Tour the Famous Martin Van Buren Home!

So, welcome back to the channel. I know it's been a long time since you've seen us. Yeah, a long time no see. Obviously, in the midst of COVID, a lot of things got shut down. It's now November and it's cold, as you can tell. And today, we decided to kind of start part one of this new series we're going to try where we're going to go take a look all around the area and we're going to call it like a lost series where we're getting lost in New York, I guess. So tag along with us because today, we are at the former, well, the eighth president of the United States, Martin Van Buren's old house. It's in like Columbia County, New York, so in the middle of nowhere. But we're going to take you guys around. We're going to show you guys. We can't go inside because it's not visitor season. Everything's like covered in tarp, it looks like, when we peeked in the window. So, unfortunately, we can't go inside, but we're going to take you around the grounds and try and tell you a little bit about what's on all the signs. And it's a little bit of a scavenger hunt to find all the billboards. So, let's see if we can find them all. All right, guys. So, let's jump into this. It was a little bit of a scavenger hunt for us to find all of these little podium pieces. So, we kind of went out of order. It was interesting. It was a little bit all over the place. But I'm going to try and tell you guys a little bit about this place. So, this is the home of the eighth president, Mr. Martin Van Buren. And he came back here, I guess, in the 1840s and bought this piece of property. It's 220 acres, which is insane. And I guess the house had over 15 bedrooms, from what I read. Oh, no, 36. 36 rooms, which I have a hard time believing that this space had 36 rooms, other than they must be really small. We didn't, unfortunately, get to go inside, which I thought kind of sucked. But there are virtual tours online that you can take. Way out here, and I'm going to point to it here in just a second. This is the field behind the house. There is the gravestone for the previous owner. It's just right there above my fingertip. This is a very expansive property. A lot of it is farmland. And interesting enough, there is a farming co-op that has taken over the grounds. And every two years, they plant a different crop. And I guess when Mr. Van Buren lived here, he actually supposedly did hops and made his own beer. So, I thought that was kind of interesting. Supposedly, it was supposed to be right over here. And this general vicinity was where he would grow his hops so that he could brew his beer. Like I said, very expansive property. A lot of just, you know, empty fields, unfortunately. So, I kind of apologize that there's not a whole lot to look at. So, now we're going to kind of head back towards the house here. And tell me if you guys agree with this or not. I got Phantom Manor vibes. So, if you're familiar with Disneyland, I believe it's Shanghai has Disneyland. Shanghai has the Phantom Manor instead of the Haunted Mansion. And I just got those kinds of vibes from the architecture. Just kind of overall, the color scheme. It just really made me feel kind of old-timey Haunted Mansion. Also, speaking of Haunted Mansion, check out this door knocker. I mean, you can't really get more genuine than that. And like, this is original. Like, it's here from when the house was built in the early 1800s. Which is crazy. The other thing I thought was really cool was this lock. Like, what kind of key goes in that door? Again, here's an outside look of the Martin Van Buren house. Towards the top there, that top terrace, they actually added that on to the house. That was not there when they originally bought the house. Which I thought was kind of cool. And then I guess in this front lawn area, there's a fountain typically. But it's cold now, so they have to take the fountain down. And again, here's another one of those podiums that we were trying to find. It just goes on to talk about that top terrace piece that they added to the house after they moved in. Which I thought was kind of crazy. Here is another one of those podiums. And they basically were talking about farming and how they farmed back here in that expansive lot that I showed you guys earlier. Where you can see the little headstone. The farming co-op comes in here every two years. And they plant a different crop and they rotate it through. This is about a .75 mile walk trail. So you can walk all the way back there. And that actually connects to another trail that will take you to another old house. Which is crazy. And as you can see, there's really not a whole lot beyond this. And just beyond those trees is actually a lake. Which I thought was kind of cool. We didn't really... You can't really venture out back that far. But here you're about to get kind of like an aerial view of what the 220 acres looks like. That front road. Basically, they would have like a... Actually, you know what? I'm gonna let Gary tell you. Yeah, that's a gatekeeper. So that's a gatekeeper and that's a gatekeeper. And then you have fence in between. So that's what's gonna be at some of the gatekeeper house. So like you're not even able to really see like how expansive it goes out. You can kind of. Because that's the White House over there. So that would be there. So there would have been another house like right... Sort of like maybe over there, I'm guessing. But you can kind of see how expansive it is. I don't know what this is. That's really where they kept their horses and stuff. Yeah. All right, guys. So this was my favorite part of the entire tour. This is the Old Post Road. And it actually runs from Albany to New York City. Or at least it did. And when people were traveling, they would often stop at the Van Buren Mansion on their way as a break. As you can see, you know, it's pretty expansive. And there's actually a town somewhere in New York that actually still uses this road in their city. I just thought it was really cool that this is still there. And it's still kind of a part of the history here. And here is the historic sign for the Old Post Road. This is another exterior shot of the mansion. And here is one of those post house that we were talking about earlier in the video that sits just outside the property. All right, guys. So that's gonna wrap up this video. It was actually kind of cool learning some different facts about the area. The fact that there's this one road that was actually used to go from here to Manhattan. And it's still... Apparently there's a city in New York that they still actually use that part of the road. So that was pretty cool. What did you like? I liked the whole look of the house. The cool expansion that he did with the gothic church piece. And some of the interesting facts. You know, really cool. Really cool place to walk. And it's amazing to think that this was the main thoroughfare between Manhattan and Albany. Apparently it would take, what, a day? A day and a half to get from here to Albany. And we can probably drive it in the car in about 30 minutes. That's crazy. That's a weird thought to have. So I hope you guys enjoyed tagging along with us today. And look for more videos as we explore upstate New York and get lost. Bye, guys.