By Tom Grace
SPRINGFIELD _ Vendors were setting up at Hyde Hall on Thursday, getting ready for today's visit from Santa, a cappella caroling and a book signing with Anne Logan and Karin Nelson, the authors of ``The Ladies of Hyde Hall.''
This afternoon and tonight, the large limestone mansion at the head of Otsego Lake will be illuminated by bonfires, luminaries and candles. Santa is scheduled to arrive at 3, and for two hours, he'll listen to holiday wishes and be available for photographs.
From 5 to 6 p.m., Cooperstown's Ah-Coopella singers will perform as visitors peruse the historic mansion with the 18-foot-tall ceilings and browse through items fashioned by local artisans.
Among the crafts offered for sale are wind chimes, woodwork, semiprecious stone jewelry, natural soaps and goat-milk lotions.
This is the second consecutive year that the holidays have come early to the 1830s mansion. But this year, Logan, one of the last female descendants of George Hyde Clarke, and Nelson, former Hyde Hall director of operations, will be signing copies of their new book.
``I remember living there, how it was cold in the winter when you woke up in bed,'' she said Thursday. ``I remember running on the roof, with a governess yelling at me, `Get off that darned roof!'''
But by the 1940s, the Clarkes had moved out of their venerable 190-foot-by-90-foot home and into more modern quarters. So, in researching and writing this book, Logan said she learned much about her heritage.
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``We were going to write a cookbook and focus on the women who lived there, but as we gathered information, it seemed we needed to do more than that,'' she said.
``The Ladies of Hyde Hall'' concentrates on the women of the Clarke household and shares their culinary secrets, but also goes well beyond the kitchen.
The impetus for the book came from an exhibit on Hyde Hall, now a national historic landmark, produced by Anne Norman and Roberta Wrattan.
This year's holiday celebration comes as the board of directors of Hyde Hall, which is owned by New York state, considers how to guide the future of the great neoclassical country house, according to Diane Elliott, executive director of Hyde Hall Inc.
Hyde Hall has been restored beautifully by master plasterer Francis Milks, yet it still has no central heat and closes every winter, Elliot said.
Should the great building have heat? Should fires again burn in the fire places?
``These are the kinds of things we're talking about,'' Elliott said.
The board's goal is to preserve history and let the public enjoy this one-of-a-kind, 19th-century treasure, she said.
