Kuser Farm Mansion
Victorian Splendor

December 2005 Hamilton Post
By Shawna Wagner

Hundreds of poinsettias, 42 tinsel-trimmed Christmas trees and dozens of antique cherubic figurines will greet gaping children and adults who tour the Kuser Farm Mansion this December.

In all its Yuletide sparkle, the Victorian home takes visitors back to the time of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

However, the richly ornamented 18-room mansion was certainly not the humble dwelling of Bob Cratchit.

The mansion was built on the 22-acre estate now known as Kuser Farm in 1892. It was the summer home of Fred Kuser, a wealthy New York City businessman, his wife Teresa and their 10 children.

Since 1977, a year after the township purchased the Kuser property, the mansion has been open to the public for year-round guided tours. Denise Dale Zemlansky, curator of the museum, has been arranging tours in the home for 27 years. Every year, in early November, she and a small cadre of mansion tour guides and township workers begin decorating each room of the mansion—in traditional Victorian splendor—for the Christmas holiday.

For Zemlansky, the best part about Christmas at Kuser Farm Mansion is that every year is different. This year, the mansion will feature one room with angels on loan from the family collections of its tour guides.

Tour guides will also focus their discussions this year on the traditions of people in Victorian times. One example of these traditions is the wonder ball, which is a cantaloupe-sized ball of yarn with small gifts entwined inside. The present would usually have been given to a woman, a loved one who would take the yarn and knit. As the woman knit, and used up lines of the yarn, the small gifts inside the ball would surface.

The ball of yarn embodied the spirit of giving, Zemlansky said. As the gift continued to reveal presents, the receiver was busy knitting gifts for someone else.

Some aspects of a Kuser Christmas remain constant, though, and a perennial favorite at the mansion is the display of Victorian holiday trees. There are bundles of cotton-wrapped sassafras trees—or snow trees—spread throughout the mansion. A snow tree is created by removing most of the leaves on a sassafras tree, and gluing cotton on to its bare branches. Victorians, Zemlansky said, did not throw the snow trees out after the holidays were over.

Another artificial tree that is displayed around the home is the goose feather tree. Traditionally, that tree had branches made of real goose feathers, but most modern versions use faux feathers. The tree’s natural white feathers are sometimes dyed a variety of colors like forest green or patriotic blue. And the trees can be any size, ranging from small tabletop models to towering giants like the eight-foot white goose feather tree that sits in the downstairs of the mansion.

The real challenge for Zemlansky and mansion volunteers is preserving dozens of live trees, wreaths and hundreds of poinsettias that fill the halls and rooms of the mansion.

Zemlansky said 150 to 250 poinsettias and approximately 42 decorated trees are sprinkled throughout the house. Trees ranging in size from table toppers to ceiling scrapers are ornamented in traditional Victorian style with handmade decorations, tinsel, dried nosegays flowers, popcorn and cranberries.

In the dining room is a giant, live Christmas tree with traditional (and some authentic) Victorian toys like porcelain dolls underneath. Also downstairs is a tree made up of poinsettias, all grown in the Hamilton Township greenhouse.

The dark wood walls throughout the mansion are dotted with natural evergreen and pinecone wreaths that are also courtesy of the township greenhouse.

“With the evergreens and the live trees and the popcorn on the trees, there is a good scent of Christmas that comes naturally,” she said. “It all just comes in, so it smells like Christmas, it feels like Christmas, it looks like Christmas and it is beautiful.”

The visual display of Victorian traditions might moisten the eyes of visitors who remember the holiday customs of their grandparents. But many of the home’s decorations are designed with children’s interests in mind.

Upstairs, in one of the children’s rooms, is a fireplace with Santa’s legs dangling inside. And in the middle of the room is an exquisitely intricate doll house assembled on a table. The toy house is a miniature Kuser mansion that Zemlansky said was constructed at about the same time as the real home.

The working lights inside the doll house shine through its stain glass windows, radiating a rainbow of colors. And the house has a working fountain that was restructured by township buildings and grounds employees.

Also for children is a holiday cast of characters like Santa Claus, who most of the time sits on the front porch, the good fairy and a walking, talking Christmas tree. And kids might also be interested in seeing the Jersey Valley model railroad in the cellar of the mansion.

Zemlansky said Kuser mansion offers sights and sounds for all members of the family. That is why many families make it a tradition to view the house every year.

“I think that it wouldn’t be Christmas or the holidays for some people unless they shared it with us by coming through and seeing the house,” Zemlansky said.

Many people emulate various Victorian holiday customs after they learn about them on tour at the mansion. Zemlansky sometimes hears feedback from people who say they included the traditions in their family holiday routine.

One popular Victorian amusement, the Christmas cobweb game, was added to the customs of one mansion visitor, she said. The cobweb game involves multi-colored or single colored ribbons that are criss-crossed throughout a room or house. The object of the game is to find the one ribbon that has a special present attached to its end.

“One person’s little girl wanted her birthday party done that way,” Zemlansky said.

The mansion runs two different tour operations this holiday season. During the Winter Wonderland, between Wednesday, Nov. 30 and Saturday, Dec. 3, the tours are strictly walks through the mansion with no tour guide. Postings explain each exhibit.

Later in December, the tours are led by tour guides who provide information about each room and exhibit. While tours are scheduled to be 45 minutes, visitors may pace themselves and linger past that time.

There is so much to see and experience at the mansion that many people return several times, sometimes bringing different members of their family or neighbors, Zemlansky said. And no one walks out of the mansion in a Scroogey mood.

“There are no bah humbugs here,” she said. “Everybody runs out of here with a smile on their face, and they have a nice time.”

Kuser Farm Mansion and Park is located at 390 Newkirk Ave. For more information call (609) 890-3630.

Directions: Entrance on Newkirk Ave. Rt. 30 East to Rt. 70 East to I-295 North to Exit 61B, Arena Dr. West. Go straight to 2nd light and turn left onto Olden Ave. (west). Pass Gulf station and turn right onto Newkirk Ave. Enter less than ½ mile on right.

Time: 30 minutes northeast of Philadelphia.