News for the Traveler (4)

The Codman House in Lincoln, Mass., has been a house of almost continuous family ownership and occupancy for over 200 years. Bequeathed to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in 1968 by the Codman family, it has been preserved and maintained as a specimen of a New England country estate according to the family's wishes. The house and its collection of furniture, paintings, china, books, toys, and personal memorabilia remain exactly as the Codmans left it.

Originally built as a two-story Georgian mansion about 1735, it passed into the hands of merchant John Codman, who doubled the size of the house in a 1797 Federal-style renovation attributed to Charles Bulfinch. In 1863 John Hubbard Sturgis was commissioned by Ogden Codman Sr. to make alterations in a contemporary Victorian design, including a decorative Elizabethan-revival dining room. The house's 16 acres of parkland include varied and unusual landscaping and a formal Italian garden.

Codman House is open June 2 through October 15, Wednesday through Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m., tours on the hour. Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for children under 12. For reservations and information, call 259-8843.