just how much we're about to see inside this house. There are collections displayed everywhere. Collections of porcelain, glassware, artwork, furniture, pieces from all around the world. It honestly feels like an estate sale dream in here, where nothing was ever cleared out. I was like a kid in a candy store. As soon as you enter to the left, you see this display of hunting and sporting pieces. It's another little glimpse into the lifestyle behind the house here. And one of the first things that stands out as you're walking through this hallway, is this huge, incredibly ornate fireplace. To have a fireplace in the hallway alone is a statement, but this one is just so gorgeous. The main hall fireplace has this massive carved wooden surround with a double mantle and almost architectural looking hood above it. And looking at the top, there's these beautiful carved figures. They're chimeras, these mythological creatures that were worked right into the design at the top of the mantle. Around the actual firebox, you also can see this beautiful border of hand-painted Dutch tiles with these soft little floral and scenic designs that add such a different, almost delicate detail against all of that dark, carved woodwork. And the fireplaces throughout Clouds Hill are really works of art in themselves. Several of the elaborate surrounds were carved by Charles Dowler, an English-born craftsman who originally came to Providence during the Civil War to work as a gunsmith before becoming known as a carver and designer. And then right beside the fireplace, you have these cabinets that are just packed with porcelain, glass, little figurines, and decorative pieces collected by different generations of the family. Clouds Hill is known for its ceramic collections. Let me know in the comments if anything in these cabinets throughout this entire tour stands out to you because I know the guide was pointing out a whole bunch of different things and I wasn't even able to take note of all of them. There were so many different pieces that he was saying were so expensive, so collectible, and so rare. So I'm curious to hear if any of you spot anything as I scan over each of the collections displayed here. There are also so many different pieces of rose medallion Chinese porcelain that are displayed here in the entryway and throughout the whole home. And pieces like these really start to show just how global the family's collections were. Clouds Hill is filled with Chinese export porcelain and objects connected to the family's ties to East Asia. The entire entryway just really welcomes you to the incredible collections that we're about to see throughout this home. And this might be one of the rarest rooms in the entire house. It's the Egyptian Revival Reception Room. This is where guests arriving at Clouds Hill would have first been received. And what makes this room so incredible is just how completely they committed to the Egyptian theme in here. The theme is carried throughout the room in the furniture across the walls, ceiling, fireplace, furniture, mantle, and even the little decorative details throughout the room. Like this music box. And what looks almost like wallpaper on the walls is actually original painted and stenciled decoration. There is a deep red background with bands of lotus flowers, geometric patterns, Egyptian figures, and more lotus designs continuing up into the cornice around the ceiling. All of this was created by the Boston decorating firm W.J. McPherson and Company, one of the leading decorating firms of the period, who worked on some major projects during the time. But incredibly, Clouds Hill is believed to be the only complete residential interior by the firm that still survives intact today. Even the chandelier, or technically the gasolier here, was designed to work with the Egyptian theme. If you look closely, there's Egyptian-inspired shapes and details worked right into it. And of course, we have another incredible fireplace here, also carved by Charles Dowler. The mantle was shaped to resemble the curved cornices seen in ancient Egyptian architecture, with carved lotus flowers and geometric designs running across it. There's even black marble inset into the mantle shelf. And these two almost life-size Egyptian female figures actually support the mantle on each side. There's an entire 10-piece Egyptian revival furniture suite in here, all made of walnut by the Boston Furniture Company, Doe and Hunwell. Complete suites like this almost never survive together, which makes this collection that much more incredible. And there's even a gorgeous Egyptian-style Tiffany clock in here that's decorated with sphinxes, cobras, Egyptian mummy cases. It's absolutely gorgeous. I mean, there is so much happening in this room, and it all works together so beautifully because of the deep dedication to its theme. The entire room was designed as one complete Egyptian revival interior, and the theme is completely carried throughout the space, which is exactly why it's considered so rare today. This is the parlor, which is actually the largest room on the first floor and served as Elizabeth Reed's drawing room. And compared to some of the darker rooms we've already seen, this one definitely has a softer feel to it, with the lighter walls, colorful stenciling, rich woodwork, these beautiful red tuft pieces, and all of this heavy drapery around the windows. That more feminine look was actually intentional, especially since this was Elizabeth's drawing room. I also love the doors that are leading into the parlor, especially the etched glass. And if you look closely, those figures in the glass are actually cherubs, which help create that softer, more feminine feel