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Shelburne Museum

Photo: Lee Wright / CC BY 2.0 · source

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Shelburne Museum

Shelburne, VT · Champlain Valley, Vermont

About

Electra Havemeyer Webb spent decades collecting American things nobody else took seriously, then in 1947 spread them across 45 acres in Shelburne. The result reads less like a museum than a village she assembled: 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of them historic structures hauled in, holding some 150,000 objects. The 220 foot Lake Champlain steamboat Ticonderoga sits two miles from the water, dragged overland across swamp, fields and a rail line over 62 days in the winter of 1955. Nearby stand an 1871 lighthouse from Colchester Reef and an 1845 covered bridge. The Webb galleries hold Monet, Degas and Manet, billed as the only Impressionists on public view in Vermont, alongside 500 quilts and 1,400 decoys. Go in season: the full campus runs daily 10 to 5, May 9 through October 25 in 2026, adults $27.50 at the gate and $25 online. Winter shrinks to two galleries, Wednesday through Sunday. Parking is free and fills first on foliage weekends.

Highlights

39 buildings on 45 acresAbout 150,000 objectsFull campus May to late Oct$27.50 adult at the gateSteamboat TiconderogaTwo buildings open in winter

Getting there

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Best of Vermont8 places

Best of Vermont

Green Mountains, a long lake, and villages that earn the reputation. Eight places across Vermont, from the state's highest ridge and a cliff-walled lake in the Northeast Kingdom to a museum holding a steamboat that was hauled two miles overland.