Ardenwood Historic Farm
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Ardenwood Historic Farm is a Regional Historic Landmark in Fremont, California.
[edit] Description
Officially opened to the public on July 28, 1985, the entire park includes a farm, a large forest and a mansion now called the Patterson House which was first constructed in 1857 by the farm's original owner, George Washington Patterson.
Mr. Patterson called his estate "Ardenwood", after the forested area in England mentioned in Shakespeare's play, "As You Like It." There were two subsequent additions to the House. The largest was in 1889 when Patterson and his wife Clara added the Queen Anne Victorian section to the House. The second addition came in 1915 when Patterson's son, Henry and his wife, remodeled the old farm house section and added rooms including the kitchen, a large bedroom above the kitchen, the sun porch, nursery, and a bathroom with indoor plumbing.[1]
A feature of the park is a horse-drawn railway, a recreation of a historic local branch of the South Pacific Coast Railroad.
The park hosts many events, including a Civil War reenactment in the late spring, a Celtic festival, an Independence Day celebration and many Halloween celebrations complete with a haunted railroad. Among other crops, in the fall the farm harvests a large pumpkin patch and a large field of corn which is cut into a giant maze.
