 Abilene has two fine old mansions open for tours. The Georgian style Seelye Mansion and the older Victorian-era Lebold Mansion which is being restored as a show house for an interior design and home restoration firm. The Lebold Mansion was built in 1880 at the cost of $18,000, but the original owners had the home for a only short time. Consequently, over the years, the mansion was used as a dormitory for telephone operators, an orphanage, and apartments. The mansion is now being restored as a show house for the interior design firm, Victorian Interior's At Lebold Mansion. Most of the rooms in the 5 story mansion are now decorated with period furniture, with an eye for 21st Century function. The rooms are beautiful, though a little too dark and busy for my personal taste. But I'm sure that a tour of the Lebold Mansion would provide many ideas to those restoring other Victorian homes. To me, the coolest thing about the mansion is the foundation for the mansion's tower - a small domed room which served as a dugout for by the first family to settle in Abilene in 1857. The Lebold Mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
copyright 2008 by Keith Stokes |
