Media Advisory
May 18, 2016
Contact Mandy Katz
email | phone: 202.486.7645

Lavishly Honoring the Bicentennial of American Treasure Tudor Place

May 25, 2016 | 6 – 9 p.m.

Washington, DC–Traditional Georgetown understatement will be nowhere in attendance at the annual Garden Party fundraiser for Tudor Place this Wednesday, May 25, when 500 guests are expected to celebrate the site’s Bicentennial in grand style. Along with philanthropists, elected officials, donors, diplomats from 10 countries, and others, “historic attendees” will include Tudor Place’s founders and their servants, kin, and famous friends including the Marquis de Lafayette; John Luckett, who escaped both slavery and the Union Army before working at “Tudor;” and the first President himself, “Grandfather” George Washington.

Party Chair Marcia V. Mayo has spared no extravagance of imagination for this music-filled evening adorned with lush lighting, abundant blooms and costumed interpreters representing fascinating personages from the site’s storied past.

Members of the press wishing to cover this lavish event and/or extensive preparations for it in the days preceding are asked to contact us now.

In ardent supporter and museum Trustee Ms. Mayo, Tudor Place has found an extraordinary chairperson to mark an extraordinary milestone, the 200^th anniversary of an immaculately preserved American house and garden.In keeping with the site’s slogan, America’s Story Lives Here, she has created an event to evoke the site’s storied history and key figures who helped shape it.

In addition to unusual people and lavish music, spectacular cars will feature at the event. As guests enter, they can enjoy examining the museum’s dashing 1919 Pierce-Arrow motorcar, relocated to the front of the historic house (weather permitting) for special viewing. As they depart, they will be met by the fantastically patterned “Lilly Jeep” from Lilly Pulitzer, which opens its Georgetown boutique this week. In between, they can mingle in the five-and-a-half-acre garden, reception rooms of the historic house, and the elegant South Lawn dining marquee dripping with chandeliers and blooms.

TO SEE AND HEAR:

• Costumed interpreters representing the historic estate’s past owners, servants, and famous guests, with cast and costumes by Washington National Opera
• Performers from the Washington National Opera Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program
• Original, custom-built 1919 Pierce-Arrow motor car and Lilly Jeep.
• 5 ½ acres of historical gardens and elegant event marquee on South Lawn.
• Hats.

WHEN:

Wednesday, May 25, 2016, 6-9 pm

WHERE: 1644 31^st St. NW, Washington, DC 20007

ABOUT TUDOR PLACE & THE GARDEN PARTY:

The annual Garden Party, now in its 24^th year, is the most significant annual fundraiser for Tudor Place, one of the nation’s first National Historic Landmarks. Tudor Place Foundation since 1983 has preserved and operated the National Historic Landmark as a museum. Its historic landscape, buildings, collections, and archive comprise one of the nation’s largest and most intact urban estates from the Federal era. Cultivated since the 18^th century, the landscape provides a living history of American land use over time and a rare expanse of green space in the urban environment. The house and collections, including more than 200 objects owned by George and Martha Washington, mark American progress and change from the agricultural to the digital age, an unparalleled record of social, cultural, political, and labor history.

As a pioneer in historic horticulture and sustainable public gardening, the Tudor Place landscape serves as a learning laboratory for school groups, garden clubs, artists, researchers, and horticulturalists. More than 23,000 people visit the house and garden each year, including more than 3,000 school-aged children from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, many in Title I schools.

Pierce-Arrow image by Bruce White.

North Garden image by James Brantley.