Glensheen Community Day – FREE Admission

Twice a year, Glensheen hosts a Community Day in which all visitors receive FREE General Admission as their way to say thank you to the community for their support during the year.

Sunday, January 4, 2026, is the next Community Day and a wonderful opportunity to see all of their beautiful Christmas decorations (yes, they’re still up!). Glensheen is open daily from 10 am – 4 pm.

Besides a FREE self-guided Classic Mansion Christmas Tour, you can also drink some hot chocolate and/or coffee and enjoy special activities for all ages.

About the Self-Guided Classic Mansion Christmas Tour:

Admire Glensheen’s signature rooms, explore the 12-acre lakeside estate, enjoy the extras and family-friendly experience, immerse yourself in the stories of the Congdon family, and experience an unforgettable mansion on this self-guided tour.

Because General Admission is self-guided, you don’t need advance tickets. Check in at the Ticket House when you arrive.

This is also a wonderful chance to see the mansion decorated for the holidays with hundreds of feet of garland, thousands of Christmas lights, and trees in a wide variety of styles and colors decorating each room.

While there you can try to find 25 plush elves hidden throughout the mansion. The sneaky elves like to hide in funny places throughout the mansion, making for a great scavenger hunt for all ages!

See more on their Facebook Event page.

About Glensheen:

Chester and Clara Congdon built Glensheen between 1905 and 1908 as their home. This influential family is known for opening up iron mining in this region and setting aside land for public use, such as the North Shore Scenic Highway and Congdon Park.

Glensheen was donated to the University of Minnesota and opened as a historic house museum in 1979 and, here’s the amazing part: the collection is intact. The top hat in the closet? That was Chester Congdon’s. The letters in the desk drawer? Those were written by Clara. The sheets in the linen closet? Organized by the Congdons’ 2nd-floor maid nearly 100 years ago. And that’s just inside the mansion…

Glensheen Mansion is located at 3300 London Rd in Duluth.