Vanderbilt Archway
VanderFest, the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Fourth of July celebration from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m., will be a day of family fun on the scenic, 43-acre Vanderbilt estate. This year’s event marks the centennial of the museum’s beginnings. On May 27, 1910, William K. Vanderbilt II—adventurer, naturalist and global explorer —purchased the first parcel of land for his Eagle’s Nest summer estate, long listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
VanderFest Program: The Sunday, July 4, event will include live entertainment, vendors of food and of arts and crafts, hayrides around the estate, multiple raffle prizes, and games from the 1930s: croquet, lasso toss, potato-sack races, a dinosaur bean-bag toss, and throwing a ball to knock over wooden milk bottles. Visitors may shoot photos against the period backdrop of a 1931 Model A Ford.
For kids, the day will feature children’s theater, face painting, hands-on arts and crafts, stick-on tattoos and a huge inflated bouncer.
General admission: $7 for adults, $6 for students and seniors, $3 for children 12 and under. Daytime visitors will receive wristbands that allow them to return for the fireworks without purchasing another ticket. Admission for those who wish to attend only the fireworks will be $5.
Each summer, the Vanderbilt offers Living History tours that recreate a particular summer from the 1930s for mansion visitors. Actors portray mansion staff and famous guests of the Vanderbilt family. Visiting VanderFest this year will be aviator Amelia Earhart, actor Errol Flynn and boxing champion James Braddock.
The Arena Players will perform Lewis Carroll’s children’s classic, “Alice in Wonderland,” at 2:00 p.m. in the Education Center, and William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a comedy about the humorous aspects of love, at 7:00 p.m. in the mansion’s cobblestone courtyard.
A vendor will sell picnic food (hot dogs, burgers, etc.) until dark. Visitors are invited stay on the grounds to watch the evening fireworks across the harbor at Asharoken. As the fireworks begin, Debbie Carbone, a U.S. Navy veteran, will sing “The Star Spangled Banner.”
The Vanderbilt: 100 Years on the Gold Coast, 60 Years as a Suffolk County Museum
A century ago, William K. Vanderbilt II purchased 20 acres on a rolling hillside above Northport Harbor and began building Eagle’s Nest, one of the grand Long Island Gold Coast estates. In 1947, the Vanderbilt family bequeathed the estate to Suffolk County, which began operating the museum in July 1950.
The Vanderbilt Planetarium with its domed, 60-foot Sky Theater opened in 1971. It is the largest facility of its kind on Long Island. The 43-acre museum complex includes the Gold Coast-era mansion (1910-1936), a marine museum, natural-history habitats, curator’s cottage, seaplane hangar, boathouse, house furnishings and fine art, photographs and archives, and an extensive collection of ethnographic objects that comprise the estate of William K. Vanderbilt II.
The Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium are located at 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport, NY. Directions and updated details on programs and events are available at www.vanderbiltmuseum.org. For information, call 631-854-5579.
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