Beautifully situated across from the green of the town of Woodstock is Roseland Cottage, built in 1846 by Henry Bowen with its colorful array of flower gardens. A classic example of Gothic Revival architecture that was becoming popular in the mid-19th century, characterized by a steep roof line topped with ornate chimneys, intricately detailed gables protruding from a diamond leaded window. The siding has always been painted in a vibrant coral pink which has given the cabin its popular name as the “Casa Rosada”.
Henry Bowen grew up in Woodstock and built a successful New York City dry goods business specializing in silks. He and his wife Lucy enjoyed summers away from the city and Roseland Cottage was their country home where they entertained friends and powerful political contacts, including four presidents of the United States. Henry and Lucy Bowen had ten children and Woodstock, with its rural atmosphere and Henry’s long family history rooted in the area, was the perfect refuge from the summer heat and congestion of the city.
Joseph C. Wells was the architect commissioned by Bowen in 1845 to design the 6,000-square-foot Gothic Revival cottage for his growing family. The layout and design were deeply influenced by the principles of Andrew Jackson Downing, a prominent 19th century landscape architect. The grounds include a garden house, carriage barn, refrigerator, and aviary, but most notable is a sprawling 3,000-square-foot boxwood bed garden.
After 1850, when the Bowens began spending each summer in Woodstock, they planted the garden that adorns the front of the cabin. It is made up of 600 yards of box hedge surrounding twenty-one beds of spectacular annual and perennial flowers that have been a central feature of the cabin and Woodstock ever since.
According to family legend, Roseland Cottage was named after the family’s favorite flower, the rose, and has always been painted pink. A scientific analysis by Historic New England identified thirteen shades of pink in the paint layers over 160 years, with today’s coral pink being the color from the 1880s that is consistent with other decorative details in the home’s restoration.
Bowen was a political activist, abolitionist, and early supporter of the Republican Party, which was the liberal party at the time it deployed the first abolitionist presidential platform in 1856. His dry goods business went bankrupt before the Civil War due to his anti-activism. slave trader who caused irreconcilable differences with her clients in the South. He refused to support the Runaway Slave Act and told clients in the South that they could “Buy my goods, not my principles.”
After his business failed, he co-founded a successful insurance company, as well as founding and becoming editor of a popular anti-slavery newspaper, The Independent. With this newspaper, he became a major player in politics as the Republican Party grew stronger throughout the latter part of the 19th century.
Lucy Bowen tragically died from complications of giving birth to her tenth child in 1863. Henry remarried two years later to Ellen Holt, who became a loving mother to her children and bore him a son. As his family continued to grow and his children had grandchildren, Bowen expanded Roseland Cottage and purchased lots around the cottage until in 1870 the property was approximately six acres.
Beginning in 1870, Henry Bowen began hosting July 4 Independence Day parties as a way to promote patriotism that attracted hundreds of distinguished guests and thousands of attendees each year for the next 25 years. Four presidents of the United States, including Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, and William McKinley, participated in these festivities.
The 4th of July parties became so large that Bowen purchased sixty acres in Woodstock to develop a public park to host the celebrations. Roseland Park featured a windmill pumping water from the lake to 3 marble fountains with statues, there were fields of hitch poles for the “parking” of the horses that people rode on.
It had a two-story bathing shed that was a changing room where you could rent a 20-pound woolen bathing suit when wet, with a band stand above it where the bands played music for the assembled hikers. Roseland Park was first opened in 1876 during the centennial celebrations and, in keeping with Bowen’s will, it has been open to the public ever since.
Roseland Cottage is open to the public between June 1 and October 15. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992, and widely regarded as one of the best-preserved examples of Gothic Revival architecture in America, Roseland Cottage is one of the most significant historic homes in Woodstock, Connecticut. .
