From Our Garden | The Pecan Tree

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By Kellie Cox, Director of Gardens and Grounds

With the season upon us for nutty treats like stuffing and candied pecans, our thoughts turn to an arboreal star at Tudor Place, its widely admired pecan tree.

In our historic gardens, we are fortunate to have a magnificent pecan tree (Carya illinoensis), Washington, D.C.’s, oldest and largest living specimen, according to the Casey Trees Living Legacy Campaign. This 80-foot-plus tree was planted from a seed nut ca. 1875, when Britannia Peter Kennon (Thomas and Martha Peter’s daughter) owned Tudor Place. Britannia planted the nut in the Dining Terrace, southwest of the historic house, from a pecan nut given to her by Maggie Carraher, an Irish immigrant who worked as the Tudor Place cook. Surprisingly, given pecans’ preference for southern climates, the tree has survived and produces fruit to this day.

The pecan tree to my left was planted during my great-grandmother’s lifetime, in the east end of the arbor, by the kitchen. I think that she had expected it to shade the path in front of the house in the afternoon, but they decided that it was a little too close to the house, and it was then moved down to where you now see it. My Father said that it stayed there for many years, practically with out growing at all, probably as a result of cutting the tap root. However, a few years later it started to grow and ever since then has made a splendid growth every year.

— Armistead Peter III

History of the Pecan Tree

The name ‘Pecan’ is a Native American term, translating to “all nuts requiring a stone to crack”.  The history of pecan trees can be traced back to as early as the 1500s. Many people consider the pecan to be one of the most valuable North American nut species, as it is the only major tree nut that grows naturally in North America. One of the earliest pecan tree plantings was documented to around 1711, 60 years before the first recorded planting by colonists in the future United States. The first pecan tree planting on these shores occurred in Long Island, N.Y., in 1772. Towards the end of the 1700’s, pecan trees were planted along the eastern coast, including in the gardens of George Washington (ca. 1775) and Thomas Jefferson (ca. 1779). Their cultivation and commercial planting started in the 1880s, in Texas and Louisiana, and sales of pecans emerged throughout the country. Where Maggie Carraher obtained the nut she gave Britannia is unknown. It may have come from Mount Vernon or a local store in Washington.

Try Communications Director Mandy Katz’s recipe for candied pecans (great for homemade gift-giving!). And visit the historic pecan tree here any Tuesday through Sunday on a walk or self-guided tour of the 5½-acre historic garden for only $3 a visit. We also offer scheduled garden programs throughout the year, including monthly guided garden tours in spring through fall.  Thanks for reading and stay tuned for a new From Our Garden post in December!

BONUS: A recipe for Candied Pecans. Try it!
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From Our Garden | The Bowling Green

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By Kellie Cox, Director of Gardens and Grounds

For this first post in From Our Garden, a new monthly blog at Tudor Place, I want to share with you one of the property’s several garden “rooms” and one of my favorite places here, the Bowling Green. The Bowling Green was also a favorite spot of Armistead Peter 3rd (1896-1983), the property’s last private owner.  Since joining the staff of Tudor Place as director of gardens and grounds in August, I have been studying the plant collections and history in these wonderful gardens. This has meant getting to “know” Armistead 3rd and the generations that preceded him here and their approaches to the landscape. I’m also getting to know the amazing garden staff and volunteers who have accomplished so much in just my first two months here. We are looking forward to many projects to come and to connecting more deeply to our community with new garden programs.

One way to share more of the gardens is on the web: This blog inaugurates what we hope will be much new media and educational garden programming online. We will write and share photos here about garden programming, background and information on our plants (comprising, so far as we know, the only formally accessioned flora collection in a historic house museum), and ongoing projects. And sometimes, like today, we will simply invite you to “visit” a special spot.

