490 Best Sights in USA

 This early-19th-century townhouse, attributed to William Jay, was designated in 1965 as Savannah's first National Historic Landmark. "Daisy" Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, was born here in 1860, and the house is now owned and operated by the Girl Scouts of America. Mrs. Low's paintings and other artwork are on display in the house, restored to the style of 1886, the year of Mrs. Low's marriage. Droves of Girl Scout troops make the regular pilgrimage to Savannah to see their founder's birthplace and earn merit badges. In addition to its value as a pilgrimage site for Girl Scouts, the home is a beautiful look into the lives of Savannahians during the Victorian era. Tickets sell fast, so book in advance if you want to tour the house on a specific day.

Overlooking the Sampit River from a bluff is this sprawling historic home (circa 1769) that's notable for its collections of regional antiques and furnishings and its Chippendale and Duncan Phyfe furniture, Royal Doulton vases, and silver. Events at the Kaminski House include summer outdoor concerts on the lawn.

One of the most stately residences in southern Utah, this 1890s redbrick gingerbread Victorian home in the center of town is surrounded by herb and flower gardens and contains many of the original owners' furnishings. Guided tours are offered throughout the day, and historical demonstrations are presented from time to time. Visits provide an interesting look at pioneer life in the Southwest.

A British cannonball is lodged in a corner of this 1713 former inn, tavern, and stagecoach stop that was also the home of the noted architect Cass Gilbert (1859–1934). Period furniture and Revolutionary War memorabilia fill the museum, where guides dressed in Colonial costumes conduct tours. The garden house, designed and built by Gilbert in 1915, overlooks a brick-walled garden with a reflecting pool and rose arbors. It's lovely in early summer.

Named Kenmore by a later owner, this house was built in 1775 on a 1,300-acre plantation owned by Colonel Fielding Lewis, a patriot and merchant, and brother-in-law of George Washington. Lewis sacrificed his fortune to operate a gun factory and otherwise supply General Washington's forces during the Revolutionary War. As a result, his debts forced his widow to sell the home following his death. The outstanding plaster moldings in the ceilings and over the fireplace in the dining room are even more ornate than those at Mount Vernon. It's believed that the artisan responsible for them worked frequently in both homes, though his name is unknown, possibly because he was an indentured servant. A multiyear renovation returned the grand house to its original state. It is interesting to note that the walls vary in thickness: 36 inches in the basement, 24 inches on the ground floor, and 18 inches upstairs. Guided 45-minute architectural tours of the home are conducted by docents; the subterranean Crowningshield Museum on the grounds displays Kenmore's collection of fine Virginia-made furniture and family portraits, as well as changing exhibits on Fredericksburg life.

The stone house, parts of which date from the 1720s, serves as the home of the Saugerties Historical Society and a museum. Inside you can see original architectural details, including wide-plank floors and fireplace mantels. The front lawn is the site of summertime concerts, periodic colonial reenactments, and other special events.

In 1897 Cornelia A. Hill built what's now Kimberly Crest House and Gardens to mimic the châteaus of France's Loire Valley. Surrounded by orange groves, lily ponds, and terraced Italian gardens, the mansion has a French-revival parlor, a mahogany staircase, a glass-mosaic fireplace, and a bubbling fountain in the form of Venus rising from the sea. Alfred and Helen Kimberly, founders of the Kimberly-Clark Paper Company, purchased the estate in 1905, and their daughter, Mary, lived here until 1979. Most of the 22 rooms are in original condition.

Among Newport's first summer cottages, this 1841 Gothic Revival mansion designed by Richard Upjohn was built for George Noble Jones, a Georgia plantation owner. The house is named for its second owners, the King family, one of whose members hired McKim, Mead & White to expand and redesign it. The dining room, one of the 1881 additions, contains a cork ceiling and one of the first installations of Tiffany glass windows. Furnishings reflect the King family's involvement in the China trade.

Built in 1792 by Zephaniah Kingsley, a landowner who produced Sea Island cotton, citrus, sugarcane, and corn with the aid of about 60 slaves, this is the oldest remaining cotton plantation in the state. Take a self-guided tour of a barn and 23 tabby (a concretelike mixture of sand and crushed shells) slave houses to learn about the lives of the people who labored here. Weekend open-house hours are available, yet limited from 10 am to 12 pm and 1 pm to 4 pm to protect the structure.

