Less Hustle More Coffee

On a cool crisp early afternoon we headed for our 1:00 p.m. Mansion walkthrough reservation. A perfect day for a visit to the Hermitage grounds. Most of our time was spent outside during our visit. You can visit the grounds earlier before your mansion tour or after – or both. Either way, your visit starts with the check in at the ticket booth and then you proceed through the museum and to the grounds. There is also a nice gift shop and restaurant and wine tasting on the grounds.

We enjoyed our day very much. It should be noted that the mansion rooms are mainly roped off and you cannot enter most of the rooms but are peeking in at the doorway. Our group had approximately 12 people and a guided tour explaining each room. So as you can probably guess there was not much time to peer in as you had to let others do the same and to linger long after your group goes to the next room meant you were going to be in the way of the next group and not hear the story for the next room. Since I feel I didn’t get a good grasp of the house I bought the Hermitage guidebook. I can read more about it. This was the only downside. I get they need to preserve the things in the rooms. I’ve visited other houses and they allowed entry to the room but had furniture areas roped off and this allowed you to take in each room. No photos allowed in the house. I get it. They have to make their money somehow and if I’d taken photos I might not have bought the book. So I was ok with that. But the photos could be taken on the grounds. Even though I was disappointed about not getting to actually walk into each room, I still thought the tour and information was worth the price. So don’t read too much into my honest review of the house. We VERY MUCH enjoyed our overall time here. The staff was knowledgeable and great. I’m just an honest critic and if you know me, you know you get the good, bad and indifferent, lol!

While it was interesting getting to see the log cabins and/or slave quarters on the grounds, I mostly enjoyed the hiking around the creek and playing in the gardens. Well, I guess you could call it playing. I used my iPhone for the photos.

There was another mansion on the property – Tulip Grove. Sadly it looked to be in a state of disrepair – especially seeing the front porch. It is sad that this place is not being kept up. It wasn’t even mentioned or pointed out in any of our materials or guide – that I remember anyway. It wasn’t highlighted for sure. I think they could use this as additional money maker for them in some format. I’m sure it’s probably on the map and in the guidebook or something, but I need to read more about it.

Lots of pretty trees and magnolias on the property. The trees are huge. A few years ago a tornado came through and many many trees were destroyed. George worked at Gibson Guitar at the time and they were able to make some guitars out of some of the wood from these downed trees.

Several log cabins on the place, including the house that Jackson lived in while the mansion was being built. The grounds were just beautiful.

The hike around the property went into the woods by a stream and well, it just seemed about as near to heaven and Garden of Eden as I could ever imagine. It was peaceful.

If I lived there I would walk that path often and take seat here and read and plan and think. I believe that these were once cotton fields for a brief time just beyond the bench.

Then there was the garden paths. Just beautiful.

Yes, a raccoon sleeping on the property. We reported it and the staff said it was not rabid, just sick and they were aware. Bless him.

Then there was the museum!

So there you have a our Hermitage visit. I hope you enjoyed seeing a home of one of our past presidents. I intend to dig more into the history of it, when I have time. There are also some YouTube shows. Maybe you would like to do so as well. Or better yet, come to Nashville. There’s a lot for you to see and do and experience. As well as the communities all around Nashville too.

Would I do this again? You betcha. I’ll be back to the restaurant and for some more wine and you can join and be a member and visit the grounds, I believe. I’ll have to check out their website and give it consideration. I would love to do that hike repeatedly! The gift shop has things we might actually buy people for Christmas too. So we’ll be back! It’s a gem of an area and I’m ashamed we hadn’t been already.

I have a lot more things to share from this week as well since the Hermitage. I’m really running behind it seems. I’ll try to pop in, in the morning for the last few days updates.

Whew! This was a hard post to do uploading all the photos. I need to get ready and get into work. Hope you all have an excellent Friday.