that they were looking to have in this room. And if this room looks familiar, you might have actually seen it before. Clouds Hill was used as the 5th Avenue home of Alderman Patrick Morris and his family in HBO's The Gilded Age. The parlor, library, entryway, and staircase were all used for the Morris house, so these are the actual interiors that appeared on screen. And it's no surprise because this entire house feels like a stage set. And of course, we have another incredible fireplace. If you look closely at either side of the firebox, these elaborate carved creatures are actually griffins, almost like a lion and eagle looking creature. Each of the major fireplaces downstairs has its own mythological theme and are so incredibly detailed, which I just love. And on each side of the fireplace, there's these enormous matching Chinese export vases. These are truly amazing pieces, not even just because of how beautiful they are, but because of their scale. And they're another example of the incredible porcelain collection that's scattered throughout this house. Even the lighting is elaborate in this space, with this crystal chandelier and matching wall sconces, another reminder of just how much attention was paid to every detail in this house. And this table in the center even caught my eye. Instead of ordinary legs, there's these two huge carved winged figures supporting the table and all this incredible carved detail within it. And on each side of the entrance to the library are these incredible ebony and ivory inlaid cabinets. Just look at the amount of detail worked into these. There's these tiny little flowers, scrolling designs, medallions, and geometric borders. They're all created through this beautiful contrast between the dark ebony and pale ivory. And these pieces were specifically called out as some of the most expensive and priceless pieces of furniture here at Clouds Hill. And when you start looking at just pieces like these, you begin to understand just how truly valuable everything inside Clouds Hill is. The entire collection has been estimated to be worth somewhere around 12 to 18 million dollars, which is crazy. And it's all just sitting throughout the rooms of the same family home where it was all originally purchased for. And now we're stepping into the library, and this room feels a little darker and cozier than the parlor that we just left with all of this deep woodwork, heavy drapery, original patterned wallpaper, family portraits, and books filling each corner of the room. And these bookcases are actually worth taking a little closer look at. They were designed in what was called the English style, which was very fashionable during the 1870s. Instead of going all the way to the ceiling, they're only about five feet tall, specifically leaving room above them for artwork and to display larger pieces. And all of this beautiful carved woodwork, including these little floral capitals along the bookcases, were also carved by Charles Dowler, the same craftsman responsible for creating several of the fireplaces throughout this house. And the wallpaper behind the bookcases is also original to the house. It's this beautiful botanical pattern, and when you think about how fragile wallpaper is, it's pretty incredible that we're still looking at the actual wall covering from the Victorian period. And of course, we have another incredible fireplace, another beautiful example of Charles Dowler's work. And the figures on each side of this one are pan figures, the Greek god of nature and the wild, which explains the horns, shaggy hair, and almost goat-like appearance. The amount of detail carved into these is just incredible. I love that the fireplaces throughout the first floor each have their own personalities. They just are truly spectacular. And even the books that are sitting on these shelves are authentic and extremely old and valuable. Our tour guide said that one of the oldest bibles in the collection is believed to date all the way back to the 1500s. And I just love that generations of the family's actual books are still here, a detail that just really adds to the personal feel in the house. And I love everything that's displayed on the desk because it all feels very collected. There's family photographs, albums, little decorative objects, and even a collection of different cat figurines all layered together. And next we're stepping into the dining room. And the first thing I noticed in here is that birds are everywhere. The entire theme of this room was actually built around water birds. You can see them etched into the glass door as soon as you walk in. They're carved into the fireplace and mirror surround, worked into the window cornices, and even carved into the built-in sideboards around the room. So all of these cranes, herons, and long-necked birds throughout were part of the original design of the room. Another example of a very dedicated theme here in the house. And we have another incredible fireplace right here. This mantle, also carved by Charles Dowler, featuring beautifully carved water birds that are almost wrapping themselves around the woodwork. There's even more birds worked underneath the mantle and up around the mirror frame. I swear, the fireplaces in here just keep taking my breath away. Even the room itself was designed a little differently from the parlor. It sits on the north side of the house with this much darker, richer color palette, which was actually considered very appropriate for a formal dining room during the 1870s. The doorway was even made wide enough for two people to enter side by side. Another popular design technique of the period. Because as a lady, you couldn't just simply enter the dining