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Culture
Walking Through Yesteryear
Historic Promont House gives a glimpse of Milford’s Gilded Age
A stained-glass window on the second floor of the Promont House reminds visitors of the easy elegance of the mansion’s 1865 roots.Promont House, once the home of the 43rd governor of Ohio, was a private residence when the Greater Milford Area Historical Society inherited it in 1984.
And despite its fine bones and impressive history, it came with all the trappings of a private home that had moved ahead – maybe too far ahead – of its 1865 beginnings.
“It had avocado shag carpet,” museum volunteer Colleen Potter says.
Enough said.
But today, that interior – once so ripe for restoration – has now been lovingly returned to the late-1800s era when Gov. John Pattison lived there.
Resplendent in its former glory, the elegant, Italianate Victorian museum, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, sits on five acres overlooking downtown Milford. The museum’s major project over summer 2006 was removing the lead-based paint on the home’s exterior and applying a fresh, off-white coat with brown trim.
“It was quite a project,” says Donna Amann, the museum’s administrator. “But it’s very, very beautiful. We also exposed some of the stonework, which looks nice, too.”
Mansion floors are polished beech, fireplace mantels are carved Italian marble and ceilings are a soaring 13 feet, 4 inches.
Visitors can take guided tours for an up-close look at the renovated and furnished rooms. And unlike some restored homes, the Promont House Museum – its official name – allows direct access to those splendid interiors.
“Visitors can walk through the rooms,” Potter says. “They don’t have to look in from out in the hallways.”
And there’s more to the Promont House than a collection of well-furnished rooms. The historical society has established an extensive, on-site library, as well as a gift shop.
Potter says the museum draws residents interested in local history, as well as tourists who sometimes make the trip just to see the house. School groups come through, too, including Milford second-graders, who benefit from a Partners in Education relationship between the museum and the school district.
The society also continually looks for new ways to bring the Victorian experience to life for visitors. A recent addition is the Victorian Tea, in which groups of 10 to 30 people can enjoy a proper high tea complete with scones and clotted cream.
Also new is a living-history tour of nearby Greenlawn Cemetery, where many of the town’s founders and Civil War veterans are buried. Volunteers represent well-known residents of the time and share each person’s history.
Christmas is the busiest season at Promont House, drawing up to 800 people between Thanksgiving and mid-January, Amann says.
During the holidays, guided tours are supplemented with a booklet describing Christmas in Victorian times. Extended hours allow visitors to experience the museum at night.
The society, dedicated to authenticity, used to decorate with real candles but switched to safer flicker-bulbs in recent years.
The 2006 theme was White Christmas, requiring thousands of lights inside and outside the house.
“The Victorian style was ‘the more the better,’ ” Amann says.
Story by Leanne Libby
Photo by Michael W. Bunch
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