At the annual Victoria Fair, historic re-enactor Tom Kelleher lectures at Victoria Mansion, an Italianate villa completed in 1860 as a summer home for hotelier Ruggles Sylvester Morse and his wife, Olivia, in downtown Portland, Maine.
The brownstone exterior, elaborate interior design, opulent furnishings and early technological conveniences provide a detailed portrait of lavish living in nineteenth-century America.