Headquarters to the Dorchester County Historical Society, this property houses two historic homes. The three-story, 18th-century Georgian Meredith House is rich with Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton period antiques, and the Children's Room holds an impressive doll collection, cradles, miniature china, and baby carriages. Portraits and effects of seven former Maryland governors from Dorchester County adorn the Governor's Room. In the Neild Museum are agricultural, maritime, and Native American artifacts. There's also a restored smokehouse, blacksmith's shop, and medicinal herb garden on the grounds. Fall is ablaze with vibrant leaves and many family activities.

This complex of lovely town houses, built in the 1830s by sugar planter Jean Baptiste LaBranche, fills the half block between Pirate's Alley and Royal and St. Peter streets behind the Cabildo. The house on the corner of Royal and St. Peter streets, with its elaborate, rounded cast-iron balconies, is among the most frequently photographed residences in the French Quarter.

On the west side of the 1800 block of Laguna Street, these oft-photographed private houses cost between $2,000 and $2,600 when they were built in the 1870s. Nowadays, you'd need to add three zeros to those prices; an entire house might sell for upward of $5 million. No bright colors here, though—most of the paint jobs are in soft beiges or pastels.

Locals (or at least local tour guides) say this is the most haunted house in a generally haunted neighborhood. Most blame the spooks on Madame LaLaurie, a wealthy but torture-loving 19th-century socialite who fell out with society when, during a fire, neighbors who rushed into the house found mutilated slaves in one of the apartments. Madame LaLaurie fled town that night, but there have been stories of hauntings ever since. The home is a private residence, not open to the public. Actor Nicolas Cage bought the property in 2007; two years later, the house sold at a foreclosure auction. The house and Madame LaLaurie herself have gained infamy in recent years thanks to the television show American Horror Story: Coven, which features them both extensively.

On a knoll overlooking the Ohio River, the Lanier Mansion was designed by notable architect Francis Costigan. Completed in 1844, the three-story, Greek Revival house features an unsupported spiral staircase, Ionic columns separating double parlors on the first floor, and ornamental pediments over windows and doors. The restored formal gardens contain plants that were popular in the 1850s as well as vegetable beds, an arbor, and dwarf fruit trees. Cinder paths original to the gardens were excavated as part of the restoration.

John Lansing, who served in the New York State Assembly (1780–88) and as mayor of Albany (1786–90), built this Federal-style manor in 1819 for his daughter Frances and son-in-law, the Honorable Jacob Sutherland, so that they could collect rent from his tenant farmers. After the Sutherlands sold the manor, it passed to the Rosseter, Spring, and Mattice families before the New York Power Authority bought it in 1972. The manor, a window onto the 19th century, is filled with period antiques, some of which belonged to the resident families. In the ladies' reception area you can see where a young member of the Rosseter clan and his friend scratched their names into the window with a diamond. Tours take place each half hour.

When it was built by Chicago shoe manufacturer Charles W. Lapham in 1884, this three-story Victorian house was state of the art, with gas lighting and indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water. But the most curious feature of this unusual house is that Lapham, who had witnessed the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, had 45 exit doors installed because of his fear of being trapped in a burning house. The house is now a National Historic Landmark because of its unique architectural features. The Thomasville History Center staff offers guided tours on weekends.

This impressive, Queen Anne–style mansion is home to a growing collection of historical artifacts that help tell the history of the Laramie plains area. The home itself is a big part of the city's past. Its first owners, Edward and Jane Ivinson, were on the very first passenger train in 1868, and later constructed the mansion during Edward's run for governor of the new state of Wyoming. The home was saved from demolition in 1972 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Tours are offered by informed docents.

Built in 1852 in the Italianate Revival style, this home museum, with 600 Victorian items in its collection and elaborate ironwork framing the grounds, is a reminder of both the opulence of antebellum living and its tortuous underbelly. Guided tours of the home and the quarters that housed 11 enslaved people are available. Tours begin on the hour from 10 am to 2 pm. The Lower Cape Fear Historical Society is also based here.

Architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who designed the U.S. Capitol, built this modest house with Arsene Latour in 1814. Its smooth lines and porticoes started a passion for Greek Revival architecture in Louisiana, as later evinced in many plantation houses upriver as well as in a significant number of buildings in New Orleans. Latrobe would die in New Orleans six years later from yellow fever. This house, believed to be the earliest example of Greek Revival in the city, is not open to the public.

