Start at the Visitor's Center at Phillipsburg Manor and a shuttle bus will take you into the estate. The T-shaped house has six stories, but only part of the structure is open to tours. Go into the barrel-vaulted entrance hall, with its collection of canes and Chinese Tang dynasty figures. Turn left to view the office, an oak paneled room dominated by a portrait of Benjamin Franklin and a collection of Chinese porcelain. To the right of the entrance hall is the drawing room, done in the 18th century neo-classic Adam style and including more examples of Nelson Rockefeller's collection of Chinese ceramics and pottery.
Proceed straight ahead into the music room, a windowless space that once housed a pipe organ and that is still encircled by a second floor gallery. The room includes an 18th century Chinese carpet and a reproduction of a Joan Miro painting. Due west of the music room and facing the Hudson River is the so-called alcove, featuring a marble bodhisattva statue from the Tang dynasty. To the right is the dining room, with a John Singer Sargent portrait of John D. Rockefeller and a Frank Salisbury portrait of John Jr. To the left of the alcove is the library, with portraits of Washington and Lincoln and a Chippendale bookcase.
Return to the music room and check out the china display room to the north. If you paid for the Grand Tour you'll be taken to the second floor to look down into the music room from the gallery and also examine the paintings up there.
Continue downstairs into the tunnels under the house and terraces. These were originally designed for service and delivery purposes, but after they became more or less obsolete Nelson turned them into art galleries. The collection includes works by Warhol, Chagall, Nevelson and Leger, as well as a series of tapestries made after paintings by Picasso. At the end of the galleries is the grotto, a strange chamber filled with sandstone masks and columns.
Head outdoors to the formal Inner Garden with its clipped hedges and evergreen trees and on the the terraces to the west and southwest of the house where there is a large collection of sculpture, both modern and neo-classical.
Go to the coach barn, an enormous granite building that looks a bit like a prison. The carriage hall displays 19th and early 20th century phaetons, surreys and other horse-drawn vehicles. North of this is the brick-lined stable where harnesses hang from the ceiling. Proceed to the tack room with its collection of bits, harnesses and saddles and finally on to the automobile hall with its collection of twelve family cars manufactured between 1907 and 1966.
