December 12, 2012

Monte Vista

On Sunday we took advantage of a Holiday House Tour presented by the Middletown Garden Club. The weather was rainy but the homes and churches on the tour were welcoming. I was happy to get a chance to see Monte Vista because it is a local landmark, a Victorian mansion dominating a hill across from Cedar Creek Battlefield. It also has a striking barn with a cupola that motorists admire from nearby I-81.
Monte Vista was built by Charles Heater in 1883 on property given to him by his mother, Caroline Heater, who was known during the Civil War as a Unionist even though two of her sons died fighting for the Confederacy. We were told that Mrs. Heater told Charles to build the finest house on the Valley Turnpike as a way of showing the neighbors that he was successful in spite of past conflicts.

The home that Mrs. Heater and her husband lived in during the war lies directly across the Valley Pike from Monte Vista on the battlefield. You can see it on the left side of this picture I took at a reenactment in 2010.
I posted photographs of the reenactment in November that year — scroll down that archive to see them.

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3 comments:

  1. What a beautiful home - looks like someone listened to their mom, and built just what she asked for!

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  2. Beautiful photos, I like the first.

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  3. I love visiting all the older homes this time of year. Some of them go all out in their decorating.
    This house looks HUGE!!

    ReplyDelete

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