Friday, November 16, 2018

Boston visit - Fenway & Larz Anderson auto museum

More fun time with friends from Reno!  Donna had to attend a conference, so we would meet her for lunch most days.  Then me, Chris, and Troy would find another adventure for a few hours.
Boston Common
 


 Then we headed to Fenway!

 World Series Champions 2018!!  We also spent some time at MIT and Harvard - getting our smarts on :) 
 Our afternoon adventure took us to the Larz Anderson museum in Brookline.  It is housed in the old carriage house  (yes this was their carriage house...)  The mansion was torn down in 1959.
 The carriage house was used to keep their carriages, obviously, as well as their horses.  The first floor has visiting cars


 They kept the integrity of the carriage house - this was where they hosed down and cleaned the horses.  Above- are the stall dividers with the horse names still listed on plaques.

 The Anderson's personal cars are kept in the basement.  My oh my - these are some cool cars from the early 1900's.  They drove this one to New Hampshire in 1901 (it had a porta potty; and a bed in the back, since it was such a long drive in those days).  Most people were still riding horses or using carriages in these days.  Larz Anderson was a diplomat and spent a great deal of time in Europe.  Many of their cars were European, so were right hand drive.

 This was their electric car - from 1906 (and people today think they are so cool driving them like they were just invented - Not!)
 They had a new car every year (and they drove them - you can see the wear and tear - it's so cool!).  Both Larz and Isabelle came from prominent families - with Civil War heroes in their family tree.  Isabelle was given $17 million dollars on her 5th birthday in 1881, making her the wealthiest woman in America at the time.  They didn't have any children, so they donated their cars and carriage house to the town.  It's a beautiful museum to visit - you can just feel the history oozing out of the walls and cars!
 View of Boston from the carriage house lawn - Nice!!

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