The Most Famous Historic Homes In America

Although the United States is a much younger country than many others, it has more than its share of exquisite homes that are full of history. Constructed over the span of four centuries, from the 1600s through the mid-1900s, in almost every architectural style — including the utilitarian clapboard homes of the early settlers to the Classical Revival mansions of the nation's first presidents to French chateaux — the U.S. boasts some of the most interesting historic homes anywhere.

All of these important buildings represent the extraordinary people who lived in them and all of them are open to the public. Some historic homes were also designed by those who lived in them, using their genius to create masterpieces of architecture in the new American wilderness. Others were home to men and women who distinguished themselves in the realm of politics, business, and philanthropy, whose homes are testaments to their outsized lives in the heady days when the U.S. was expanding westward. And some are shrines to beloved entertainers whose appeal is eternal. Here are some of the most famous historic homes in America.

Thomas Jefferson, who once said "Architecture is my delight, and putting up and pulling down, one of my amusements," according to Monticello.org, was a genius whose mind encompassed horticulture, science, politics, and architecture, among other disciplines. The designer of Monticello (meaning "Little Hill"), Jefferson later demolished parts of the Palladian and Neoclassical masterpiece, renovating it repeatedly.

Featuring an oculus, or circular window at the top of a dome, and 12 other skylights, Monticello has 43 rooms, according to The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates the estate. Jefferson was a noted gardener as well; his vegetable and flower gardens, which are open to the public, functioned as an experimental laboratory for plants he imported from around the globe. Of course, few of his brilliant plans could have been carried out without the labor of enslaved people; only some of them were freed in his will.

One of the most profligate of presidents in his private life, Jefferson's pocketbook could never keep up with his architectural dreams; by the time he died, on July 4, 1826, he was more than $100,000 in debt, according to The Saturday Evening Post. As the National Park Service relates, Monticello, which was recognized as an architectural treasure from its inception, was finally acquired by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in 1923 so that it would be maintained and opened up to the public.

This French chateau in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains is the largest family home ever constructed in the United States and one of the most spectacular buildings in the country. Built between 1889 and 1896 at the height of The Gilded Age, it has an astounding 250 rooms, 60 fireplaces, 35 bedrooms, three kitchens, an indoor pool, and a sumptuous banquet hall that seats 64, per Deutsche Welle; the many gardens on its 75 acres were created by the famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Situated on 8,000 acres, it was built with the vast sums of money earned by Cornelius Vanderbilt's investments in the steamship and railroad industries, which were exploding as the country expanded west in the 1800s, as Biography relates. Since Vanderbilt was a completely self-made man, his enormous home exemplifies the American entrepreneurial spirit in the booming decades of the late 1800s.

The family's fortunes even survived the Great Depression, and they continued to live at the home until the 1950s, when they began to run it as a business, giving tours and renting it out for special occasions. The fourth generation of the Vanderbilts still operates Biltmore as a wedding venue, ultra-upscale hotel, and equestrian center, attracting an incredible 1.7 million visitors every year. As Bill Cecil, the great-grandson of Cornelius and Edith Vanderbilt says on the estate's website, "We are still passionate about our mission of preservation through self-sufficiency." Now, this also includes winemaking and a line of luxury home furnishings.

Located a stone's throw from the skyscrapers of Boston, in the city's North End — now a tourist mecca of fine restaurants — the Paul Revere House stands proudly as the only remaining structure from the 1600s in the area, its official website states. Built in the garrison style, the home of the man who rode out of Boston to warn his fellow colonists of the approach of British troops on April 18-19, 1775, has been restored to its condition when Paul Revere lived there. 

As Biography relates, the famed patriot was born the son of a French Huguenot immigrant father named Apollos Rivoire. After becoming a successful goldsmith and silversmith, Revere became embroiled in the Revolutionary movement when he acted as a courier for the Boston Committee of Safety and helped plan the Boston Tea Party, which took place in December 1773.

Built in 1680, the house was where Revere lived with his family from 1770 to 1800, according to the historians at the Paul Revere House. Incredibly, over the years, it had been used as the location for a vegetable and fruit business, a candy store, a tenement for immigrants, a cigar factory, and even an Italian bank, before it was rescued from the wrecking ball in 1902.

The magnificent Hearst Castle, built for newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular of any historic home in America. Perched like a European castle atop a hill in San Simeon, California, called "La Cuesta Encantada" or "the Enchanted Hill," by its owner, its elegance and beauty put it on an equal footing with some of the finest castles on the Continent.

And indeed many features of the Hearst Castle were imported from Europe – including an entire 15th-century ceiling, which Hearst had shipped from Spain – as well as countless works of art that adorn all of its interior and exterior spaces. Greek and Roman antiquities grace the property, where Hearst hosted the cream of society and business moguls for epic weekends. The 345,000-gallon Neptune Pool is finished with handmade tile in a Greek key motif and is surrounded by colonnades and outbuildings with Greek pediments, as Travel and Leisure describes.

The 127-acre estate, which includes the main building with twin towers, three separate guesthouses, and acres of terraced gardens, dotted with fountains and pools, is a testament to the grandiose dreams of Hearst, the millionaire newspaper magnate who built it as a home for himself and his wife Millicent, a former chorus girl, as History relates.

This historic home belonged to the woman who — legend claims — played a prominent part in the founding of the nation, providing the flag for the colonies to rally around. As Historic Philadelphia relates, at a time when supporting the Revolution would place anyone in peril, at risk of arrest — or worse — at the hands of the British, she allegedly created the 13-star flag that represented the upstart new nation of the United States in the year 1776.

Located in the Historic District of America's first capital city, the Betsy Ross House, built in 1740, offers a glimpse into a woman who is much more than the one-dimensional figure seen in history books. Twice widowed by the age of 30, she worked as an upholsterer and seamstress out of the house, where she lived in a rented room upstairs while plying her trade in a shop downstairs, according to Historic Philadelphia.

Like so many other historical homes in America, the Betsy Ross House was almost lost to development at one point. As The Independence Hall Association states, it was rescued from this fate in 1898, when 2 million Americans donated dimes to the Betsy Ross Memorial Association to save the building from being demolished or relocated. Today, this home to a beloved American female patriot still stands as a monument to a great moment in American history.

The home of "The Unsinkable" Molly, or Margaret, Brown, whose outsized life was stranger than fiction in many ways, is a testament to her indomitable personality. Known as "The Heroine of the Titanic" for manning the oars of a lifeboat and helping to save the passengers in it, she had first entered married life as a mining engineer's wife in hardscrabble Colorado, per the Molly Brown House. The opulence of her home shows the incredible wealth accrued by these first miners.

Molly Brown was aboard the Titanic when it hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912; forced to board a lifeboat, she and the other women on the boat took turns rowing and encouraging each other throughout that harrowing night. As Encyclopedia Titanica tells the story, once safely aboard the Carpathia, Brown took a leading role in organizing relief for the other survivors. She famously quipped in a letter to her daughter, "After being brined, salted, and pickled in mid-ocean, I am now high and dry."

The woman who once declared, "I am a daughter of adventure," had a home that epitomized her larger-than-life personality, with artifacts she collected from her many travels. Slated for demolition in 1972, the house was saved and restored by the group Historic Denver, as related by the museum; now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is one of the best examples of Victorian-era homes in the city.