room alone. It was customary to be accompanied by a gentleman. And the wallpaper in here is another really amazing time capsule detail. It was made by Paul Ballin in Paris. And Clouds Hill still has not only the paper installed in the room, it has an entire unused roll upstairs with original pattern numbers and manufacturing markings still on them. That kind of documentation is incredibly rare. And they also have additional rolls of wallpaper from other spaces of the house up there. I'm sure it is a scene up in the attic. And even the chandelier in here is another work of art. Something just as functional as lighting was another chance to show off incredible craftsmanship during this time. And no detail was spared. I love the little faces that are also featured on this one specifically. And then there's all of the porcelain that's displayed in here, which is a huge statement piece alone throughout the space. As we know, Clouds Hill has an extensive collection of Chinese export ceramics. But this room really takes the opportunity to show them off. On the sideboard, there's several pieces in the Rose Medallion Femille Rose Collection. Cups, plates, pitchers, vases, and serving pieces covered in those dense little scenes of people, flowers, and birds. The yellow vases on the fireplace are also supposedly rare and expensive, and they look absolutely gorgeous against the dark wood. There's a mix of Chinese and Japanese pieces throughout, which was very popular in the Victorian era because people were fascinated with Asian art and design and loved incorporating those influences into their homes. And this strange looking wooden contraption caught my attention too. Servants would place folded table linens inside and tighten that giant screw down to press everything smooth and crisp for the dining table. There was also originally a dedicated silver closet right here in the dining room, tucked underneath the main staircase. And because Victorian design loved symmetry, there is actually a second matching closet door on the opposite side, purely there, to visually balance the room. Because on the other side of this wall is the staircase. So that door truly leads to nowhere. And the entire room does feel incredibly balanced and very true to the time period. All of these details truly do not go unnoticed. Next, we're coming into the butler's pantry. It was honestly hard to take all of this in because the original glass front cabinets are just filled with generations of the family's china, porcelain, glassware, serving pieces, and everyday dishes. I do love that so many of the pieces are actually labeled though because you can start to see which collections belonged to which woman who lived here. There's Elizabeth Ives, Slater Reed's tea service, and then right beside it is the everyday china used by her Helen Slater Reed Allen, made by Minton in England around 1891. And calling Minton pieces her everyday china is amazing because Minton was one of the most important English ceramic manufacturers of the Victorian period. They were shown at the Great Exhibition as early as in 1851 and became especially known for their high-end porcelain. So even the dishes this family was using every single day were coming from one of the premier ceramic makers in the world. There's also an entire blue and white service set including service platters, covered dishes, cups hanging from the hooks, there's crystal pieces displayed throughout, and more Chinese and English porcelain tucked into practically every corner of each cabinet in here. And that's what I love about this house. There is so much crammed into every space that actually belonged to different generations of the family. Pieces that the family actually used every single day just placed right here on display as they normally would if they were still here. And the museum even still has the dinner service actually used by Elizabeth and her family. And underneath the window is this huge copper beautiful sink set into marble. So this really was the working space between the kitchen and the dining room where dishes could be stored, washed, warmed, and prepared before being carried out for dinner. But because it was so close to where the guests would actually sit, this space had to be just as beautiful inside as the room next door. And after we've made our way upstairs and we're in the second floor hallway, we see another space that is just packed with pieces from the family's collection. There's books, photographs, artwork, documents, and family papers filling these cabinets. They're just overflowing with original books and papers. The family famously saved everything. Not just furniture and decorative pieces, but all of the diaries, receipts, correspondences, and records connected to the house. And a lot of it is stored right here. I just love the incredible paper trail that documents the generations of life here. I cannot emphasize enough how that makes this house just truly spectacular. There's also this beautiful period dress here on display which gives you another glimpse into the textile collection here. Clouds Hill has family clothing and textiles dating all the way back to the 1870s which is just another layer of what makes you feel like you've stepped right back into another time as you're walking throughout this house. And then back here we get this little reminder that Clouds Hill is still actually a private home. Anne Holst, the fourth generation owner, still lives here today. So there are parts of the house that continue to function as real living spaces. You almost forget that while you're walking through all of these preserved Victorian rooms. This rear section also connects with the house's original back