Thanks for posting...I was looking for one to go to, but if I wanted to travel some, it'd be a toss up between Beacon Hill and Chadds Ford....love both those places!

Palate fatigue? Not a chance! :-)

I saw that article, too. Would love to hop up to Chadds Ford-one of my favorite areas.

The BSO house tour in Maryland is always a stunner and worth the time.

I would LOVE to go to the one in the village - I used to go there so often in my early 20's. I would also love to go to the one in New Hope. I have never been and it is on my to do list to visit that area.

I found it interesting that there were a couple so close to home in Warwick and Goshen. There is a house in Goshen I am just dying to get in to. I wonder if it is on the list. :)

Mtn, did you ever sign up for that décor boot camp in LA?

I hope to have the time to do both the Bucks County Designer House and the New Hope Historical Society garden tour, maybe the Chestnut Hill one as well. I've done the New Hope tour before, and it's really great, especially if you're a garden junkie like I am.

The latter tour is very inexpensive; if memory serves, it was $5 per garden.

Funny story: it was on that tour one year that I visited a 100-acre "mini Longwood Garden" about 5 minutes from my house. You parked near the service entrance, and there was a table there where you paid and received a map. I didn't have nearly enough time to see everything, but I wandered all around the place. (I did see one of the owners with friends, using one of the estate's golf carts to get around.) I was almost back to my car, when I realized: I COULD NOT FIND MY KEYS! They were GONE, obviously fallen among some flowers somewhere on the 100 acres! I was starting to panic (big surprise). Fortunately, I'd just reached the table - and there they were, where I'd left them when I'd paid. I remembered: I was about to ask a question when a rude woman almost literally pushed me aside to interrupt with her own question. I'd been so amazed that I picked up my map and left, without realizing my keys were on the table!

If you like garden tours even if they don't feature peeks inside people's houses, don't forget to check the dates for the Garden Conservancy's Open Days. I've just checked my county's summer Open Day - I'll probably go, but I've actually already visited all the gardens at other times and on other types of tours! I should go anyway, because one of them, also about 5 minutes from my house, is one I consider world-class or nearly so. I could also do tours in the neighboring New Jersey county.

I'm also going on a garden tour in a couple of weeks through my membership in the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. I visited it last spring via membership in a plant organization, but I am so eager to see it again. One of the owners has a book out about the garden, and he gave a talk about the garden, to a packed room, at the Philadelphia Flower Show this year.

Any of you who are interested in the Philadelphia Horticultural Society tours or similar, consider joining organizations and clubs in your area. Since you all are house and possibly garden junkies, I'm sure you won't be surprised at the range of organizations that host tours as fund raisers. Just one example: there's a local group that hosts kitchen-and-garden tours and another that's had kitchen tours in past years. Those have been really fun, except that they make me want to blow up my own kitchen!

Theoretically, you could probably tour from now until autumn, which gives you the perfect excuse to ignore the to-do lists at your own places. ;)

Chicago's Old Town Triangle in Lincoln Park has a great summer tour. It just happens to be very close to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

Mtnrd, for next year, I recommend coming south to Virginia for Historic Garden Week. It's a one-week extravaganza during the last full week of April all over the state, organized (superbly, I might add) by the associated garden clubs, and all the proceeds go to support the restoration and maintenance of historic gardens across the state. (Oh, sorry, the commonwealth - sorry, Mother!)

It includes historic city and plantation houses and gardens, as well as interesting houses of all ages, and is organized by towns and by neighborhoods. Lots of nice people, gorgeous flower arrangements in every house by the garden clubs of that area, and more linen outfits than you can shake a stick at ...

If you really do want to do it, there are lovely places to stay in every area that interests you. Put it on your February calendar to post here, and I'll tell you my favorites.

Here's their website. It's exhausting and fabulous. Y'all come.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Week in Virginia

Our local conservancy just outside of Philadelphia is having a garden tour on Sunday. You can go to all the gardens or just the ones you want. It's $5 per garden, which I like because I have already seen some of them, so I can pick and choose, and decide how much time I want to spend.

In some ways I hate going because then I have to come home and look at my little patch. Sigh.