Page 6 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • February 6, 2013 In 1847, Esther Howland of Worchester, Massachusetts, designed the first handmade American valentine. Coincidently, the first U.S. postage stamp was issued in 1847, so the timing was perfect to mail those Valentine’s Day cards. Also in 1847, Bergen County resident Elijah Rosencrantz hired the architect William Ranlett to renovate his 1760s farmhouse as a prestigious family home: the romantic Gothic Revivalstyle Hermitage in Ho-Ho-Kus. Now a National Historic Landmark and Valentines & Victorians at The Hermitage museum, The Hermitage will celebrate Valentine’s Day 2013 throughout February with special decorations and displays that include original handmade valentine cards exchanged by members of the Rosencrantz family who lived in the home in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The rose-motif wallpaper that gives a romantic feeling to the front parlor, a room where the Rosencrantzes often entertained, is enhanced with vintage costumes and hand(continued on next page) Valentine’s Day decorations against rose-motif wallpaper in the Hermitage front parlor. (Courtesy of the Friends of the Hermitage.)