Forty-two years ago, preservation architect Joseph Pell Lombardi took a risk. He purchased the spectacular but dilapidated Armour-Stiner Octagon House in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, from the National Trust, which had bought it in 1976 to save it from demolition. “It was the most extraordinary house,” Lombardi says. He restored the eight-sided house to its 1872 splendor over the next four decades, eventually enlisting the help of his son Michael and other family members. The site, a National Trust easement property, joined the Trust’s Distinctive Destinations program in 2019, when it opened to the public for the first time.

Now there are even more reasons to visit. Since the opening, Michael Lombardi has largely completed the re-installation of the property’s 19th-century greenhouse on its original site, and is conserving the main house’s service kitchen, laundry room, and pantry. Updates to the rare Egyptian Revival Room are ongoing. And Joseph Lombardi has written a book about the house’s history and restoration, The Armour-Stiner (Octagon) House. For more information on the site, visit its website.