Exquisite little gem! Our guide was exceptional. Perfect bite-sized outing for a day trip from NYC or when traveling through the HRV. Thank you! read more

Absolute must- visit for anyone interested in design and even American history. Russell wright (no relation to Frank Lloyd) had a tremendous influence the lifestyle of Americans felt today, with affordable and beautiful kitchenware at the forefront, in ways we very much see today. Similar to a philosophy behind Frederick Church's building of the more famous Olana further up the Hudson, Wright created not just an amazing home but a living landscape. Our guide, Alan, was wonderful. There is some walking up steps and on stone involved, my 86 year old mom was terrified when she read the disclaimer, but we navigated the short incline and paths with much delight and without incident. read more

Many people are unaware of this fascinating place that was the home of one of this country's most significant mid-century designers of objects for the home. Moreover, the setting is enchanting. It is only a bit more than hour from midtown Manhattan by car. read more

Such a beautiful historic site. The Wrights were innovators who designed dishes, furniture, housewares. This house reflected their sense of minimalism and peace. read more

See all

I was there a few months ago and had a wonderful time with a very enthusiastic and well informed guide named Maddie who took our group on a 90 minute tour of the house and grounds. It was a very interesting and fun tour. There are also 3 trails available that you can walk after the tour if you choose to do so ranging in difficulty. I deducted a star because this particular tour is not accessible for everyone especially the elderly or anyone who may have issues with their balance and/or mobility. I think they should reconsider because the terrain could be incredibly challenging. Even though it is briefly mentioned on their website I still believe this point should be more clearly emphasized or explained. read more

Phenomenal place - "of great spirit!" The interaction of human occupancy, design, product, and nature are exemplary lessons for today and the future. read more

Beautiful center near Cold Spring, NY showcasing the home and design work of Russell Wright. The host, Rhiannon, and tour guide, Allan, were pleasant, erudite, and very professional. The home is a wonder and well worth the visit. The ample grounds are covered with hiking trails that traverse woods, streams, a pond and waterfall. A visit is highly recommended. read more

We did not take the house tour so this review is based on walking the trails. There are 3 trails loop with easy to moderate levels, trails are well marked. They are designed to be walked in specific direction. From the trails you can't see the house. View are nice but not spectacular. read more

See all

Been a collector of Russel Wright for 40+ years and have long wanted to visit his home. BUT, have to say, the site is not equipped for elders. The website talks about a long stairway with handrail, but there is no mention of the numerous (20+) steps (on rocks) with NO handrails. We made it up the long stair, but were then faced with numerous dicy unsupported passages. We left 1/2 way through the tour and were led back on a significantly less treacherous path to the parking lot (by Kathryn--a landscaper--who was tremenously kind). It makes you wonder whether the organization could develop two tours--one for younger people, and one for elders. Based on our experience, it would be possible to see 90% of what you need to see without a serious hike. DO NOT SIGN UP FOR MANITOGA if you have any difficulty walking or use a cane (even ocassionally). They need to seriously rethink their concept, read more

Our tour of Manitoga was fantastic! The expansive grounds are just beautiful and the house itself is really interesting. Unique and intriguing. Our guide, Judith was wonderful; so knowledgeable and informative. I'm looking forward to going again someday. It's definitely worth a second visit and I also want to take advantage of the many other trails on the property. read more

Beautiful tour of the grounds... this is an inconspicuous gem in upstate NY and definitely worth a visit. They now have art installations on the grounds that enhances the visit even more. read more

Manitoga - The Russel Wright Design Center - Historical Tours Near Me - Garrison, New York

This Tour was so informative( Steven was our Guide).....the property is so beautiful & the Wright's home a perfect example of mid-century modern architecture I am a fan of the Wright's so this Tour was really special learning the history of building Manitoga. You must make a reservation to secure your spot + if it's the week-end... give yourself time to get there. read more

Take the tour if you've been having too much excitement and want to experience utter boredom. Our tour guide's remarkable superpower was prolixity. I have never felt so completely suffocated in open space. By the end I was enervated and had no interest in learning anything more about Wright. Wright's use of the land was great. The house is good. It's a shame the tour is so bad. If you want a near-death experience from boredom, go for it. Otherwise, read a wikipedia page or something, and skip the tour. read more

Such a wonderful place! The tour was very interesting and well organized. The way the approach the house on one of Wright's hiking paths adds to the drama of the setting. Our guide very well informed and interesting. After the tour we stayed and hiked the loop yo Lost Lake and the Hudson outlook. read more

See all

Absolutely stunning mid century modern house and landscape. No wonder it is now a National Historic Landmark.

