“Each year, one non-profit uses the house. It gives back to the community,” said Milligan about the Georgian-style home.

Milligan also offers up his art to the public. Recently, he loaned 37 still life paintings to the Thomas T. Taber Museum for the exhibit “Echoes of Eden in a Rising Republic: Still Life and the Beauty of Becoming.” Culled from his personal art collection, the show celebrated America’s 250th anniversary and was a stunning success receiving national media coverage.

After the Taber exhibit closed in May, the collection returned to Milligan’s walls. He started collecting works when he was attending Oxford University. Now a retired prison chaplain, he has collected around 130 paintings.

“It is the largest private collection of the Hudson River School,” said Milligan.

“The Hudson River School was America’s first true artistic fraternity. Its name was coined to identify a group of New York City-based landscape painters that emerged about 1850 under the influence of the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and flourished until about the time of the Centennial,” wrote the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

One of the collection’s most impressive aspects are its six Severin Roesen still lifes. Roesen is locally revered because of the years he spent in Williamsport. He rose to national prominence when First Lady Jackie Kennedy selected his work to be displayed in the White House. Roesen’s work is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection.

“The Hudson River School is just so peaceful. I like nature and I like to hike,” said the collector.

Walking through the front door of the 1912 home, visitors are greeted with a large foyer and grand staircase lined with American masterpieces. To the left is a stately formal dining room and to the right a sprawling living room complete with a grand piano and fireplace. It is Milligan’s favorite room.

“It’s just so peaceful,” he said.

The mansion was built by C. Luther Culler. After suddenly losing his wife Helen Housel Culler, he traveled abroad to grieve.

According to Milligan, a former homeowner recounted how the home’s architecture was conceived.

“An elderly woman knocked on the door one day asking if she could see the house. She explained that her father had been the general foreman, who constructed the house, when she was just a little girl. She said that he told her the house and grounds are modeled after a mansion Mr. Culler had visited on his trip to Europe. He told his daughter that Mr. Culler had drawn pictures of the house and garden and brought them back with him to Williamsport,” wrote Milligan about the home in a pictorial history contained in a photo album he compiled.

The 26-room house would become a wedding present for Culler’s second wife Carolyn Gates Culler. During a day trip to New York City, the couple met with one of Grand Central Station’s architects (Milligan is unsure of his name) for architectural guidance.

Milligan wrote about the home in the photo album, saying, “The location of the mansion was a 2 acre lot in a prestigious section of Vallamont — a planned community on the north side of Williamsport. It was the third house to be built on Vallamont Drive and cost over $100,000 to construct. The house had all the latest innovations of the day, a central vacuum cleaning system, an incinerator, an inner house phone system, 5 bedrooms — each with their own bathrooms and lots of room for entertaining.”

Milligan believes he is now around the eighth owner of the home. The property had caught his eye years before purchasing it in 2007. Despite its shoddy condition, Milligan was up to the task of restoring the property.

“How could someone live there and let it get in that condition? I had said for years that someone needs to buy it and love on it and restore it,” said the proud homeowner.

After eight months of renovations, the house came back to life. In addition to restoring the interior and exterior, Milligan toiled planting gardens circling the home and repaired the grand fountain in the front yard. Today, mature roses, peonies, irises, black eyed susans, ferns and lamb’s-ear surround the manse. Throughout the renovations, Milligan was forced to contend with a limited budget.

“As a chaplain, you don’t make a lot of money and have to figure out [how to do repairs] on your own,” said Milligan.

On that Sunday afternoon, benefit patrons for the Williamsport Youth Choir enjoyed strolling the grounds, taking in the gurgling original fountain and playing croquet. For Milligan, this home is a gift for all to enjoy.

“God has been gracious,” he said.