This tour starts not in the Bowling Green, but above it, in the enclosure called the Summer House, built in 1960-1961 during Armistead 3rd and Caroline’s ownership. This small structure and the path before it offer a delightful view of the Bowling Green stretching southward, framed by a matching pair of elegant greyhounds sculpted in lead. Proceeding from there down a curved flight of brick and flagstone steps that skirt the terraced area, a shaded brick pathway leads to the Green’s only entry, midway along its west side. Prominent in the entry path stands a tall, octagonal bird bath adorned by a cupid statue – a feature designed by Armistead Peter 3rd with inspiration from the works of Verocchio. This bird bath was once surrounded by Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis), and our goal this fall is to restore these historically-based plantings surrounding it.

Entering the sheltered area of the Bowling Green, you will find it surrounded by beautiful specimen trees and shrubs including American Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens), American Holly (Ilex opaca), Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), and Kobus Magnolia (Magnolia kobus). No records suggest that any actual bowling went on here, but the name likely refers to the long, narrow lawn, which could have served for games like bocce or other forms of “bowls” or “lawn bowling.” At the green’s southern end, a statue by sculptor Paul Wayland Bartlett overlooks the brick-edged lily pond. Bartlett’s stepdaughter was Caroline Ogden-Jones Peter (1894-1965),Armistead 3rd’s first wife, and the collection contains many of his works. The lily pond statue replicates a figure Bartlett designed for the U.S. Capitol pediment, House wing, in 1909. The seating area by the lily pond here is one of the garden’s most relaxing areas, a great place to read a book for the afternoon.

We hope you enjoyed your digital visit and will come see us in person soon. You can tour the garden (orsix days a week, whenever we’re open, for only $3 a visit, or attend an upcoming garden program.  Stay tuned for a new garden blog post in November!

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What Lies Beneath? Dower House Dig

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In a site as well preserved as Tudor Place, history and artifacts are not just all around, but underfoot. Archaeology offers unique insights into how past occupants used and occupied the land, which inform our understanding and interpretation of the estate today. A recent excavation near the 1867 Dower House on the property’s northern boundary uncovered not only relatively recent (19th-century) domestic artifacts and architectural debris, but also remnants of prehistoric tool-making.

Before any project that might disturb soil on the site, Tudor Place studies the substrata to preserve its hidden layers of history and material culture. An award-winning site-wide Phase I archaeological survey conducted in 2010 guides staff in targeting areas for investigation. The Dower House fieldwork, conducted from August 17 to 27 by Dovetail Cultural Resources Group under the supervision of Tudor Place Director of Preservation Jessica Zullinger, anticipates maintenance work to be undertaken around the building’s foundations.

The project completed the 2010 site survey by extending it to this lot on the site’s northern perimeter, which was by Tudor Place’s owner in 1866 and “bought back” by her grandson 95 years later. An initial grid of 13 circular, investigative “shovel test pits,” each about 12 inches (“shovel width”)  in diameter, helped determine where to dig eight three-foot-square “test units” providing an in-depth look at the foundation and yard. Because it abuts the fence separating the Dower House lot from the remainder of the property and was part of the original estate, this area was of high interest. Objects turned up included many small domestic artifacts, such as a shard of transfer print china showing indications of burn marks; fragments of blown and polished glass; a possible piece of a child’s toy; a metal object that might be part of a hinge; and an 1865 Indian Head penny. A piece of stoneware bearing a rare intact maker’s mark dates from a local 1820’s manufacturer in Alexandria, Virginia.

A surprising find, in one of the test units, was rare in-situ prehistoric flake tools – tools made by breaking pieces of stone. Finding prehistoric material in context in an urban setting like Washington, D.C., is rare, because city soils are so often disturbed by density, construction, and other landscape changes.

The excavation’s initial findings comport with the land’s 18th-century transition from wilderness to farmland, followed by its use as a home site from the late 1860s. As we continue to analyze data gleaned from the dig, the distribution of artifacts and the mapping of the soil layers that held them will help us better understand the early Capital City, Georgetown, and Tudor Place, possibly in ways yet to be discovered.

