Built in 1846 in the newly fashionable Gothic Revival style, Roseland Cottage depicts the summer life of Henry and Lucy Bowen and their young family. Prominently situated across from the town common, Roseland Cottage epitomizes Gothic Revival architecture, with its steep gables, decorative bargeboards, and ornamented chimney pots. The interior of Roseland Cottage is equally colorful, and features elaborate wall coverings, heavily patterned carpets, and stained glass, much of which survives unchanged from the Victorian era.
Henry Bowen was a Woodstock native who returned to his hometown after establishing a successful business in New York City. While Lucy Bowen enjoyed summers away from the city, her husband used Roseland Cottage as a place to entertain friends and political connections, including four United States presidents.
Roseland Cottage's picturesque landscape includes original boxwood-edged parterre gardens planted in the 1850s. The estate includes an icehouse, aviary, carriage barn, and the nation's oldest surviving indoor bowling alley. The entire complex of house, furnishings, outbuildings, and landscape reflects the principles of Andrew Jackson Downing, a leading nineteenth-century tastemaker.
