Cedar Rapids’ Brucemore among Top 10 holiday museum-house tours in nation

CEDAR RAPIDS — Barbie has arrived at Brucemore this holiday season, 115 years after the first Barbie arrived at the historic three-story mansion in southeast Cedar Rapids.

Visitors won’t see the iconic doll lounging in the lap of luxury, but her spirit is captured in a bright pink tree in the second-floor bedroom once occupied by Barbara Douglas, the youngest daughter of the second of three families to live in the 21-room home built between 1884 and 1886.

Caroline Sinclair, widow of meatpacking magnate Thomas Sinclair, built the mansion to give her six children a life in the country. In 1906, she traded homes with George and Irene Douglas, whose home on Second Avenue SE now houses The History Center. After Irene died in 1937, eldest daughter Margaret and her husband, Howard Hall, became Brucemore’s final residents.

For the holidays, Barbara Douglas’ bedroom is “decorated with the pink flowers and these big faux jewels that are pink. So we're kind of capitalizing on the popularity of Barbie, but also a nod to the woman who lived in that bedroom,” said Jennifer Beall, events and communication coordinator at the estate.

The kids catch on right away, noted Megan Clevenger, Brucemore’s program and outreach manager.

“They come in and they go, ‘Oh, that's really pink — it's just like Barbie.’ And that's a brand-new tree this year, so it's brand-new to the mansion and the design as a whole. And the decorations are brand-new, as well,” Clevenger said.

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Barbara Douglas even had pink dress boots, just like her movie counterpart, but you won’t see those on display. They’re part of the estate’s collection and are staying under wraps.

“They were well-loved,” Clevenger said. “They were a favorite of hers, and that's pretty evident.”

Brinlee Herrig’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when she learned she might see something “Barbie” upstairs. And suddenly, the icebox in the kitchen wall wasn’t nearly so interesting to the 5-year-old from Hiawatha. She and her mother, Stephanie Herrig, were touring the mansion, invited by family friend Wilma McGrane of Cedar Rapids, a Brucemore donor and longtime supporter.

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It was Brinlee’s first trip there, and she gave the experience a thumbs-up. She even schooled her mom by knowing lions once lived on the estate.

“This building, in general, is fascinating,” said Stephanie Herrig, who hadn’t been there in years. “It’s just beautiful, and an amazing piece of history, too. It’s so neat,”

“It’s just such a beautiful place without the Christmas holiday,” McGrane added, “but the trees just enhance it.”

They aren’t the only ones who feel that way.

Award-winning tour

This season’s self-guided daytime mansion tours, which are closed Dec. 24 to 26 and resume Dec. 27 to 31, have plenty of attractions for the smallest viewers, as well as the adults who revel in the lush decorations throughout the late 19th century Queen Anne-style family home. (The evening tours are sold out for the season.)

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The decorations are so stunning that Brucemore has moved up in the rankings from eighth in 2022 to sixth in the annual USA Today readers’ choice Top 10 holiday tours at historic home-museums across the country.

Topping the charts is Elvis Presley’s Graceland in Memphis, thank you very much. Then: 2. The Christmas Mansion, formerly the Stetson Mansion, in DeLand, Fla. 3. Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in Akron, Ohio. 4. Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester, Mich. 5. Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, Minn. 6. Brucemore in Cedar Rapids. 7. Newport Mansions in Newport, R.I. 8. Trail End (the John Kendrick Mansion) in Sheridan, Wyo. 9. Filoli Historic House and Garden in Woodside, Calif. 10. George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore in Asheville, N.C.

“This is our fourth time on the list,” Beall said, but how Brucemore made the list is a bit of a mystery.

“The first time we were contacted about it was in 2019,” she said, noting that she wasn’t on staff at the time. Subsequent notifications came in 2021, then 2022.

The emails typically arrive in mid-October, saying the mansion has made the Top 20 among the publication’s editors and travel experts. Public voting begins in November on USA Today’s website, and the Top 10 is announced in December.

“We don't actually know who submitted us for the list initially, but we're pretty happy to continue to be on it,” Beall said.

“There's no financial compensation for winning,” she said. “I would say it does help boost our sales a little bit, though. It lets us say that we have award-winning tours, so we're pretty proud of that.

“But I think for us, as a staff, it's meaningful to see that out of the houses that are on that list, we're in one of the smallest metro areas. The fact that we have the community that's so dedicated that they are willing to vote, that we can surpass houses that are in much larger metro areas, really speaks to the support that our community gives us, and that people are invested in this, and they care about what we're doing. …

“It makes us feel like we're doing a good job, that we're able to get people invested that way.”

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Decking the halls

The 21-room mansion is festooned with 14 twinkling trees, lighted garland swags gracing the grand staircase, silver tea services and ruby red glassware at the resplendent holiday dining table — all in the manner of the Douglas era, from the early 1900s. And in a nod to later resident Howard Hall, even a palm tree in the 1939 subterranean Tahitian Room sports a holiday glow.

Staff and volunteers begin hauling out the holly in early November, aided by a big two-day push from local companies’ employee community outreach programs. The volunteers follow guidelines that are kept digitally and in binders. Jessica Peel-Austin, curator of Museum Collections, oversees the details from beginning to end.

“She'll go through, put finishing touches on things, and make sure ribbons are fluffed and branches are the way they should,” Beall said. “She's also the one who chooses the decorations that go in each room. This year we have two additional trees that Jessica picked out — the one in the corner of the kitchen and the Barbie tree.”

The Douglases didn’t decorate as extensively, and according to diary entries, they put up their tree on Christmas Eve and took it down Dec. 26. But they did host parties and brought out their silver tea service and other finery.

“In the Great Hall we have another silver set with a punch bowl that's supposed to reflect Margaret's (soiree) that she would have on the evening of Christmas,” Beall said. “That was a big party for her, since she went to boarding school out East. When she was home, she would bring over all of her friends from the area who also went to boarding school. It was a way for the girls to have a party after they had gone months without seeing each other.”

Holiday music floats through the air during the tours, but this year, it’s not from the pipe organ in the Great Hall. That instrument’s century-old motor gave out, and “we’re working on getting it fixed,” Beall said.

Pre-pandemic, guides led visitors through the mansion, but Brucemore moved to a self-guided model that emerged with social distancing restrictions, which now have eased. Entries are timed on the half-hour to help with the flow of visitors. Volunteers are on hand to answer questions, and recorded narration and stories play through the rooms to enhance the guest experience.

And young visitors, who tend to come during the daytime hours, can pick up an activity book that creates a popular scavenger hunt, as they look for the nine Leo the Lion stuffed toys that may be hiding in the trees or on shelves.

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The booklets, new in recent years, encourage children to “look through all the rooms and look up and down, and look in the trees, because we want them to see everything in the mansion,” Clevenger said. The take-home booklets contain activity pages and history notes, but young guests also can sit down and create drawings at a table upstairs.

“We wanted them to feel like they were a part of the Christmas experience with the activities,” Clevenger said.

Margaret Douglas Hall would approve. She designated that upon her death in 1981, Brucemore would be donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the community to enjoy. And according to the report for fiscal 2021, more than 1 million people have done just that, through all seasons.

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com