Visitors welcome to Shelter Island’s Sylvester Manor behind the scenes tours

Sylvester Manor is opening its doors for tours of the Manor that has housed 11 generations of the family of the Island’s original European settlers.

Brinley Sylvester, grandson of Nathaniel Sylvester, built the current Manor house in 1737. Until 2010, it remained a private home, with each generation adding new possessions and sometimes expanding the building.

As the nonprofit operating the Manor prepares to close it down for major restoration efforts, for which $6 million has been raised, they are offering the public tours behind the scenes, and glimpses at the lives of those who called the Manor home.

On a recent tour, visitors were guided through the first floor, where there were formal rooms in nearly original condition, like the morning room, with two coats of paint, white and the original Prussian Blue, covering its original pine walls.

Cornelia Horsford, one of the descendants who made significant improvements to the house as well as contributions to the community and the library in particular, installed a border of Dutch tiles around the fireplace in honor of the Sylvesters’ Anglo-Dutch heritage.

In the Ladies Parlor across the hall, the 1901 wallpaper will be carefully preserved and replaced where necessary. The Zuber company that makes the pattern, “El Dorado,” which won an award at the 1901 Paris Exhibition, will make the new panels at the same French factory.

Toward the back of the house, extensions were added over the years, with a working kitchen that might be seen in a Smithsonian exhibit of the 1950s and 1960s.

What the curators of the Manor plan to show the public, once a major renovation is completed, is a home that reflects the different eras the family lived through over the two and a half centuries since it was built. The newer rooms in the back of the Manor will house a Center for History and Heritage to support research into the family and those who lived and worked alongside them.

The tour offers a glimpse of a formal bedroom known as the Poets Room, where John Greenleaf Whittier and other noted writers were offered hospitality.

A far more poignant scene awaits visitors who climb the stairs to the attic, where enslaved and indentured servants slept in the barest of accommodations.

The walls of the attics are marked with “scratchiti,” pictures made by scratching into the thin coat of paint on the wall.

Most of these pictures depict sailing ships; the tour describes how a young Montaukett boy who lived in the attic with his brother eventually made his escape to freedom by working on sailing ships. Recent historical investigations have turned up his name, William Pharaoh, on manifests of whaling ships that sailed out of New London and took him around the world.

The rehabilitation team, Architectural Preservation Studio, has developed a plan to preserve the etchings when the Manor’s roof is replaced.

Many Islanders will remember Alice Fiske, the last female resident of the Manor, who supported and enjoyed visiting community events, always dressed in hat and gloves. The Manor staff has been cataloging all of the Manor’s contents since April, in preparation for the renovation — including several glove stretchers and some 100 hat stands.

The tours are scheduled for Nov. 4, 16, 20 and Dec. 7. The tours are free, but reservations are required at sylvestermanor.org