I have been to many house museums and all of them had some sort of restoration work involved. The preserved state of this home gives you a haunting feeling when you walk through what you could call preserved decay or a house frozen in time. It definitely gives a different perspective.

This Federal-style house was constructed at 21 East Battery for Scottish shipping merchant, Charles Edmondston in 1825. It was one of the first substantial houses to be built along the city’s sea wall away from the warehouses.

This home was built in 1772, as the town home of Founding Father Thomas Hayward, Jr., one of the South Carolina’s four signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Cedarmere is the historic home of William Cullen Bryant on seven Roslyn Harbor acres. Bryant was a prominent nineteenth century American poet, newspaper editor, civic leader and leading figure in the fight against slavery.

The 216-acre property is home to four former Gilded Age homes of the Gould and Guggenheim families, now owned by Nassau County and operated by the Sands Point Conservancy.

Bonnet House and Garden was built in 1920 on land given to the couple as a wedding present. They created this unique Forth Lauderdale winter estate.

Unlike most house museums, this restored French Quarter home centers its tour on the experience of the enslaved staff in an urban setting and how it differed from those living in a rural setting.

Whitehall is the Palm Beach mansion built by Henry Morrison Flagler, one of the founding members of Standard Oil and a leading developer of Florida as a tourist destination. The 75-room, 100,000 square feet home was enjoyed during winters by the Flaglers, and they entertained constantly for 11 years until his death in 1913.

Ringwood Manor became the Gilded Age summer estate of partners Peter Cooper and Abram Hewitt and their families in 1853.

The colonial revival style Sagtikos Manor was built by Stephanus Van Cortlands, the first American born Mayor of New York City, in 1697. The house, originally on 1,200 acres, was expanded in 1772 and then again in 1902.

The white Federal-style mansion on Main Street was a symbol of wealth for William Nickels. It then became a hotel for 40+ years, before being acquired by Alvin Sortwell who restored it as summer house for his family.

Hamilton House was built by merchant Jonathan Hamilton, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1788. The Georgian-style house stands above the Salmon Falls River, and is surrounded by formal gardens and a 200-acre wildlife sanctuary.

Merchant James Rundlet and his wife Jane built their home in 1807. The home was an urban showplace, filled with all the finest home furnishings and latest innovations of the day.

The Lee-Fendall House Museum & Garden was constructed 1785 and is located in Old Town Alexandria. The house and its collections present a timeline of nineteenth and early twentieth century history and family life.

The stately Eustis mansion is a historic family home designed by Milton architect William Ralph Emerson and built in 1878 for William Ellery Channing Eustis and his family.

The story of Kykuit began with philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil and the estate he built that was home to four generations of the Rockefeller family. The 40-room Georgian-style historic home in Pocantico Hills was built in 1913.

Ruth Livingston Mills and Ogden Mills owned homes in Paris, Newport, Manhattan and California, but it is this 65-room Beaux-Arts Gilded Age mansion that five generations of Livingstons lived and entertained. The 40,000 square foot mansion was originally a smaller house, built in 1832 and greatly altered and expanded to what it is today.

Mount Vernon is an American landmark and once a vibrant 18th century plantation and home to the first President of the United States. The estate is located on the banks on the Potomac River.

The Lyndhurst mansion was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis in the Gothic Revival-style. The 67-acre estate landscape design was the work of Ferdinand Mangold. The Tarrytown estate had three resident families: the Pauldings, the Merritts and the Goulds.

The Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum was the first library solely dedicated to a President of the United States, and is located on the grounds of the family estate, Springwood. Located a short distance from Springwood was Val-Kil. Eleanor Roosevelt considered Val-Kil to be her first real home.