Tudor Place is grateful to a private foundation for the grant that enabled this project and to the many visitors, members, and donors whose support enables current and future archaeological investigations. An Annual Fund donation today of any amount helps Tudor Place continue learning and educating the public about the stories these grounds still hold.

Mark Hudson Appointed to Lead Tudor Place Into Its Third Century

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 27, 2015
contact: Mandy Katz

Tudor Place South Facade

Tudor Place and its iconic Federal-style south facade with Portico.
[credit: Ron Blunt Photography]

Tudor Place is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Hudson as the museum’s next executive director, commencing October 5, 2015, on the cusp of the National Historic Landmark’s bicentennial year. Mr. Hudson succeeds Leslie Buhler,

who is retiring after 15 years of extraordinary leadership during which she established Tudor Place — first opened to the public in 1988 — as a noteworthy contributor to the nation’s historic and cultural life.

“Mark brings to the position extensive professional experience, a strong academic background, and remarkable enthusiasm for the future of Tudor Place,” said Geoffrey B. Baker, president of the Tudor Place Board of Trustees.  Mr. Hudson comes to Tudor Place from the Vermont Historical Society, which he has directed since 2009.  The Vermont Historical Society is a multifaceted statewide organization encompassing a museum and substantial collections, a genealogical research library, a biennial state History Expo, the Vermont Women’s History Project, and a publishing arm.

Mark Hudson“I have for a number of years been following the activities at Tudor Place, particularly with respect to the care of its extraordinary collections,” Mr. Hudson said of his appointment. With respect to the Master Preservation Plan and Bicentennial initiatives underway, Mr. Hudson noted, “having the opportunity to lead Tudor Place as it embarks upon these ambitious endeavors is amazing.”

Mr. Hudson looks forward to bringing to fruition the plan to secure Tudor Place’s historical and cultural assets for a new century. “As I have learned more about this historic treasure,” he noted, “my enthusiasm has grown. The museum’s master plan reflects a bold vision that demonstrates a commitment to the preservation and interpretation of this nationally significant site,” he said.

During Mr. Hudson’s tenure, the Vermont Historical Society received the 2012 American Association for State and Local History’s Leadership in History Awards for the History Explorer website and the publication, A Very Fine Appearance: The Vermont Civil War Photographs of George Houghton. His work at Tudor Place marks a return to our region, as he directed the Historical Society of Frederick County, Maryland, from 1998-2009. During his term there, the society secured accreditation from the American Association of Museums (in 2003) and received the 2005 Small Museum Association’s Hunter-Burley Award for advancing public access and professional growth in an individual institution. Early in his distinguished career, Mark was curator of the Boone County Historical Society in Missouri, his home state.

Mr. Hudson’s other professional and civic commitments include, since 2010, chairing the Vermont Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission by gubernatorial appointment. He served six times as a Museums for America field reviewer for the Institute for Museum and Library Services. His Board service includes the Save Historic Antietam Foundation (2006-2009) and Maryland Association of History Museums (1999-2005).

Mark was selected by Tudor Place Trustees following an extensive national search conducted by a firm specializing in museum placements.

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Silhouettes to Selfies: Slow Art, Fast Change

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Join us, June 4, 2015 at 6 p.m. for a cocktail kick-off!

Portraits: Trying to Tell Us Something

Portraits are a mainstay of any Tudor Place house tour, useful for identifying family members, workers, prominent friends, and others who animate the site’s history. In any medium, likenesses help us learn the site’s stories. But examined closely, these works can tell us far more than just “who” and “with whom.” A newly opened installation, Silhouettes to Selfies: Capturing Portraits Over Time, on view through August 2015, looks at two centuries of technology, custom, and attitudes in the way we depict ourselves. In the garden, visitors are invited to “frame” their memories photographically — and consider how our perceptions of place change when we wield cameras — by snapping selfies and portraits using one of the outdoor Photo Frames that dot the landscape for the duration of the installation.

