Hildene, the Lincoln Family Home

Robert Todd Lincoln lived a life shadowed by loss. He was the only one of Abraham and Mary Lincoln's four sons to live past his teens, and he was present or nearby at wrenching moments of national history. He went on to a prominent career as a lawyer, as Secretary of War, as minister to Britain, and as president of the Pullman Company, the great railroad-car manufacturer.

He first came to know Manchester as a young man during summer visits, and years later he chose the ridge south of the village for his own retreat. He named it Hildene, from old words suggesting a hill and a valley with a stream, and the estate became the family's beloved summer place.

Descendants lived at Hildene into the 1970s. When the last of them died, a community effort saved the estate and opened it to the public, keeping the house and its contents intact rather than dispersing them.

The mansion is filled with original Lincoln family furnishings, and among its treasures is one of Abraham Lincoln's iconic stovepipe hats. The centerpiece for many visitors is the 1908 Aeolian pipe organ, with more than a thousand pipes, which can still be heard filling the house with sound.

Outside, the formal garden was designed by Robert's daughter Jessie and laid out so that its blooming beds resemble the leaded panels of a stained-glass window when seen from above. It is planted to peak in June, when the color is most intense, framed by views toward the surrounding mountains.

The grounds also hold a formal observatory, gardens, and a carriage barn, giving a full picture of how a wealthy family lived and summered in the early twentieth century.

Because Robert Lincoln led the Pullman Company, Hildene uses that connection to tell a broader and more honest American story. The estate restored a historic Pullman car and built an exhibit around the Pullman porters, the Black men who staffed the company's sleeping cars in demanding, poorly paid service jobs.

Those porters went on to form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a landmark Black labor union whose organizing became an important thread in the civil rights movement. The exhibit places their story alongside the Lincoln legacy of emancipation and equality.

It is a thoughtful choice that turns a rich family's estate into a place to think about labor, race, and the long, unfinished work the Lincoln name represents.

Hildene is also a working landscape, with a goat dairy and farm, a solar array, and miles of walking trails through meadow and woods, reflecting a mission that ties history to land stewardship.

Spring and early summer bring the gardens to their peak, with June the target for the formal garden's full bloom.

Fall lays classic Vermont color over the ridge and the mountain views, and in winter the estate grooms cross-country ski and snowshoe trails, so the grounds stay open in a different, quieter way.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.