In the Delaware Water Gap, an Old Town, Carefully Updated
By ED WETSCHLER , May 13, 2005
YRILLE PINCHOT was no tree hugger. His parents moved to Milford, Pa., in 1818, and before long he was making a fortune leveling forests. It was a different story, though, with his progeny. His son James became a conservationist and was a founder of the Yale School of Forestry. His grandson Gifford helped to create the United States Forest Service and campaigned for sustainable development.
Milford, along the Delaware River at the Delaware Water Gap, has embraced the grandson's point of view. Its surroundings of forest, river and rock are so unspoiled that it's still easy to see why D. W. Griffith chose it as a location for a couple of movies, and it has preserved an array of Victorian buildings, including the Pinchots' Pennsylvania version of a French chateau, built from the local stone and now a National Historic Landmark.
Milford's country charm has been updated with macchiatos, antiques shops and enough citified savvy to draw Manhattanites who stroll the streets on sunny Saturdays, but this is still a locals' town, too, safe so far from the fate of a too-cute tourist stop.
A good day in Milford starts on the New Jersey side of the Delaware at Dingmans Bridge, a detour off the main road onto Route 560. Cross slowly. One of the last private toll bridges in the country - in the town of Dingmans Ferry on the Pennsylvania side you pay 75 cents to a guy standing in the middle of the road - this structure was built around 1900 and has wooden planks that rattle under your car, decidedly raising the thrill factor. The views from the bridge are thrilling, too: miles of bluffs and forests, and the quiet river disturbed only by soaring raptors and couples paddling canoes.
Continue west about half a mile and then turn right on Route 209, which winds through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; follow it north five miles and you'll see a sign on the left for Raymondskill Falls, a series of three cascades dropping 165 feet. The path descends through the woods to the bottom of the first drop, where you get an in-your-face view of water shooting over a shale cliff and tumbling into a pool at your feet.
(Left) HISTORY Tolls are collected with a personal touch at the century-old Dingmans Bridge over the Delaware River near Milford, Pa.After your walk, continue driving north on Route 209 into Milford, where it briefly becomes Harford Street. Stay on Harford half a mile until you see a fork on the left and a sign indicating the road for Grey Towers, the mansion built in 1886 by James Pinchot, the forestry school patron. His son, Gifford, who founded the Forest Service and was a two-term governor of Pennsylvania, used Grey Towers as his summer home, and in 1963, Gifford Pinchot's son gave the house to the Forest Service, which keeps it going and invites the public in. You'll see fine furniture, paneling and woodwork in the great hall, the library and a sitting room. Clearly, the Pinchots were connoisseurs of wood.
Judging by the fishing rods and such, they were avid outdoorsmen, too. "There's an old home movie that shows Gifford fly-fishing while standing up in a canoe," said Daniel Banks, who is on the staff of Grey Towers and guides some of the group tours. "I've never seen anyone else do that."
The oddest thing about Grey Towers is that there's no dining room. Gifford and his wife, Cornelia, removed the dining room furniture and commissioned a table with a pool in its center. The Pinchots would float platters of food on little boats; it must have been fun to pass the butter.
Return along Harford to the center of town and hang a left on Broad Street, the town's other major thoroughfare, to Milford's historical museum, the home of the Pike County Historical Society. It is in Greek Revival manse called the Columns. Pride of place goes to the American flag used to prop up Abraham Lincoln's head in Ford's Theater after he was shot; his blood is still visible on the cloth. The theater's stage manager took the flag home the night Lincoln was shot, and his daughter later moved to Milford, where for a while she draped the flag over her porch on holidays.
Four World War II posters by Norman Rockwell are on the museum's first floor, but ask to see the posters downstairs, too. In one, a young soldier looks out at the viewer and asks, "Doing All You Can, Brother?"
Park the car anywhere near the intersection of Harford and Broad Streets - there are no meters - and take a walk on the village's streets for a look at Victorian architectural styles, from 1840's Gothics to turn-of-the-20th-century Queen Annes. Don't miss the grand pile at 110 East High Street, a former hotel that's a showpiece of 19th-century architectural flourishes.
Gable envy is inevitable in Milford, but next best to buying one of the houses is buying something interesting to go inside yours. Milford has about two dozen shops and stores full of possibilities.
On Broad Street the Golden Fish Gallery displays art furniture, multicolored glass oil lamps and framed photos of nearby waterfalls, and the nearby 70NW International Photography Gallery and Education Center has photos capturing the essence of this locale; one for sale on a Saturday last month was a photocollage of Milford Victorians - sort of a David Hockney goes Americana.
ON Harford Street, the Craft Show, a gallery that displays works of 200 or so crafters in a 19th-century house, slows down traffic with a display of oversize lawn ornaments - everything from a cigar-store Indian to full-scale Guernsey cows. Inside are whimsical ornaments, pottery, stained glass, rag dolls, jewelry, decoys and some very tempting beaded, embroidered and quilted women's clothes.
The Grey Towers-like building at the traffic light was once the headquarters of the Yale Forestry School's summer program, courtesy of the Pinchot family. These days Forest Hall Antiques occupies the vast lecture room, with wares like Victorian chairs, pewter pitchers and a large Abel Gance "Napoleon" film poster.
On the south side of Harford, in and near the Sawkill Creek, whose waters supplied the energy for six local mills in the 19th century, several shops occupy the converted Upper Mill and Old Lumberyard. Some display touristy gewgaws; others have some fairly priced antiques. Take time to check out the 19th-century gristmill wheel; it powered the mill well into the 1950's.
If you crave potato-crusted halibut with a balsamic reduction, have dinner at the WaterWheel Cafe in the Upper Mill; a wall of windows looks into the room with the old wheel and gears.
Or head back to Harford Street and try to nab a table on the porch at the Dimmick Inn & Steakhouse, a brick hostelry in business since 1828 and now in a building dating from 1856. The Dimmick is a casual, friendly place where Milford and its tourists unwind. Leave room for Fran's peanut-butter pie, a creamy, only-in-Milford treat served in a slice big enough for two.
If You Go
MILFORD is about 70 miles northwest of Manhattan. Take Interstate 80 west to Exit 34B; then follow Route 15 north (it will become Route 206) to Route 560, which leads to the Dingmans Bridge (http://www.dingmansbridge.com/ , toll 75 cents). On the return trip, you may want to bypass the Dingmans by using Route 206 to cross the Delaware River on the more conventional Milford-Montague Toll Bridge (the 75-cent toll is not collected from eastbound traffic).
Raymondskill Falls, near milepost 18 on Route 209 in Pennsylvania, is part of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (570-588-2451; www.nps.gov/dewa ).
Grey Towers National Historic Site (151 Grey Towers Drive, 570-296-9630; www.fs.fed.us/gt ) is open daily Memorial Day through October; guided tours begin on the hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and cost $5 for adults.
The Columns, home of the Pike County Historical Society (608 Broad Street, 570-296-8126; http://www.pikehistory.org/ ) is open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday; a $3 donation is suggested.
Dinner entrees at the WaterWheel Cafe Bakery & Bar (150 Water Street, 570-296-2383) begin at $15.95; there may be live music in the bar. The Dimmick Inn & Steakhouse (101 East Harford Street, 570-296-4021) serves dinner in four dining rooms as well as in a 19th-century pub and, weather permitting, on its wraparound porch. Entrees are $15.95 to $28.50.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
