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How would you like to step into Oscar Hammerstein II’s bedroom while being serenaded with music from Oklahoma! or South Pacific? In fact, you’re just a few feet away from the study where the iconic lyricist wrote most of the words to these cherished songs.
Well, you can do exactly that.
This unique opportunity is available to visitors at the Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center at Highland Farm in bucolic Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The museum, which is still in the developmental stage, has offered guided tours to visitors and will reopen in April after a winter hiatus.
Doylestown, located about 80 miles from New York City, 25 miles from Trenton, New Jersey, and about 45 miles north of Philadelphia, was Hammerstein’s home base from 1940–1960, the years he and composer Richard Rodgers collaborated on songs made famous on Broadway and film.
Oscar Hammerstein lived in the farmhouse from 1940 until he died in 1960.
Steve Boyle
The museum is inside Hammerstein’s 1840 farmhouse on Highland Farm, now on the National Register of Historic Places, where the musical wordsmith lived with his second wife Dorothy and their children from 1940 until he died in bed there in 1960.
The museum, displaying an array of memorabilia from Hammerstein’s life and career, honors the legacy of the prolific, celebrated lyricist, librettist, producer, director, and humanitarian whose work reflects his optimism and his mission to combat bigotry. Hammerstein created the lyrics for more than 850 songs with Rodgers (The Sound of Music and The King and I, among others) and other composers.
Will Hammerstein holds a signed poster for “Oklahoma!,” one of his grandfather’s musicals with Richard Rodgers.
Steve Boyle
A long line of luminaries are honorary members of the museum’s board, including Shirley Jones, Patti LuPone, Mariel Hemingway, Gerald Dickens (a descendant of Charles Dickens) and Sam von Trapp. In addition, The Miranda Family Fund (the foundation for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s family) made a significant financial gift to the museum, says Christine Junker, secretary of the museum’s board of directors.
According to research by the American Alliance of Museums, people over 60 make up the majority of frequent visitors to museums, history organizations, and botanical gardens.
The museum has about a dozen volunteer docents, and Will Hammerstein, 62, a grandson of Oscar Hammerstein, has sometimes surprised tourgoers by serving as their guide. The gregarious grandson, who was born two years after Oscar Hammerstein’s death, regales visitors with stories about his grandfather. He’s not connected with the museum’s operation, but he envisioned the house as a museum.
For many Hammerstein fans, the museum is “a spiritual experience,” says Mandee Kuenzle Hammerstein, Will Hammerstein’s wife. “Some people come into the house and cry.”
Will Hammerstein acknowledges the site’s significance. “[The farm is] arguably the single most important historical site for the Broadway musical.”
There’s more to come. Junker says the 1840 barn will be rebuilt to serve as an educational facility on the nearly five-acre property.
The farm is where Hammerstein mentored composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who spent several summers there learning the ropes from the master. Sondheim’s bedroom on the museum’s second floor is open to visitors during tours.
