Philippe H.
Yelp
I've known about Philipsburg Manor for awhile and always wanted to visit. I made plans to come on a Sunday as I was passing through on a longer trip. I checked the website's hours and offerings, noting that admission was by timed, guided tour only, with the last tour at 3:30 PM on Saturdays and Sundays. Arriving at 2:50, I was told that all tours were sold out (actually the first thing that anyone told me was that Kykuit was sold out, which I wasn't interested in anyway) and that the last ticket for the manor had just been sold for the final tour of the day...at 3 PM. After asking her about the status of the 3:30 tour, the employee at the ticket counter curtly explained that there was no such tour that day, that there was nothing that she could do because the 3 PM tour was already leaving (it was still in the entrance hall next to us and had less than ten people on it), and that in the future I should look at the website. Not understanding what she meant about the website, I later figured out that she was suggesting that I make a tour reservation online. I asked her what else I could do on the site besides taking a tour, a question that only further irritated her, although I did get her to tell me about crossing the street to explore the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow on my own. I realize that it was the end of the day and that maybe the woman at the desk wasn't having a good one, but it would have been nice to have encountered someone with better customer service skills, especially since the shop and visitor reception area remain open until 3:30 anyway.
When they say that regular, non-special event admission is by guided tour, they mean the entire site, and that the entire visit is spent in the company of costumed guides and as part of a large group. The ticket counter employee was literally flabbergasted (great word right?) when I asked if it was possible to simply walk the grounds of the manor. Having worked at and visited many similar historic sites myself, this set up hardly seems like an efficient way to run a museum like Philipsburg Manor, given its large outdoor setting. Not everyone wants a guided tour, and although I can understand the need to limit if not altogether avoid free flow visits inside the historic structures, I would have been happy to pay a lesser fee to just walk around on my own time outside since I didn't know when exactly I would arrive; I would have been risking a tour reservation if I had made one anyway. The current policy limits visitation in more ways than one, and honestly 3:30 is a little on the early side for a closing time, especially since the site doesn't open until 10:30. As I left the desk there were still small groups coming in to inquire about entering the site. Again I realize that space can be tight in the historic buildings, but offering a self-guided option for the grounds would be a smart way to make the most of visitors rather than simply turning them away.
A place like Philipsburg Manor would seem to have such potential and what I could see from across the street looked interesting. I've followed the site's innovative programming related to slavery in colonial New York from afar and will hope to visit again in the future. The area is beautiful and great if you love history, but this was a disappointing experience.