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Landis Valley Museum
2451 Kissel Hill Rd
Lancaster, PA 17601
(717) 569-0401
Lancaster, PA 17601
(717) 569-0401
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
4 reviews for Landis Valley Museum
Pretty cool 1800s farm!
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They had some sort of open house this sunday, so it was free! Cant beat that. Anyway, its a nice farm community with horses and barns and everything. Now if youre not from around here (farm country) itll probably be really fascinating, as it was for my girl. Im from here, so there wasnt anything I havent seen before. But it was still really interesting and has lots of cool stuff to see. The people dress up in 1800s garb and do their thing and tell you how its done.
Theres a little gift shop on the way out that has some really cool hand made items. They can be a bit pricy, but hand made is becoming increasingly rare, so if you want to pay itll be worth it.
Landis Valley museum was totally awesome, there was a lot of things to do here. we went in in the summer of 2005, along with my wife's family. it turned out to be alright. it basically is a working farm, people are supposed to be like from the 1800's era.
there was a working garden, where people grew plants and vegetables and stuff, corn, things like that. there there were all kinds of other cool things, there was a blacksmith there who was making horse shoes and basically showed the tools of the trade.
there were also live horses which you could pet and windmills, stuff like that. old farm tools, etc etc. there was a general store where you could buy anything, like from 150 years ago. a huge barn and stuff like that.
big parking lot, admission is 10 dollars, cash only.
We were so disappointed with our visit to Landis Valley. It is listed as a Gem in the AAA visitors guide, and it is a fantastic concept (if anyone has been to Old Bethpage Restoration on Long Island or Strawberry Banke in New Hampshire, it is a similar concept). It is a selection of buildings that have been restored to their original style and stocked with items collected by the Landis brothers. They offer tours as well as self guided access. It is fairly pricey, but many attractions like this are. When we went on the tour, it was interesting, but it only covered a tiny selection of buildings and a small portion of the grounds. When we tried to see many of the other buildings on our own, most of them weren't open. Only two buildings in addition to the ones on the tour were open. That left at least 8 that we couldn't get in to see. We felt this was a bit silly as the whole point in going is to see inside the houses. We also felt that many of the houses that were open werent as well restored as they could be. There is also a large barn that houses farming equipment and old buggies. This remains open as it is self guided. The volunteers in the buildings were all very nice, which is a plus, but some weren't all that knowledgeable.
Some of the more interesting attractions were the heirloom gardens and livestock they have there. They have a special program to help preserve heirloom crops, flowers and animals in an effort to sustain history as well as variety in these areas. The heirloom animals were particularly interesting and featured sheep, horses, pigs and domesticated birds. They also had some quilting demonstrations which was very interesting, but can be seen other places in Lancaster.
I most likely would have given this place 4 stars had all (or at least some) of the buildings been open, but considering the cost of entry and the lack of viewable area I had to give them only three stars. I can't beleive that AAA gave them a GEM rating. Perhaps they used to have more of the buildings open.
HEIRLOOM VEGETABLE SEEDS - YAYAYAYAYAYAY!
We would have come here for that alone when we visited PA on a trip to see my sister. Landis Valley Museum is home to the Heirloom Seed Project aimed at preserving fruit, vegetable and ornamental varieties representative of Pennsylvania German agriculture from 1750-1940.
We were pleasantly surprised to find there were other things to visit here other than just the gift shop where the seeds are sold direct. The Landis Brothers seemed to be two unbelievably cool dudes, to start. Props to them for starting the place. Props to PA for developing the museum grounds and keeping the place going - worthy undertaking mos'def. Props to the dude who was cooking that out-of-my-mind-good-smelling breakfast in the stone hearth - had all I could do to keep myself from going right over the antique table and helping myself to the skillet and tearing off a hunk of freshly baked bread, to hell with the flies on everything - 5 second rule...
Tip of the hat to the Clydesdales - cutie wootie big ass hossies - although a wag of the finger because I couldn't see any water around and it was like pushing 90 degrees.
Summing up, loved it way more than I thought I would, and the place must rock in the fall when there's harvest and foliage and pumpkin games afoot. WE'LL BE BACK!