Trixie's Trail

Follow Trixie's trail as she and the other Bob-whites investigate suspicious characters creeping around their neighborhood and beyond.

Like the town of Sleepyside, the homes at Crabapple Farm, Ten Acres, and the Manor House are real places - though Julie Campbell gave them unique literary names.

The three estates faced a quiet country road two miles from the village of Sleepyside that nestled among the rolling hills of the east bank of the Hudson River.
#1, Secret of Mansion, Chapter 1

Crabapple Farm

Crabapple Farm was the cozy homestead where Trixie and her family had lived for six generations. In reality, it was the home of Julie Campbell, the original author. She changed the name from Wolf Hollow to Crabapple Farm for the stories.

Crabapple Farm - Julie Campbell's home

Trixie preferred the pretty little white farmhouse where
she lived with her three brothers and their parents.
#4, The Mysterious Visitor, Chapter 1

Crabapple Farm is described somewhat as a humble abode, particularly since it was surrounded on either side by large, expensive houses. At one point, the Belden boys had said they were poor as church mice which gave some readers the idea that it was small, old, and impoverished.

It was not.

The poor church mice comment was a contrast to the wealth and oppulence of the Wheeler's and Lynch's lavish estates. While Trixie's father, a banker in Sleepyside, was by no means a millionaire, a comfortable life-style of a hard-working family is detected:

• Chickens and a large garden produced three bountiful meals a day. (These guys ate a lot, too!)
• Two car family with one wage earner (more common back then)
• Though the boys worried they couldn't afford to replace all their outdoor gear if it was ruined, they had built up an impressive outdoor collection to begin with.
• Even Trixie's $5 a week "allowance" for doing chores was more than average in 1948. (In contrast, my father in the 1960's gave me $3 a week for answering the phone. While that made me the richest kid on the block, we were not wealthy. My father, like Mr. Belden, was a business man who wanted his kids to learn how to handle money.)

So no, Crabapple Farm was neither a wealthy showplace nor a rundown bungalow. It was - and is - a working farm built in the Revolutionary War era. For the Beldens, that meant a solid house, protected in a natural hollow of the Catskill Mountains.

Several decades after the fictitious Trixie made the beds and fed the chickens, Crabapple Farm underwent a major renovation. Online pictures I have seen show a beautiful old home with gorgeous, restored wooden floors. And today it even has a swimming pool (truly a luxury only for the wealthy of Trixie's era though it has reached the middle class of our day.)

We might mention that the renovations of this beautiful home on four acres has also brought the price to an amount that would have astonished Mr. and Mrs. Belden. (Even Jim's half million dollars - which made him an independently wealthy young man back then - could not have bought Crabapple Farm today.)

The Wheeler's Manor House

The Manor House, which was the name of the Wheeler's huge estate, included acres
of rolling lawns and woodlands, a big lake, and a stable of handsome horses.
#4, The Mysterious Visitor, Chapter 1

The woods, which bounded both the Wheeler and the Belden properties on the north, sloped down to form the western boundary of the big estate... Honey's home was high on a hill overlooking the Belden's little white farmouse down in the hollow.
#3, Gatehouse Mystery, Chapter 2

Trixie meets Honey at the Manor House Source: Secret of Mansion, Deluxe Edition, page 19

Above is a picture from the Deluxe edition showing Honey's home as Trixie and Bobby walk up the driveway. Facing south-east, the Manor House over-looked Crabapple Farm down in the hollow.

While Trixie took the long path around to formally meet her new neighbor, the new friends quickly took a quicker and straighter path.

For the historically curious, there is a large house exactly where the Manor House is indicated in the story. While not visible from the road due to trees, it would appear to be an entirely different design - though I have no information on what it looked like in 1948. Other visitors have speculated Julie Campbell based it on another house in the neighborhood, while locating it exactly on her western neighbor's yard.

But then again, maybe that's what it did look like in 1948.

Whatever the real house looked like, the early editions certainly presented a consistent style, as the collage above illustrates.

