Roseland Cottage
Built in 1846 in the newly fashionable Gothic Revival style, Roseland Cottage depicts the summer life of Henry and Lucy Bowen and their young family. Prominently situated across from the town common, Roseland Cottage epitomizes Gothic Revival architecture, with its steep gables, decorative bargeboards, and ornamented chimney pots. The interior of Roseland Cottage is equally colorful, and features elaborate wall coverings, heavily patterned carpets, and stained glass, much of which survives unchanged from the Victorian era.
Henry Bowen was a Woodstock native who returned to his hometown after establishing a successful business in New York City. While Lucy Bowen enjoyed summers away from the city, her husband used Roseland Cottage as a place to entertain friends and political connections, including four United States presidents.
Roseland Cottage's picturesque landscape includes original boxwood-edged parterre gardens planted in the 1850s. The estate includes an icehouse, aviary, carriage barn, and the nation’s oldest surviving indoor bowling alley. The entire complex of house, furnishings, outbuildings, and landscape reflects the principles of Andrew Jackson Downing, a leading nineteenth-century tastemaker.
Open
Wednesday – Sunday, June 1 – October 15
11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Tours on the hour. Last tour at 4:00 p.m.
Closed July 4
Closed Columbus Day
The Roseland Cottage is a Historic New England property.
Top photo: House and garden - Roseland Cottage, built in 1846 in Gothic Revival style, shares the stories of the prosperous Bowen family. Henry Bowen, a Woodstock native and New York merchant, publisher, and reform activist, and his family sought refuge from the summer heat, congestion, and formality of New York in Woodstock, Connecticut.
Bottom photo: North parlor - The parlors at Roseland Cottage were used for formal entertaining and informal family gatherings. Letters and journals provide insight into family gatherings at Roseland Cottage, which included activities like charades and poetry readings.