'Collector's gene' yields a trove of Americana Electra Webb made Shelburne Museum her monument

Electra Havemeyer (1889-1960) was the daughter of Henry Osborne Havemeyer, a sugar magnate and art collector, and his wife, Louisine Elder Havemeyer, a connoisseur of Impressionist art, who lived in New York. She married James Watson Webb, whose parents, William Seward Webb and Lila Vanderbilt Webb, founded Shelburne Farms in 1886 (see Checking In, Page M15). She could have collected anything from Rembrandts to large diamonds, but Electra loved what she saw around her, the beautiful and utilitarian objects of the fading 19th century into which she was born.

She wanted to save them for others to see and appreciate. Webb's passion and her vast collections are on full and vibrant display in 39 buildings and one steamboat all arranged and displayed across a magnificent sweep of gardens and lawns in western Vermont. The Shelburne is a museum like no other. Wide gravel paths encourage slow strolls from a display of more than 200 elegant horse-drawn carriages to a collection of more than 400 dolls and furnished dollhouses and on to the polished wooden fixtures of the steamboat Ticonderoga, one of the last paddle-wheelers to ply the waters of Lake Champlain.

Remember the geometric tiled floors of the 1950s, early televisions with their small screens, and refrigerators with doors that latched with pull-down handles? Last year, the Shelburne opened its 1950 House on an abutting property originally purchased to house the summer staff. The house looked as though it had been preserved in a time warp; they thought it would make an interesting but temporary addition to the museum. After the house was cleaned and furnished, the public was invited in to enjoy this trip back to ''Leave It to Beaver" land, and it was an immediate hit. In fact, the public demand to keep it open prompted the museum to find other places for the staff to live. The 1950 House is now a permanent part of the Shelburne map.