Honey's Bedroom

Source: AI generated based on author's description.

"There were crisp white ruffled organdy curtains at the windows, with a matching bedspread and a big white fluffy rug on the polished floor."
#1, Secret of Mansion, Chapter 8

Wheeler Stable

Where would the Bob-whites be without Regan and the horses? Trixie and Honey had their best conversations on horseback.

...they strolled up the sloping driveway and back to the newly whitewashed stable, where tall stalks of pink and red hollyhocks grew in profusion.
#1, Secret of Mansion, Chapter 2

We placed the stable west of the Manor House based on the pictures above from the Wheelers driveway, and north and back of the house based on the quote above.

(Besides, if it had been east of the Manor House it would have been heading down into the Crabapple Farm hollow.)

The road behind the stable led to the Red Robin, the trailer where Tom and Celia lived.

All roads on the map, by the way, are actual roads that are currently in the exact location pictured. (Paths and driveways are estimated.)

Gatehouse/Clubhouse

"There it is," she said, "way down by Glen Road where the lawn ends and the woods begin."

The little cottage, which had been the gatehouse of the manor in the days of carriages and sleighs, was so covered with wisteria vines they could hardly see it.
#3, Gatehouse Mystery, chapter 1

The old gatehouse was discovered and claimed by the Bob-whites as their clubhouse. It was hidden in the woods between the road and Manor House.

"As far as I know, nobody has been in here since the old days when the driveway used to wind down here from the house. After automobiles were invented, the people we bought the house from put in the new driveway which goes straight up from the road to the garage."
#3, Gatehouse Mystery, chapter 2

Wheeler's Lake

Ah, here's the hundred dollar question: just where was the Wheeler's lake?

Most of the homes were approximately where I imagined them - but not the lake. Other Trixie fans also had ideas about the location of the lake and none seemed to agree.

What makes this particularly interesting is the fact that there is no lake exactly where the author indicated. The three main homesteads (Wheeler, Belden, and Frayne) are shown in the map above in their correct location. (Google satellites were even used to get those houses in the exact spot compared to the roads and each other. The sizes of the houses, of course, are not to scale.)

A careful reading of the the first book, Secret of the Mansion, seems to indicate the lake was to the east of the Manor House and north of Crabapple Farm. In chapter one, Trixie is taking the short-cut to the Manor House and Honey meets her:

Honey appeared then at the top of the path that sloped down to wind around the willow-bordered lake.
#3, Gatehouse Mystery, chapter 1

Here's the description as Honey and Trixie are riding their horses from the Wheeler Stable to the Ten Acres (the Frayne Mansion.):

They walked their horses along the path that circled the willow-bordered lake and Trixie saw a new rowboat tied alongside the rustic boathouse.

"You see," [Trixie] explained, "the Manor House has been empty for so many years we got so we thought of the lake as belonging to our property."

The trail ended at the boundary line between the two properties, which was marked by a thick hedge interlaced with heavy vines. A narrow path wound from this point down the hill to the hollow and Crabapple Farm.
#1, Secret of Mansion, Chapter 2

And later in the same book:

Trixie raced up the hill through the wooded path that led up from the (Belden) vegetable garden to the Wheeler estate. She met Honey coming around the lake from the opposite direction.
#1, Secret of the Mansion, Chapter 4

Two other interesting facts are mentioned in chapter 8 of the first book - though they don't help pinpoint the location:

• Trixie floated on her back, luxuriating in the coolness of the water, which was fed by icy springs.
• "Let's row over to that cove on the other side of the lake. Brian and Mart and I always wanted to explore over there."
  

Now there's only one little problem with this location: there's no lake there!

Some have concluded (logically) that the Wheeler Lake is the actual lake named "Little Lake." It is located on the map above across from Lytell's General store. It's not in the exact location that seems to be indicated from the quotes above in Book #1 - but it's close enough.

I'm not too keen on counting "Little Lake" as THE lake for one reason: it seems to small. Here's an actual picture of that lake:

Little Lake, Glen Road, Ossining