The USA is a big, beautiful country, with design destinations from coast to coast and nothing is more American when it comes to summertime travel than the road trip. So, in honor of our love of design and the lure of the open road, we're building a few suggested itineraries for style-centric trips. First, up, the Northeast. Pack a bag, pop on your sunglasses, don't forget the camera and be sure to leave room in the trunk for some stellar secondhand finds…
Our Northeast United States of Design itinerary starts in Maine, meanders south through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and ends up in the center of it all, NYC. We'll leave the exact route to you (and your GPS) but here are a few suggested stops to pick and choose from when plotting out your driving directions:
Art Museums:
• Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland
• Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick
Interesting Homes to Tour:
• Victoria Mansion, Portland
• The Olson House in Rockand, which just became a US National Landmark.
• The Wadsworth–Longfellow House, Portland
Places to Stop, Stay and Visit:
• Traditional Meets Modern: Hidden Pond Cottages , Kennebunkport
• Angela Adams, Portland
• Eli Phant: A Gallery of Handcrafted Goods, Portland
• Northern Style: DeLise Decor , Portland
• Maine's Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Rockport
Apartment Therapy Reader Insider Tip:
Growing up in southern New Hampshire I can attest to the great antique shopping. If anyone is making the trek be sure to include the "antique highway" from the Lee traffic circle to the Epsom traffic circle. There has got to be over 30 stores just on this one route alone. - Imblebee
Art Museums:
• Currier Musuem of Art, Manchester
• Hood Museum of Art, Hanover
Interesting Homes to Tour:
• Victorian Home Tours in Manchester's North End
• Jon Brooks' Home in New Boston, on Apartment Therapy
• Frank Lloyd Wright's Zimmerman House in Manchester, on Apartment Therapy
Flea Markets and Antique Fairs:
• Mid-Week in Manchester Antiques Show
• Manchester Pickers Market Antiques Show
Art Museums:
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• MASS MoCA, North Adams
Interesting Homes to Tour:
• Gropius House, Lincoln
• Codman Estate, Lincoln
Places to Shop, Stay and Visit:
• Vinny's Antiques Center, Seekonk
• Lekker, Boston
• Ward Maps, Cambridge
• Shaker Workshops, Arlington
• Topia Inn, Bershires
• Restoration Resources Architectural Salvage, Boston
Flea Markets and Antique Fairs:
• Apartment Therapy Blogger Insider Tip:
What to Bring to Brimfield
- water (its hot!)
- bug spray. Brimfield is held in acres and acres of fields. In July there can be black flies.
- tape measure
- backpack
- folding bag to put things in
- cell phone, especially if you're with a friend and get split up. This is not only to find each other, but you
can also send each other photos of things you like!
- fold-up rain poncho. Even if it's not raining when you leave home, Brimfield has its own unique weather which can be significantly different from towns even close by. But don't worry if you forget yours, you can always buy one there.
- a friend, preferably someone who's not afraid to tell you that if you buy that giant cigar store indian, it might scare you in the middle of the night.
-stamina. You'll never get through even half of the market in a day.
- Jeanine Brennan
Art Museum:
• RISD Museum of Art, Providence
Interesting Homes to Tour:
• The Newport Mansions, Newport
• The Babcock-Smith House, Westerly
• Governor Henry Lippitt House, Providence
Places to Stop, Stay and Visit:
• The Stone House, Little Compton
• Frog and Toad, Providence
• Craftland, Providence
• Sue Casa: Elegant Nautical Style, Bristol
• Rose Island Lighthouse Sleepovers
Art Museums:
• The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield (p.s. - I met my husband here, so I highly recommend this one!)
• The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
• Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
• Art Trail, 15 locations
Interesting Homes to Tour:
• The Glass House, New Canaan
• Gores Pavilion (featuring furnishings by Jens Risom), New Canaan
• Gillette Castle, East Haddam
Flea Markets and Antique Fairs:
• Elephant's Trunk Country Flea Market, New Milford
Art Museums:
• MoMA
• Whitney
• The Met
Interesting Homes to Tour:
Places to Stop, Stay and Visit:
Too many to list! But here are two guides to get you started:
• Our guide to shopping in SoHo
• Our guide to shopping in Brooklyn
Flea Markets and Antique Fairs:
• Brooklyn Flea, Fort Greene
• GreenFlea, Upper West Side
This list is just a start - we know that YOU know some great places to add to this itinerary - please share your favorite shouldn't miss stops in the Northeast with us all in the comments below...
Images: Main Illustration by Allard Laban, Maine: designatednaphour on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons, Massachusetts: Wes & Kayla, Connecticut: Alena
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I was wondering just the other day why I hadn't seen anything about the Northeast on apartment therapy. As a northeasterner myself, I say bravo! CT is the best :)
No Vermont love?
love the northeast shoutout. Sad to see VT isnt included, but maybe they'll get a dedicated post?!
Nothing in New Jersey?
Is there anything to tour in Levittown?
Forget the over-priced Hidden Pond! You wanna see some serious design style in Kennebunkport? Check out Captain Fairfield Inn with 5 rooms designed by wonderful Boston designer, Rachel Reider
Vermont? :-(
where's New Jersey? I expected to at least see the Stickley Museum...
Fallingwater in PA?
nj and pa are not part of the northeast.
"nj and pa are not part of the northeast."
Then why are they shown on the map???
A design tour of the Northeast should not have omitted Vermont, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, How did you manage to leave out three states and the most important Wright home in the country?