This is a wonderful spot to visit in the woods of the Hudson valley. It's quite hilly and the grounds are available for free hiking. The tour of the house is also a hike but well worth it (if you are able). (costs $30/person). The house is built into the side of a quarry with a waterfall next door. The inside of the house is small but beautiful using natural materials in innovative ways. The house features a design area of the kitchenware designed by Russel Wright in the early 20th century. You will recognize it! The tour guides are very knowledgable about Russel Wright and the natural surroundings. Highly recommended if this sort of thing appeals to you. Doubt that most young children would enjoy it though. read more

My architectural buddies & I visited this house and we loved it. The tour guide Lori was very knowledgeable about the grounds and the house. (I think there could have been more moments of silence to allow folks to take in the views, my only complaint) The tour starts with a moderate hike around the house, probably not recommended for folks with bad knees. The grounds are incredible and maintained. Then we get to the studio and house: it's beautifully designed to connect the inside and out. A modern architectural marvel right in the middle of the Hudson Valley. I strongly recommend this for design and nature enthusiasts alike. I will be going back when the weather changes to experience this house in different seasons! read more

See all

I really really really wanted to love this place, but the website made it seem like it was soooooooooo much more than what it was. This place should be memorialized, for it is a beautiful and wonderful testament to a designer who changed the way Americans thought about design for their homes. Russel Wright dinnerware and furniture were groundbreaking at the time of their release and became the most popular dinnerware and furniture for every day living by the early 1960s. Wright was to Bloomingdale's what Mizrahi is to Target today. So yes, he does deserve praise for innovative and creative housewares and home accessory design. The home though, is in great disrepair, and the tour they offer, though thorough in Wright's history, is not terribly impressive. It's a little strange, paying to walk around someone's home which is filled with relics of the past, and thinking, that the place is only open because someone frittered away the fortune and now they're trying to salvage a legacy lost. I know it sounds cynical, but the feeling I got after spending three hours there was not one of awe and inspiration, but rather, one of sadness and shame. But that's all subjective... The quantifiable facts are these: It's tough to find; the driving directions on the website were wrong. When you get there, you think you are lost because there is no real parking. So you wind up parking on the grass near the side entrance. It's just a house - there aren't as many design artifacts as they lead you to believe on the website. They show you a video to pitch giving and purchasing books from them for 20 minutes in an annex building on the property with a dingy bathroom (think campsite dingy) which they suggest you use before touring the grounds because there isn't another public restroom there. You hike the grounds and they show you all of the beautiful vistas of the property and then tell you that this was where Russel Wright would sit and think about his next great design or the love of his life for whom he built the home - completed after her untimely death from breast cancer when they were very young - and you wonder how many poor suckers actually believe that he deliberately put that several ton boulder in that spot just because the light there at 4pm every day between March and June reminded him of his one true love. Like they know! They never talked about his male lovers or the company he kept at the home in his later years. Who knew this could be such a taboo subject - it must be kept off the radar for the sake of the center's underwriters. All in all, this place is very interesting, but the price is too high to warrant the trip unless you are just really into American and Danish Modern design of the late 1950s. Since I am a bit of a junkie for this, I was fine with paying for the trip, but don't go out of your way. S~ Additional Information: House & Landscape Tours May through October Most weekdays at 11am Saturdays and Sundays at 11am and 1:30pm Advance reservations are required for all tours. read more

See all

A historical design gem tucked away in the Hudson Valley. Knowledgeable tour guide showed us the sights and answered all questions. Grounds are lovely and showcase the natural elements of stone, wildflowers and water which inspired Wright. House has been restored quite a bit since I took a tour many years ago. The studio has a vast collection, spanning many of the medium in which Wright worked. Worth a visit whether you are a Russel Wright aficionado or not. read more

See all

Giant "meh" of an experience! Needs to be rethought out for the visitors. You can never indulge and really take in the house (as many other house tours let you do) bc you are led (pushed) from one docent to the next and never given a spare few minutes to take it in the property yourself. We were in the studio and house (the main reason for our visit) for a total of 5 minutes. The docent points out what she wants you to look at and then pressures you to follow her to the next room after she stops speaking. Here's his desk! this way Over Here's his bed. And along here Here's his tub. Follow me! LET's go! Living room THERE, kitchen HERE (awful btw), look at that plate, Here's a rock, yay! Here's the steps that lead out to your car. BYE! (crackle of a walkie talkie, "Im coming for the next group) PASS! read more

If you are an elder or have any kind of mobility disability do not come here. There are no guardrails on uneven rock strewn paths. I have difficulty walking due to foot drop and spinal issues. The staff seem to have no awareness about how dangerous this could be and one person as an afterthought ran up to me after I had paid for and started on the guided tour to tell me that he would walk me back if I couldn't make it. It was a miserable experience for me and not enjoyable at all and the guide was no sympathetic. read more

