Portland, Maine’s Historic Victoria Mansion Sets Opening Date For the 2024 Holidays

As the holiday season kicks into high gear, there's a lot you'll want to do and see. There's one stop you'll want to make between all the shopping. The Victoria Mansion in Portland will open soon and be decked out for the holidays.

History of The Victoria Mansion

According to the Victoria Mansion's official website was built between 1858 and 1860 as a summer home for Ruggles Sylvester Morse and his wife Olive who were both originally from Maine, before moving to New Orleans.

The mansion had hot and cold running water, flush toilets, central heating, gas lights, a servant call-bell system, wall-to-wall carpeting, and a 25-foot-long stained glass skylight. All things that weren't

When Morse died in 1893, his widow sold the house and furnishings to a dry goods merchant whose family preserved the original décor and made few changes to the property. It was eventually opened to the public as a museum in 1941.

Holidays Decorations

For the past 40 years, the Victoria Mansion has been decorated throughout with some of the most beautiful and dazzling Christmas displays you'll ever see and it all fits in with the period the house was built.

Preparation for the decorations takes place pretty in January, not long after Christmas has come to an end. It takes 1500 man-hours of work to put the decorations in place, but the payoff is amazing.

Stories of the Season

Each year has a theme for the Victoria Mansions decorations and this year its Stories of the Season, where designers get inspiration from well-known stories from the past.

Stories of the Season runs from November 29th to January 5th and is open Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 am to 4 pm, with tours every half hour starting at 10 am. It's closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
Tickets are on sale now on the Victoria Mansion's website. Adult admission is $19.25, senior citizens, are $17.25, college students with a valid student ID are $8 and students age 7 to 17 are $6. Kids under 6 are free.