staircase which runs from the basement all the way up to the third floor and would have been part of the service side of the house allowing staff to move around without constantly using the grand main staircase. And now we're going to be taking a look at all of the bedrooms that are upstairs. And this one is the Rose Room which is probably my favorite bedroom in the whole house because this is one of those spaces that make you really feel like you've stepped inside somebody's Victorian bedroom from the late 1800s. It feels soft and feminine but also incredibly lived in with all of the little details and collections displayed throughout. I love this huge carved wooden bed with its towering headboard and all of the floral upholstery, the little seating area at the foot of the bed, and this deep built-in window seat that looks out over the grounds outside. And then across the room you have another fireplace but instead of all of that dark carved wood we saw downstairs, this one has a much lighter carved marble mantle which feels just perfect for a bedroom. You didn't want anything too elaborate up here because guests wouldn't typically see these spaces. But still the beauty is not spared. And I also loved this little marble top sink that was built right into the bedroom. All of the marble top vanity sinks in the upstairs bedrooms were coordinated to have the same marble that the fireplace mantles have which sounds like such a small detail but it truly makes such a big statement. Especially when you think about how everything was designed with balance and symmetry in mind during this time. But then of course there are more collections displayed throughout here. Even up in the bedrooms there's china everywhere. This cabinet is absolutely packed with teacups, little porcelain pieces, covered jars, serving pieces, and I love this little Staffordshire cat. There's a lot of other valuable little Staffordshire pieces that I've seen throughout this space but this one really caught my attention. This whole house truly is an estate sale hunter's dream. I keep saying that because I kept thinking it as I was walking through each room. And then we see this little vanity area that's set up with a brush, hand mirror, comb, and decorative hair accessories from the time. These are the kinds of everyday personal details that I love seeing in a house like this because they make the room feel so much more real and alive. It really just feels like the lady of this room stepped away for a moment. Everywhere you look there's something else to discover in here. The details in this house are just endless. It's like a constant treasure hunt. And this is the Canton room and I love this bedroom too. It feels completely different than the Rose room but it still has that same incredibly preserved lived-in feeling. The room got its name from all of this beautiful blue and white Canton porcelain displayed throughout the space, especially across the fireplace mantle. Canton was a rare type of Chinese export porcelain that became incredibly popular in American homes during the 18th and 19th centuries, usually decorated with the blue and white landscapes, buildings, water, trees, and little scenes of life in China. And against these pale blue walls it all just looks so gorgeous. The first thing you really notice though in here is this incredible four poster bed covered by this huge lace canopy. It almost creates this little room within a room over the bed and paired with the embroidered white bedding, blue drapes, and all of these antique pieces surrounding it, this feels exactly like the kind of Victorian bedroom that you hope to see in a house like this. I also love this little walk-in closet that's right to the side here in the room and it still has all of the built-in wooden drawers and cupboards. It's such a practical little detail but it makes the room feel that much more lived in, like you can really imagine someone unpacking their clothes and actually staying here. I also love the more everyday furniture pieces in here, the slant front secretary desk, the old wooden chairs, and these deep built-in window seats looking over the property. It makes the room feel like somebody actually spent time in here rather than just being a guest bedroom that's tucked upstairs. And once again we have collections displayed everywhere. Even in the bedrooms they were finding places for porcelain artwork and objects collected by generations of the family. It's almost like there just wasn't enough room to display it all. And connecting the canton room to the next bedroom we're going to see is this Jack and Jill bathroom. Even in here the finishes are beautiful. There's this bathtub that's actually sunk into a pink marble surround, there's authentic wood paneling, original pattern flooring, and this huge double vanity topped with more marble. The finishes in here are just incredible in each and every space and especially when you think about how rare it was to have bathrooms in Victorian homes, the fact that there's so many of them is just remarkable. And this is the Java room, another one of the main bedrooms upstairs. And this room has such a different personality from the other rooms that we've just seen. The name is a nod to the Reed family's connection to Java in present-day Indonesia. Alfred Reed's father lived there for more than a decade while working in the East India trade and even served as a U.S. consul to Java during the 1850s. So some of these Javanese pieces, meaning objects from Java, are also connecting right back to the family's history. And one of the most interesting collections in here is this little Javanese figural chess set. Instead of traditional chess pieces, there's