" It actually began its life in England as the Warwick Priory centuries ago. The Weddell's were traveling in London. This was back in the 1920's before income taxes. They learned that this property was for sale. They bought it. They had it dismantled. Each stone and carving was numbered. They crated them all and then it required seven ships to bring it across the Atlantic and three years to reassemble it. Today, it's open to the public and inside, Missy Rogers, the curator is gonna tell us more about it. And this of course is the Great Hall right?"

" Yes it is, and as you know, in the early 20th century, a lot of Americans were buying up ornamentation from abroad for their new mansions."

" They were buying whole rooms wholesale, right?"

" Yes."

" So, how many parts were we looking at here come from the Warwick Priory or from some other antiques?"

" Well, the paneling all comes from the priory, either priory timbers are priory carving."

" And this staircase?"

" The staircase was found by an antiques dealer for the Weddell's and they brought it here by ship from England."

" So the strap work and the finials, all of this carving is original, right?"

" All of the carvings are original from the priory, yes."

" Now where do they go to shop, you know, suits of armory stuff like that?"

" Well, this was all bought at a surplus armor sale at the Tower of London."

" In the 1920's?"

" In the 1920's by the Weddell's themselves."

" So this is genuine stuff?"

" This is the real thing, Bob."

" This is a three quarter suit of armor."

" Yes."

" And over here, we have a beautiful choir stall from the Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico."

" So how did he get to Mexico?"

" He was joining a council in Mexico during the late twenties."

" So, he had a diplomatic career?"

" Yes, he did."

" And this, of course, is authentic where the monks would have sat down and when you lifted it up, it meant that they could stand up."

" And lean against the misericorde in the back in this beautiful Baroque shell carving."

" Through here, we have the withdrawing room. Ladies and gentlemen, would withdraw from the dining room into this room."

" But the over door here is pretty fabulous. Isn't this, well, it almost looks Moorish but I guess it's English, right?"

" Yes. This is all Jacobean carving from the priory."

" Yes. And then in the withdrawing room, the ceiling is pretty special."

" Yes, and at the, at the ceiling, you see the rose also lay which is the Tudor Rose of Elizabeth the first."

" Fabulous. Tell us about the mantelpiece."

" The mantelpiece is what you call married piece, a combination of antique carving and new carving on the arcade where you see some family armorials that have been carved."

" Okay, good. Essentially the look is Elizabethan or Jacobean about 16th century."

" Yes, Tudor and Stewart. Well."

" Yes. Fabulous room. And then, when we go off in this direction, we have a continuation of all these, these braced paneling, is it also antique or is it married pieces?"

" This is all antique and the carving, is again, from the priory and we have this beautiful entrance into, into our dining room."

" Fabulous window. Tell me about that."

" The window and all the glass in Virginia House are all part of the priory. Some of it is old glasses. Some of it is new."

" What they call crown glass?"

" Some crown glass. Yes, all leaded panes."

" And then the paneling in here again would be of the period?"

" Yes of the period from the house in Warwick England."

" I've heard the gardens are quite magnificent."

" They are and especially at this time of year and Scott Burrell, our horticulturist, is outside waiting for you."

" Now, this is the time when there were a lot of things being put into landscape architecture, right?"

" Yes, it's portable we call American Country Place when wealthy Americans were quite, kind of creating their own world-"

" Yes."

" so, they had a real power of things to draw from European as well as American. Of course, this garden here is very much a kind of a combination of English Tudor and Mediterranean element."

" And who was the landscape architecture?"

" Charles Gillette."

" Charles Gillette. And so tell us what the different rooms are. This right in front of us looks absolutely like a courtyard garden."

" It is beautiful. This is the Four Seasons Garden down here and you can see it planted with the blue forget me not's."

" Yes."

" Well, we have tulips in there and mixed biennial border in the plot,"

" Yes."

" and across from that, we have a perennial garden and then between the two, we have this canal, what the English would call a rill that connects these two pools and runs on an East-West axis."

" Spectacular."

" You can see these small islands of Japanese iris planted in there. So it's, it's really a nice progression of bloom all through the season."

" Very pretty, and of course, the profusion of brick, the architecture in the garden really sets it off for me. What's, what's just beyond?"

" Well beyond that, we have another perennial garden and then we have a rose garden and you can sort of see the box wood down those small edging box and that's a cultivar called Green Beauty or Korean Box that we introduced in there. It does a little bit better for us than American Box."

" Yes."

" And then beyond that, we have the tea garden."

" The, the roses that are used here are they the pre-hybrid tea roses or the?"

" They are almost everything as far as the roses go predates about 1876 which was in the introduction of hybrid teas came in, so we have China roses and rosettes, quite of mix of things."

" And the final garden, would you say it is the tea garden?"

" The tea garden and then of course, then you go from there to a semi-wilds of the fields and then this great distant view of the wilderness."

" Spectacular place."