We had a great tour with Alan (Allen?) of the beautiful grounds and personal house/studio developed over many years by Russel Wright. We learned of the detail and specificity he put into the design of both, the analogy with Wright's early experience designing theatrical sets, his fascination with experimenting with material (a gorgeous screen made with sliced toilet paper rolls; you'd never guess), his early insistence on having a green roof, his love of mosses and laurels and his dedication to native species and the integration of human living spaces with the natural world. Not to mention his ceramics for "ordinary people." Highly recommend. Manitoba also incorporates art work by others. It's close enough to NYC for me to contemplate returning to hike the trails. read more

I attended a private dinner at Manitoga not long ago and thought people should know about it. I'm pretty familiar with the Hudson Valley, but had no idea that this historic and physically beautiful place existed. Manitoga is the former 75 acre estate, home and studio of mid-20th Century industrial designer Russel Wright. He was best known for his dinner ware and furniture. His estate, home and studio are just north of the Bear Mountain Bridge on property he acquired in 1942. It had at one time been used for logging and quarrying, and was completely transformed by Wright and his wife. They reclaimed and landscaped the property, even redirecting a stream to created a tiered multi-level waterfall. The quarry pit was turned into a swimming pond. Trees were planted, boulders placed and bridges built. Today, we would say that everything was done with sustainability in mind. His experimental home and studio were built with natural materials and had a mid 2Oth Century esthetic, with an atmosphere that feels very Japanese. Manitoga has 4 miles (6.4 km) of Wright designed walking trail , and it is open to the public. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places listings in Putnam County, New York and the list of National Historic Landmarks in New York. It offers tours and special events an is available for events. read more

See all

I did not tour the house, but the hiking trails were great and I had an amazing guide.

I took my interior design students from Pratt up to Manitoga for a tour of Russel Wright's home and studio. Our your guide Lori led us along the trail pointing out the site's many wonderful features. She was terrifically humorous and knowledgeable about both the natural terrain and the myriad of custom and innovative materials Wright used to create this charming house. We enjoyed every minute traversing the grounds and every intimate detail of this prolific designer's legacy. You can see beautiful vistas, personal items and thoughtful design every step of the way. It was wonderfully inspiring. I hope this little gem of an American treasure will get the funding it needs for upkeep and other events. I am looking forward to returning in the Spring (for the strawberry ice cream party)... Inside joke, you'll have to take the tour to learn about. Highly recommended. read more

I am writing this review in May 2018; I am an architect and interior designer and mean this review to be helpful not only to potential visitors of Manitoga but also to any supporters of Manitoga in thinking about how the visit is conducted and what is covered. In my opinion, there are basically three sorts of people who are going to visit this place: 1 - People who are looking for something to do, who enjoy a nice walk and want to learn something and have a destination; this is a perfect visit for that group. There is a (too) short interesting video that gives you a bit of info on who Russel Wright is and then onto a (long) nature tour and then a (short view) of the house and studio - a perfect House and Gardens moment for the general viewer. 2 - People who are very familiar with Russel Wright's work and are looking for an additional insight into this man and his home - and who are simply curious to see where he lived and how he modified the landscape he lived in - also likely a very wonderful visit for this group in seeing these aspects of Russel Wright's personal life 3 - Design afficionados whether professionally in the trade of design/ furniture or architecture or not who have come to Manitoga thinking that they would see some version of a 'working studio' of some sort, see a lot of Russel's pieces and information about them and ALSO, get to see how he lived in his personal residence: this tour is NOT good for that group (which I happened to be in myself) I don't know why they bother calling it a studio - whatever it was studio implies work place where you see something related to someone's work and the studio is simply a guest house. If he did any work there it isn't clear and you don't see it and you don't see anything that came out of that is work - so again - it's a guest house now for all purposes. It's ok that the house and studio are less well lit and less well restored than you think but they really do not have anything there to let you see what it did look like in a clean crisp manner - a binder with some photos in old plastic sleeves but it is an attempt to achieve this goal. You walk away sort of feeling the whole thing is rather more dingy than you thought and as another reviewer said, it feels a bit sad when in fact it likely was wonderful but it is not presented that way in my opinion. It is well worth visiting this place if you have some time and are looking for something to do - it is a pretty place and it is always fun to see how others live and to see mid century architecture and design. This tour shows you this - and only this - don't come searching for anything more. I find it personally disappointing that the entire tour focuses on mostly the garden tour - not as much the house and studio in our case - and really there is precious little about who this man was creatively, within the context of his time historically not only in his ceramics, but his furniture and indeed with his entire view of post war life. He was in fact part of an entire generation of mid century designers striving towards similar post war design goals and new ideals for American family life. How can anyone really understand the gardens and the house without this context and how revolutionary they were. He had to have been inspired by japanese gardens, architecture and interiors; nothing is mentioned. Really there is NOTHING about how he got involved in ceramics or how and where he was inspired to produce the forms and work that paid for all that you are visiting.... Finally you don't learn very much about the man other than that he hauled plants and boulders around endless for seemingly decades all by himself? Where was his daughter where did she attend school did she live there or just visit. Was this his prime residence where he did all his thinking and design work? No clue. I understand that later on he had a (homosexual) partner in his life - did his partner or his life with his partner later on contribute in a signficant way to his body of work, to these gardens and to this house? Don't know. It was a lovely visit and the guide was passionate about her tour but she did spend WAY too long on pauses in the garden and I think we got the point in a first early speech about outdoor rooms and the experiential part of the gardens Russel sought to create. I walked away with little else from this visit about the man or his life and with less about his work and his importance in the history of design as another cog in the wheel that transformed life in America. This could have been more rich a tour with more words focused on that - instead of the trees and the moss and a couple of dancing birches. I feel it was too bad that all that was left out........ read more

