Gabriel Manigault designed this house for his brother, to reflect his wealthy lifestyle. The Manigault family owned several plantations, and hundreds of slaves.

Tucked away along the banks of the Hudson River is Washington Irving’s charming home called Sunnyside.

Clermont was the Hudson River seat of New York’s politically and socially prominent Livingston Family.

This brick, Georgian-style mansion reflects the pre-Revolutionary War wealth and status of Fredericksburg merchant, Fielding Lewis. Fielding was married to Betty Washington, George Washington’s sister.

Franklin W. Smith built his winter home, Villa Zorayda, in St. Augustine in 1883. He was inspired by the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain.

This house was built on Meeting Street in 1808 for wealthy merchant and slave trader Nathaniel Russell.

It is hard to believe that a man who was rescued and taken care of by slaves, managed to become a slave trader, buying and selling people like property. The Sorrel family lived here until 1859 when it was sold it to a Connecticut businessman named Henry Weed.

Opened to the public in 1954, the property allows visitors to explore the complicated relationships between the most and least powerful people in the city of Savannah in the early 19th century.

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.