Glimmerglass State Park and Hyde Hill Mansion

The park is named after the fictional Glimmerglass Lake of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper's family moved to upstate New York when he was a year old and he spent much his boyhood and the last fifteen years of life in Cooperstown at the south end of the lake. Glimmerglass State Park is at the north end of the lake which is actually named Ostego Lake.

Hyde Hall Mansion, built in early 1800s by George Clarke who inherited the property from his great grandfather, sits on a hill overlooking the lake. The mansion and hundreds of acre of agricultural land were passed down through many generations before the state acquired the mansion and land in 1963 to create the state park. The mansion is opened to tour. To buy tickets cross the arched bridge to the Tin Top Gatehouse which was at the entrance of the original road to the house but has been relocated. The ticket office is on left side of the gate house and a book store and exhibits is on the right side. The exhibits and the grounds can be visited without an addition charge after paying the park day use fee. 

The park has 53 campsites in two loops, one with electricity, one without. Amenities include flush toilet and showers in the electric loop, a dump station and fresh water, trails, and a swimming beach.

We did not visit the campground but several sites as listed as accessible. We did not visit the mansion either. The information on accessibility indicates that access to most of the mansion is very limited. The exhibits in the gatehouse are accessible. The trails in the beach picnic are are paved and accessible. The other trails are hilly or over rough grass. The beach has an accessible path that goes across the sand and into the water. We did not try it to see if it worked well.

 

Getting to the mansion from the parking lot (located at the hairpin turn) requires walking/rolling up a steep section of road. This lot is large enough for most RVs. The parking lot at the mansion is an option for smaller vehicles. There's also a loop road to drop people of at the mansion entrance. The beach parking lot is large enough for RVs if parking across the spaces. Park  Mansion  42.79405, -74.86504