The following are some suggestions:
Vermont
The Shelburne Museum, Shelburne
New Jersey
The Newark Museum, Newark
Drumthwacket and Morven, Princeton
Pomona Hall, Camden
Ringwood Manor and Skylands Manor, Ringwood
Pennsylvania
Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, Ohiopyle
Longwood Gardens, Chadds Ford
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Some places you forgot:
Connecticut
Mark Twain House, Hartford
New York
Olana, The Frederick Church Estate, Hudson
Vanderbilt Estate, Hyde Park
George Eastman House, Rochester
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning
When creating the listing for Delaware, try not to forget Winterthur; Washington, the Smithsonian furniture, textile, and design collections; and Virginia, Monticello
meaghanl, you may be thinking New England, most maps include PA in the Northeast. For that fact the writer may also be thinking of New England.
NY is not New England.
VT should be here. Thanks John H for suggestions!
NJ and PA are the Northeast, too.
On RT 16 in NH, (forget which town, before N Conway), there is a good example of a Shingle home that is always cool to see.
i liked this post. very well done!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_%28U.S._Census_Bureau%29
new york & new jersey are for sure the northeast. i live in jersey and i don't sit there and say that i live in the mid-atlantic when people ask me where i am from, i say the northeast. pennsylvania is a little questionable to me, but if it wasn't in the northeast category, it would sound quite weird if it was considered the south or midwest. vermont should definitely be on this list.
New York was included among the northeast states yet Vermont wasn't? I always thought New York was one of the mid-Atlantic states.
One glaring omission, however, is the Saint Gaudens national landmark in Cornish, NH. How anyone can discuss design and overlook this amazing sculptor is beyond me. http://www.nps.gov/saga/index.htm
Fabulous!! it makes me swoon to see the amazing history and beautiful homes of the Northeast . The Zimmerman house is my ideal dream house.. Love, love, love it!!
"New York was included among the northeast states yet Vermont wasn't? I always thought New York was one of the mid-Atlantic states."
That's funny... Seeing as it shares a border with Canada and all...
NY, NJ, & PA are mid-Atlantic states as well as Northeast states, therefore, NJ & PA should have been included. And I have no clue why VT is left out.
Sorry to be nitpicky...I got excited to see this list. The states I would have toured are not your list and that makes me sad. Please try again.
Portsmouth, NH? In addition to the best effing brunch place in the US (the friendly toast), I thought it was the hippest place in New Hampshire. It's close to both Kennebunkport and the highway down to Boston.
Ahhh I love this...United Stats of Design! well it might as well be called "United States of China"
Love the Glass house by Johnson...timeless!
Ruben Marquez Jr
We of northern New England take a bit of umbrage at the claim that NYC is "the center of it all." Not to us, it isn't! ;)
What happened to Vermont?
"nj and pa are not part of the northeast."
AHAHAHAHA...that is some hilarious sarcasm you got there. Seriously - you're being sarcastic right? Or maybe you're 12?
I live in NJ, and I don't know a single person who thinks of NJ as a mid-Atlantic state. Northeast all the way.
I thought this would be an informative thread, not a bitch session on bad geography....
Anyway, some small gems for Eastern PA and South Jersey:
The Clay Studio (Philly): http://www.theclaystudio.org/
The Fabric Workshop (Philly): http://www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org/
The Japanese House (Philly): http://www.shofuso.com/
Not exactly design, but - The Mutter Museum (Philly): http://www.collphyphil.org/site/mutter_museum.html
Grounds for Sculpture - great landscape design (South Jersey)http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/
Wharton Esherick museum (near Philly): http://www.levins.com/esherick.html
Lots of great estate gardens too: Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, Morris Arboretum
And one for Vermont: http://breadandpuppet.org/photo-gallery/museum-images
New Englanders definetly consider themselves seperate from NY and PA. New England is obviously seperate. "Northeast" is a relative term but the Appalachian Trail clearly seperates us from NY (granted VT is to the west, but it's still part of New England). The corridor we call the Northeast has its own rustic feel. New York is large enough that it has its own culture and since we're all in such tiny regions we feel a certain cohesiveness and do not like being overshadowed by or lumped in with New York.
Whew! Anyway - yes the Brimfield flea market is great, but don't forget the rest of Western Massachusetts. Unique dining, gorgeous mountain vistas and farmlands, spectacular hiking and some nice lakes for swimming as well!
Yay! Some of my favorite spots made it to the list!
I buy and sell regularly at the Elephant's Trunk in my hometown of New Milford, CT. It's one of the best flea's I've ever been to, and it's every Sunday (but go early--it wind's down just after lunch).
I used to be a tour guide at Van Cortlandt Manor. It's beautiful early-18th-century Dutch home right on the banks of the Hudson River. You'll see the other (non-British) side of the history of this region of colonial America.
right on, jen ward! i'm born and raised in new jersey, and now 52 years old. never in my life have i heard or said someone say anything other than the northeast.
the Olson House isn't in Rockland, but in Cushing (which it says on the website you linked to) Cushing is about 20 mins away from Rockland. I'm being a stickler, I know, but I grew up in Thomaston (the town in between Rockland and Cushing)
Well I'm from Delaware, and we've always considered ourselves part of the Northeast, with our shared banking and chemical economies. So no Delaware love either!? Whatever you do AT, DON'T put Delaware as part of the South; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland should have their own Mid-Atlantic category!
There's much more in New York than just what's in the city! There are several fabulous Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Buffalo.
Just so you know New York is NOT part of "New England" but VERMONT is. Many interesting places are in Vermont if you look. Makes me sad.