You arrive at Manitoga (and I thought I had to drive all the way to Winnipeg!) by a steep drive and park outside a tiny visitor's center where they show a video and sell crockery. I tried to watch the video from the doorway of the crowded room, but the docents kept tapping me on the shoulder with inane questions and suggestions that I climb over people to get a seat (Do I appear ready to faint?), so I took a short walk up one of the hiking trails (by the way - not sure how a guide can be "amazing" - the only reasons I can think of would be swiftly removed by the censors) so never saw the video. That's OK; some snowy evening by the fire, I'll watch it online, free of demands for the make and model of my vehicle. Video finished, up the hill you go. Keep your voices down and be careful not to make eye contact with the house along the path because, although it used to be owned by the Wrights, it's now in private hands. Reading between the lines: "THAT should have been our Visitor's Center, dammit, instead of that pathetic little hut." The setting of the house and studio, an old quarry, is impressive. Lush and woody, the Hudson Valley's natural environment at its best. You even see (if you went today) a couple of Lady's Slipper orchids in bloom. Wow. Much mention is made of the experience the Wrights were trying to create for their visitors, the power they wielded to manipulate their environment, and how everything had to be "just so." On the long approach to the house, a hilly pathway that climbs around the quarry itself, abundant with Mountain Laurel, ferns, waterfall and moss, soothes the visitor. The tour guide puts so much emphasis on the experience of the senses you forget that you were enjoying the walk and begin to feel guilty about all the subtleties your sensibilities are too crude to appreciate. Lots of pretentious cliches, liberally peppered with "sort of" and "kind of" (wasn't this docent convinced of what she was saying?) and finally you arrive at the studio. (Still no house. The bigger the build-up, the bigger the payoff better damn well be!) Some hints at Philip Johnson's Glass House here, with its open feeling. A warm treatment of surfaces, innovative at the time, comprise this small gem of a building. The non-conventional juxtaposition of natural and industrial materials is a Wright trademark; it's wonderfully successful in this intimate studio. Then the tour guide oh-so-vaguely hints a homosexual living arrangement, concluding her statement with a facial expression probably not unfamiliar to those who administer colonoscopies. I checked my watch. Yep, it's 2015. On to the main house, with its dramatic waterfall (they re-directed a stream to accomplish this) nearby. Was this a knockoff of Frank Lloyd Wright's (there's that name again) Falling Water? Nah, everybody likes water and horizontal houses. The house clings to the hillside, nestled into it, with steel and glass jutting from the rock. The roof is planted with low sedum. The painted color of the steel is said to blend with the surrounding rock, but it's cooler, perhaps intentionally. Inside the modestly-sized main house is a jumble of rooms furnished with boulders that plunges steeply to a living room with a spectacular view and decidedly Flintstones feel. Don't go into the kitchen; it's unrestored and dumpy. You step out onto the patio and tiptoe across a path of stones, then back down the hill (Shhhh...) on a more direct route to your car. Before you leave, you're cornered and subjected to a harangue about the financial woes of maintaining such an important house; presumably the fact that you just shelled out $20 to walk through it isn't good enough. read more

Among all the historic houses and all the garden tours in the area, this one stands out. The property and the home are unique. It's well worth the effort to make reservations in advance. Hard to describe being in the presence of a master designer's creation. Just go see it for yourself. read more

The Russell Wright Design Center is a wonderful experience. What a visionary he was! I can guarantee that if you are a lover of extraordinary design and nature, you will be enchanted and inspired. A lovely experience. read more