The museum is open Thursday
through Monday (closed Tuesday and Wednesday) from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm. A 45-minute
guided tour takes place daily at 2:00 pm. On the second Sunday of each Month
from March to October, a neighborhood walking tour occurs at 12:30 pm followed
by an interior tour of the house. Admission costs $10 per adult, and you can
pay with a credit card if your total is $20 or more (although cash is
preferred). Students and senior citizens cost $5, and children under 12 are
free. A small souvenir area that sells books and postcards occupies the room at
the rear of the main floor where you pay your entry fee.
We arrived
approximately 5 minutes prior to 2:00 pm, yet we were still able to join a
tour. Note that more than one tour group departs at 2:00 pm; each group
contains approximately 15 guests. Because the groups were larger then desired
on the day that we visited, another docent was called in to lead another group
(which caused our group to wait about 10 minutes for her to arrive). You can
also take a self-tour using a binder of information that the museum provides;
most people take between 30 minutes and 90 minutes to complete the self-tour. If
you want to guide yourself, we recommend NOT arriving between 2:00 and 3:00 pm,
because it is difficult to maneuver around the various tour groups when they
occupy the rooms on any floor.
This museum is not handicap-accessible; you must climb about
7 steps to reach the front door (because you are entering a brownstone). Ring
the buzzer on the front landing and wait to be admitted. The tour covers four
floors of the house, and there are approximately 18 narrow steps (with
handrails) between each floor (so you must climb a total of nearly 80 steps).
You tour the kitchen and family room on the basement level (which is partially
sunken below East Fourth Street). Public restrooms and an area to hang coats are
located on the basement level. The main floor contains the parlor/dining room,
as well as the entryway and hallway. The second floor contains the bedrooms for
the lady and man of the house, as well as a small guestroom/office. The third
floor once contained the children’s bedrooms, but now house offices for the
museum staff (therefore, you do not tour any rooms on the third floor). The
fourth floor contains the servant’s quarters as well as storage areas. An attic
above the fourth floor is off-limits to visitors. A lovely walled garden is
located toward the rear of the property.
The museum highlights the home of the Tredwell family, whose
patriarch made his fortune in the metal/hardware trade. The Tredwells occupied
the house from 1835 to 1933. The house is representative of the period for an
upper middle-class merchant-class family, although it is enormous by today’s
standards! It is considered
one of the finest surviving examples of architecture from the period (1832
late-Federal brick exterior but also for its Greek revival interior rooms), and
it has been recognized as a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
The museum’s collection of over 3,000 items includes
furniture, decorative arts, clothing, photographs, books, household items, and
personal items. Highlights include a set of 12 mahogany side chairs made by
Duncan Phyfe, a pair of matching six-globe gas chandeliers, and 40 dresses and other
fashion accessories that belonged to the Tredwell women (the clothing is not
always on display).
We enjoyed our tour of the Merchant’s House Museum given by docent
Heide. It was a pleasant way to spend an hour on a Saturday afternoon. We were
surprised at the number of tourists visiting this site on the day that we were
there; more than 40 people were present for the 2:00 pm tour, who were then
broken into three different groups. Although this museum is not a “must see”,
it is certainly worth seeing if you have some free time.