Telling the story of four generations of free and enslaved Creole women, this is a more intimate and better-documented presentation of Creole plantation life than most properties on River Road. The narrative of the guides is built on first-person accounts, estate records, and original artifacts from the Locoul family, who built the simple, Creole-style house in 1805. Laura Locoul, whose great-grandparents founded the estate, wrote a detailed memoir of plantation life, family fights, and the management of enslaved people. The information from Laura's memoir and the original slave cabins and other outbuildings (workers on the plantation grounds lived in the cabins into the 1980s) provide rare insights into slavery in south Louisiana. The plantation gift shop stocks a large selection of literature by and about enslaved people and slavery in south Louisiana and the United States. Senegalese enslaved people at Laura are believed to have first told folklorist Alcée Fortier the tales of Br'er Rabbit; his friend, Joel Chandler Harris, used the stories in his Uncle Remus tales. Tours take place approximately every 40 minutes, beginning from 10 am through 3:20 pm.

Built around 1767, this Georgian house on a laurel-covered hill overlooking the Schuylkill River once belonged to Dr. Philip Syng Physick, who was also owner of Society Hill's Hill-Physick House. Admission includes a history-focused guided tour; the house furnishings are from a variety of periods. Women for Greater Philadelphia sponsors summer candlelight chamber music concerts here; there are other events, too, including ones planned for the 2026 celebration of America's 250th birthday. Call before visiting.

Lee Hall, an Italianate mansion constructed around 1859, was once home to one of Warwick County's leading landowners, Richard Decauter Lee, who achieved prominence using the method of scientific farming. It is the only large mid-19th-century plantation house remaining on Virginia's lower peninsula, and it served as the headquarters for Confederate generals John Bankhead Magruder and Joseph E. Johnston during the spring of 1862. Lee Hall now provides an in-depth review of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign.

Built in 1785, the Lee-Fendall House was home to members of the prominent Fendall, Lee, and Downham families, as well as generations of enslaved and free African Americans. During the Civil War, it served as a federal military hospital. The home’s last resident owner was national labor organizer John L. Lewis. Furnishings reflect how the house changed from 1785 to 1969. Highlights include a collection of Alexandria-made furniture as well as a tour and exhibit focusing on the enslaved and free people who worked in the house. There’s also a beautifully restored, award-winning garden, which can be visited without buying a ticket to the museum.

What began as a two-room home around 1675 evolved into a pre-Revolutionary War tavern; by 1776, it was the elegant home of a local patriot that has since been lovingly restored by the Society of the Founders of Norwich. The house is furnished with Early American artifacts, and interpreters explain the architecture of the house and the lifestyle of those who lived or frequented the home over the centuries.

An impressive example of a Federal-style country house, Lemon Hill was built in 1800 on a 350-acre farm and has distinctive oval parlors with concave doors and an entrance hall with a checkerboard floor of Valley Forge marble. It was purchased by the city in 1844 and became part of Fairmount Park. The renovated house is not furnished, but docents provide historical information; its location at the start of Kelly Drive makes it a convenient way to sample the park houses. Lemon Hill itself—the surrounding park area, but not the house—will be the site of the free FIFA World Cup Fan Festival from June 11 to July 19, 2026, with giant screens, food, and entertainment. Work may be done in the area before the event, and house tours will likely be unavailable during the Fan Festival, so check ahead. 

Art, architecture, and history buffs will enjoy the 90-minute tours of the mid-century modern Liljestrand House. Perched high on Tantalus Drive, with a spectacular view to match, this once-private home was built by famous Hawaii architect Vladimir Ossipoff. You'll learn about his "tropical modernism" building techniques, about the home's local art, and about Betty Liljestrand's dedication to creating the perfect, functional family home in collaboration with Ossipoff. Note that children under 10 are not permitted on the tours.

This ornate tribute to Victorian decorating, built in 1864 as the summer home of financier and railroad tycoon LeGrand Lockwood, remains one the oldest (and finest) surviving Second Empire–style country homes in the United States. It's hard not to be impressed by its octagonal skylighted rotunda and more than 50 rooms of gilt, frescoes, marble, intricate woodwork, and etched glass. Movie buffs will be interested in knowing that the mansion was used as the location of the Stepford Men's Association in The Stepford Wives—the original (1975) film.

After Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, bought this circa-1830 house, he remodeled it into a Tuscan-style villa. It still contains the possessions and keepsakes of the family that lived here after him. The Morse Gallery, inside the visitor center, has exhibits of telegraph equipment and paintings by Morse. The grounds include gardens and hiking trails.

This redbrick Georgian plantation house was built around 1790 by William and Lucy Croghan, who was George Rogers Clark's sister (the Revolutionary War hero and founder of Louisville lived here during the last nine years of his life). The 55-acre grounds include eight outbuildings and restored gardens; the last tour departs at 3:30.