Well, I can say from a public point of view, I am all for short and sweet with orientation. I love historic homes and love visiting them any time I have a chance. My work is mostly with ethnographic materials and archological collections so it is a welcome break from my routine.

 

There is a lovely 5 story Victorian in my home town that I drag my children (and anyone else) to everytime we visit my family. They have a small room in the guest house (which serves as the giftshop/greeters desk) with some displays to look at whist waiting for the tours to start (top of every hour).

 

You are allowed to go up to the house only about 10 minutes before your tour starts and can only enter if you have a ticket (issued only at the guest house) When you arrive, the docent greets you and gives you a brief orientation and reiterates several rules (no sitting on any historic furniture, no food, gum, etc.) that were posted prominently in the guest house.

 

These orientations are BRIEF. Just a few minutes, as you are expected to have at least glanced at the panels in the guest house. After that, they move from room to room explaining how each of the three families who lived in the home used it. Rooms decorated as they were for the different families helps divide the stories up, yet most of the docents do a great job connecting the web together.

 

I am very impressed always with how well these tours go and how smoothly the groups flow. When I first started to read your back story I for a second thought it might have been this place, as they sound quite similar, right down to the admission price.

 

 ...On a side note....I have been to this house at least 40 or 50 times, yet I always get something different out of the docents. Last year one told me a story I had never heard, that Hoover had stayed with the family and they had built a toilet in a closet just for him. The docent then whipped open a door and showed us the lemon yellow tiled box of WC, complete with tiny yellow sink. Setting proudly on the yellow commode was a festooned Christmas tree, the docent said it was used during the holiday season for the nursery. I really felt privileged to have seen this "behind the scenes" glimpse.

 

Sarah