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COVER STORY A short drive to England Ames Mansion, Easton     MORE INFORMATION Tours are held every 15 minutes the third Sunday of the month, 1-3 p.m.; due to the limited hours, visitors are handed off to different guides as they tour the mammoth house. Admission is $3; children free. Take Exit 10 off I-95, turn left and head to Sharon Center, turn right on Pond Street to Massapoag Avenue and follow signs. 508-238-6566. The Ames Mansion sits in a state park on the Sharon/Easton line, but it may as well be England. The house that Oakes and Blanche Ames built in 1911 looks like an English stone castle, with its elegant expanse of lawn and 1,400 acres of woods and fields. The couple lived here like royalty, too, judging by the opulent three-floor, 15-room interior. And this was just their spring and fall home. The place is an ode to the conversation piece, starting with the ornately carved wood staircase. The chandelier in the dining room is a small replica of the Santa Maria, Columbus's lead ship. Two nearly 10-foot high brass candelabra (out of six known to exist, according to our guide) stand in the library "room," a two-tiered, 6,000-volume athenaeum. A large 1908, 46-star American flag dominates the third-floor trophy room of Civil War artifacts. The Ames family of Easton had made its fortune in the shovel business. Oakes, the son of Massachusetts Governor Oliver Ames, was a Harvard botanist and considered the world's leading expert on orchids. Blanche was an artist and women's rights advocate. She designed the house of fieldstone and concrete (her art studio is on the third floor and her paintings are displayed throughout). The family lived here until 1969 when Blanche died at age 91. The estate, including the furnished mansion, was sold to the state in 1971 and became Borderland State Park.

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