Roseland Cottage

556 Route 169, Woodstock, CT 06281

Roseland Cottage.

Photo credit: Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Roseland Cottage, also known as Henry C. Bowen House or as Bowen Cottage, is a historic house in Woodstock, Connecticut. It is described as one of the best-preserved and best-documented Gothic summer houses in the nation, with virtually intact interior decorations. It is now owned by Historic New England, which operates it as a museum.

Roseland Cottage was built in 1846 in the Gothic Revival style as the summer home of Henry Chandler Bowen and family. Beginning in 1870, the largest Fourth of July celebrations in the United States were held at Roseland Cottage. Four United States Presidents visited Bowen's summer home as his guests and speakers for these celebration: Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, and William McKinley. Other prominent visitors included Henry Ward Beecher, Julia Ward Howe, Oliver Wendell Holmes and John C. Fremont.

Today the house remains in excellent historic condition, with original Gothic furniture and embossed Lincrusta Walton wall decoration. The house is a contributing property within the Woodstock Hill Historic District.

This description includes material adapted from the Wikipedia article "Roseland Cottage", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. It has been edited for brevity and to conform with the style of this website. The edited description is distributed under the terms of the same Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 license.