these little painted tiny warriors, figures on elephants, and all these incredibly detailed little characters. It's one of those collections because there's so many things in this house that you could easily walk right by it, but thankfully the tour guide made sure that we paused and looked at them because this is another very expensive and rare collection. The bamboo style furniture in here is really interesting as well. It looks really pretty next to the Asian artwork, textiles, and Javanese pieces. It's another great example of the Victorian aesthetic movement that we've been seeing throughout when Asian-inspired design became incredibly fashionable in people's homes. And then we have another cabinet that is absolutely packed with treasures. There's dolls, miniature figures, little porcelain pieces, toys, and even generations of children's books. I spotted the Scarecrow of Oz, the Magic of Oz, and Peter Pan tucked onto these shelves. And this is what I mean when I say that this house feels like an estate sale hunter's dream. Every corner, every cabinet has some collection from some layer of the family's history displayed in it. And of course another beautiful fireplace right here. This one has a dramatic pink veined marble surround and I love seeing how every bedroom upstairs was given its own complete different fireplace design and essentially its own personality. And there's another bathroom too right in this bedroom. That's just incredible. All four of the main bedrooms on this floor were designed with access to their own private bathroom which was an enormous luxury. The Canton room connects through that Jack and Jill bathroom we just saw but this room also has another private bathroom of its own. It truly is just incredible how expansive this place is and how ahead of its time it was too. And next we're coming into the garden room, a close second of my favorites up here. And I love this little alcove leading right into the bedroom. It almost gives the room its own private entrance before everything opens up into this really bright beautiful space. And there's actually an incredible preservation detail in here. This floral wallpaper is original 19th century French wallpaper and it's the only bedroom upstairs where an entire wall of the original paper was able to be saved. The other bedroom wallpapers eventually had to be removed after roof leaks caused damage upstairs but of course this family saved samples of every single pattern that was in each and every room which is tucked away in the attic. And like I said earlier I'm sure that's such a sight to be seen upstairs. But I love seeing this original floral wallpaper against the blue walls especially with the decorative stenciling continuing around the ceiling. Some of the ceiling decoration upstairs had to be carefully reproduced from photographs and tracings of the originals. Even where restoration work was needed they had documentation showing exactly what had been there originally allowing them to truly restore it to the original way in which it looked when the family lived here. And there's also horses everywhere in this room. Paintings, prints, little sculptures along the fireplace and that actually makes a lot of sense when you look at the history of the estate. Clouds Hill had its own riding facilities right here on the property so riding horses was genuinely of life here making all of this horse imagery suddenly feel that much more personal to the family. There's another beautiful fireplace in here too and I love how much lighter all of the fireplaces feel upstairs compared to the ones downstairs. It's almost like they weren't intended as being the main focal point of each room as they were on the first level of the house. And the marble sinks in here too also coordinate with the same marble used in the fireplace in here again giving balance to the space. This room also feels like someone could be living here and it's all of these little collected details that really give you a sense of the personalities of the people who once called this place home. And in addition to all of the amazing collections displayed throughout here what makes Clouds Hill so special is that it really never stopped being a family home. For more than 150 years generation after generation lived here, collected here, preserved things here and passed the house down with everything in it. Ultimately through four generations of women who made sure that so much of it survived and because of that we can actually see how the rooms evolved with the family over time. Layers of different generations all preserved together and that really is what makes Clouds Hill feel such like a true Victorian time capsule. And knowing the complicated story behind the wealth that created all of this makes the house even more interesting. It's a story of industry, privilege, family legacy and ultimately historic preservation. It's honestly amazing that a home this intact is still here, still privately owned by the same family and still filled with more than a century of their lives. It's truly a hidden gem that tells us so much about our own history. I hope you all enjoyed touring this incredible home with me today. Let me know your favorite part of Clouds Hill in the comments and make sure to give this video a big thumbs up so it can be recommended and shared with other historic home fans and Victorian time capsule lovers out there. And of course make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on some more truly spectacular homes that I'm bringing your way. Thank you so much for taking a step back in time with me again today and for watching. So until next week my friends, keep enjoying the beauty of vintage home. Au revoir!