Find Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens at 714 North Portage Path in Akron, Ohio. Admission is charged. A variety of tour packages are available, with or without a guide, through different parts of the house and grounds. The estate is closed on Mondays.
Start your tour, after parking in the guest parking lot, by buying a ticket at the admissions office. You'll pass the Carriage House, which contains the gift shop, administrative offices and a café, and go up the main drive past the Elliptical Gardens.
Go in through the main entry and work your way around clockwise. To the left of the entry is the reception room. Continue down the Linenfold Hall, named after the style of its paneling, past the Chinese-style solarium to the Music Room, which at the time of it's completion was one of the largest rooms in a private house in the United States and could seat 400. The Music Room was the location for many balls, parties and recitals. There is a stage at the far end of the room. Among those who performed here were Percy Grainger, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink and The Von Trapp Family Singers. The harpsichord in the room once belonged to George Frideric Handel.
Proceed to the left to an enclosed porch called the Fountain Room. Next up is the library, a paneled room where Seiberling would go to read the paper and smoke cigars. A secret door connects it to the Great Hall--a three-story space with a vast fireplace, mullioned windows and lofty vaulted ceiling. Take note of the little that looks down into the Great Hall from the second-floor master bedroom.
Walk to the right of the Great Hall and you'll see the dining room with the butler's pantry, kitchen, staff dining room and other service rooms beyond. Across the north corridor to the east is a breakfast room with French doors, where Seiberling took his meals towards the end of his life. To the right of this are the breakfast kitchen, a flower-arranging room, the stair tower with its stained-glass windows and the billiard room with study beyond. The upper floors include family, guest and servant's bedrooms and the Tower Room. The basement features a wine cellar, 40-foot-long indoor swimming pool, steam room and a bowling alley, which is now used as an auditorium.
Head outside to explore some of the 70 acres of grounds. The features include, in clockwise order starting at the front door, the Estate Drive, Elliptical Gardens, Great Meadow Lawn, Rhododendron Allée, the Dell, Walled English Garden, West Terrace and Overlook, North Lawn, Perennial Border, Japanese Garden, Pleasure Drive, Lagoon (located in the Old Quarry Area), Birch Allee, Tea Houses, Breakfast Room Garden, the Rose Garden, Cutting Gardens and Ornamental Shrub Garden. There are several vistas that were specifically designed when the grounds were laid out. Also on the grounds are the Gardener's Cottage with the Greenhouse and Corbin Conservatory. The Gate Lodge was occupied by Frank Seiberling's son, Fred, and his wife, Henrietta. She arranged a meeting at her home between Bill Wilson (aka "Bill W.") and Dr. Bob Smith, and their talks at the Gate House led to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous.
