1 Best Sight in Southwestern Connecticut, Connecticut

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum

This ornate tribute to Victorian decorating, built in 1864 as the summer home of financier and railroad tycoon LeGrand Lockwood, remains one the oldest (and finest) surviving Second Empire–style country homes in the United States. It's hard not to be impressed by its octagonal skylighted rotunda and more than 50 rooms of gilt, frescoes, marble, intricate woodwork, and etched glass. Movie buffs will be interested in knowing that the mansion was used as the location of the Stepford Men's Association in The Stepford Wives—the original (1975) film.