shaker heritage society

We visit approx once a year when in Albany visiting family. Nice historical video and pix. The Holiday Crafts Fair is great - unusual crafts reasonably priced; we always find something for our growing family. Contributes to historical preservation - a worthy cause.

Fun hand crafted goods made in America. I find something unique each year, such as melted bottle cheese boards, rolling pin crafts and felting.

Anyone who is interested in the history of the Utopian movement in America, has to come to this small site. The foundation of the Shaker movement in America is located right here. Within the small museum, which is the Meeting House, there are some informative displays of the history of the movement and its eventual demise. However, rest of the buildings that are located on the site are not restored and are need of state funding to rescue them before they fall into ruin. The site itself has a nice walking tour, which takes you to the various homes and buildings, and is itself quite fun. The gift shop has wonderful shaker boxes for sale, as well as books. Worth the trip if you are in town.

The site is a strange mix of state-owned buildings and Shaker houses. The only building open is the Meeting House, but several buildings have signs of occupancy sometime recently - they almost appear haunted. The lines of the Meeting House are lovely, and the big interior space is intact. The little museum tucked at the entrance end has a reasonably good video, but needs TLC to serve as a decent exhibit space. The shop is a mix of Shaker esthetic and tacky trinkets.

It's definitely worth seeing. While you can't go into most of the buildings, the meeting house is quite nice and includes a reasonably priced gift shop. You can also walk around the grounds. The herb garden is especially nice as all of the herbs are carefully labeled. I spent a very nice Fall afternoon there

Every time I fly into Albany, I stop by the Shaker Meeting House and gift shop. My first visit was an interesting and informative tour of the Shaker site and history. Since then, I've visited to stock up on the wonderful dried herbs of all kinds. They make an ordinary dish very special and are great gifts.

Twice yearly (July and September) the Heritage Society hosts a Shaker Fair at their Colonie location. There are the usual craft vendors and such and a small selection of food for purchase. While this isn't a fancy/huge fair, they do put together some lovely offerings and just strolling around the grounds is worth it. Awesome photo ops everywhere you look and very kid friendly to boot. Convenient parking right across the street. Definitely worth checking out.

Thank you for your review! We are very glad that you enjoyed your visit. We also offer a mobile tour and augmented reality for smart phone users (includes photos, music, maps etc.) We will pass along your comments to our gift shop volunteer--our volunteers are GREAT!! You may want to check out our digital reconstruction of the historic site, which is on our website. It includes 3D models of all known structures that have existed within the historic site. Albany County has owned the historic site since the Shakers left in 1925. In recent years, the Society obtained a long term lease that allowed us to secure funds to stabilize three of the nine Shaker buildings. The other buildings do need a great deal more work but many of them are not in our lease therefore we are not yet able to improve those structures. We are working closely with Albany County to revitalize the historic site so, please stop by again sometime to see what has been accomplished.

I was with a friend on a mission to look for SNOWY OWLS near the Albany Airport. We just happened to see the Shaker Heritage Society and I suggested we drive in and just have a look at the old buildings. We were surprised to find that one building (the former meeting house) was open to the public. We went in and were greeted by a guide who had a lot of information about the site. I would have spent more time there, but there was a lot of snow on the ground and I didn't feel like walking in snow to get close to the other buildings. Maybe I will return someday

Owned by Albany County and run by the Shaker Historical Society, this is the Mother Farm of the Shaker Movement in the United States, coming from the UK. Having said that, there has been little development on the part of the county and the Historical Society does what it can, but buildings are beginning to show wear. It is hoped that what the historical society does might truly help to preserve that the county owns.....

We are so glad that you enjoyed your visit. We are working closely with Albany County (which has owned the property since the Shakers left in 1925), to revitalize the historic site. You will be glad to know that we have plans for several building rehabilitation projects. We also have a digital reconstruction of the historic site called Virtual Watervliet that you can access via our webpage at http://shakerheritage.org/home/. It contains 3D models of all known buildings in the Church Family in addition to historic maps, photographs, biographies and music. Check it out when you get a chance! Thanks for visiting.

The visit should take about 90 minutes and longer if you get a chance to speak to the staff, who are very knowledgable and friendly. There is a one room exhibit in the Meeting House and there are blue signs on all the other buildings that explain their former use. The cemetary is about 1/2 mile down the road and is clearly marked. I found the whole visit fascinating.

The meeting house is in good shape and has a good historical exhibit, but the highlight was the staffer who spent a great deal of time with us patiently answering questions and providing interesting historical details. There's no tour, but you can get a map and walk the grounds. Unfortunately, none of the other buildings are open, but you still get some idea of what it was like. You can walk about a third of a mile to the graveyard and nearby, there's a small boardwalk over the lovely marsh. It's only about 15 minutes from downtown Albany, so easy to get to by car.

We are so sorry that we missed you! The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday from 9:30am-4pm. February through October. From late Oct through mid-Dec. we are open Monday-Saturday from 10am-4pm. We are closed in January.We wish that we could be open more hours too. Small museums work hard to serve the public but our staffing resources are very limited. We are currently in the final stages of creating a mobile tour and self guided walking tours for visitors who arrive outside of our normal operating hours. We will step up the pace on our projects to serve after hours visitors since this clearly is needed. Many thanks for pointing this out. Those who would like more information can find a lot of material on our website including an exciting virtual reconstruction of the historic site and virtual tours.

This small, often overlooked museum, located across from the Albany Airport is a real find. There is a restored meeting house with informative signs around the room. One can get a small sense of what the Shaker way of life in the past must have been like. There is a fine gift shop with books and many Shaker items for sale. When I was there, there were no crowds so the peacefulness can settle on you with ease. Check out the oxen in the field near the entrance.