The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: July fifteenth, seeing Shelburne museum.

Toward the end of the 19th century, a granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt and her husband acquired 4,000 acres of land along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, between New York and Vermont. Here, bracketed between the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks, the Webbs created a splendid lakeside mansion, a huge and exquisitely tailored landscape, and several enormous barns. These two bearers of princely fortunes named their estate Shelburne Farm and here lived the good country life on a grand scale.

Their daughter-in-law, the formidable Electra Havermeyer Webb, had a passion for collecting. Over the course of 50 years, she assembled an eclectic collection of some 34 different collections. Her interests ranged from agricultural and woodworking tools to circus artifacts, household textiles, scrimshaw, and weather vanes. She also acquired larger items, including seven old homes, a train station, as well as a covered bridge and light house. And let's not forget the 220-foot long steamboat, Ticonderoga.

When Electra died in 1960, much of the Webb estate passed to the foundation that now runs the Shelburne Museum. The museum's 37 exhibition buildings are spread over 45 acres and contain over 80,000 artifacts of New England Americana. The estate also includes a working dairy farm and a small cheese factory. And the mansion has been turned into a charming, 24-room country inn. No invitation necessary to visit, though reservations are definitely a good idea.

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