A family home, the historic house abounds with likenesses of those who spent time here and (as with depictions of Martha and George Washington) their forebears. Of the approximately 2,200 works in the fine art collection they left to the museum, over 100 are likenesses of people who lived on, visited, or worked on the estate. Among the collection’s 4,000 photographs, 334 are portraits of the Peters, their servants, friends and kin, even pets, from a rare 1850s daguerreotype to mid 20th-century prints made with Kodak equipment. The collections’ portraits vary in material, quality and expense, from early 19th-century cut paper silhouettes of Martha and Thomas Peter’s daughters, America (“Meck”) and Columbia (“Lum”), to formal oil-on-canvas self-portraits by Armistead Peter 3rd from the mid-1900s.

On View in House and Garden

Regular guided tours during the installation will feature these as well as art and artifacts not on permanent exhibition. In the garden, three strategically placed Portrait Frames invite viewers to “frame” portraits of place and of themselves in it — an entertaining new way to interact with the landscape and the architecturally significant house designed by Dr. William Thornton. Inside the historic house, photographic equipment from the early 1900s through the era of the Polaroid will be on view in the Butler’s Pantry; that might seem an odd setting, only until you learn the space had served as a family darkroom before the house’s renovation in 1914. In the Office, visitors will see works by author and artist Marietta Minigerode Andrews, arrayed on the desk of her friend Armistead Peter, Jr.  Minnigeroode, who was ambidextrous, presented him with a book about her paper-cutting art, also on view. (Her grandfather, Charles Minigerode, was a German immigrant and classics scholar who rose to a prominent Episcopal pulpit in Richmond from which he counseled Jefferson Davis, earning the nickname “Father Confessor of the Confederacy.” as recounted by Colonial Williamsburg historian Harold B. Gill, Jr.)

As part of the installation, Tudor Place joined the worldwide movement of Slow Art Day, on Saturday, April 11, inviting visitors for special focus on four key portraits from the collection in a program that paired old-fashioned observation with music, conversation, and sketching. A group lunch was included, making for an unusual (and social) experience in art appreciation. Each portrait of four carefully chosen pieces, in different media and tied to the house and its history, was studied for 15 minutes each. They included an oil painting, a watercolor, a plaster bust, and a photograph, featuring mixed generations and solo subjects, images of different eras, and even a nod to another continent.

Preserving Portraits and Plumbing Their Secrets

While portraits can be counted on to live on after their subjects, they too, are subject to the ravages of time. In collaboration with the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, Tudor Place recently conducted conservation analysis on its important portrait of founder Thomas Peter. X-ray fluorescence spectometry shed light on past “improvements” and repairs that had obscured significant details of the sitter’s clothes, setting, and symbols of his status embedded in the original portrait, indicating that further conservation work might reveal more about the painting’s original design. With generous support from the MARPAT Foundation, Tudor Place also conserved seven other painted portraits this year: John Parke Custis IV, ca. 1725; William G. Williams’s Self-Portrait; Williams’s painting of his wife , America Peter Williams and Son Laurence, ca. 1833; and three paintings by Armistead Peter 3rd — a double portrait of his wife and daughter from 1932, his 1949 Self-portrait in naval uniform, and a portrait of his wife from 1925 in a green cloche hat. And the museum also took steps recently to conserve rare 1850s daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, and ivorytypes in the collection — all predecessors of print and, now, digital photography.

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May 20 Garden Party to Honor Museum Champion Ellen Charles

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CONTACT

TICKETS
Mary Michael Wachur Click here.
Associate Director for Annual Giving & Events
202.580.7323 | mwachur@tudorplace.org

Some 500 celebrants will gather at Tudor Place on Wednesday, May 20, 2015, at 6 p.m. for the site’s 23rd Annual Spring Garden Party. The festive social event, chaired by Elizabeth Powell of Georgetown, draws prominent Washingtonians and guests from around the nation and abroad. Ellen MacNeille Charles, a transformative and longtime leader of Tudor Place, will be honored . Mrs. Charles’s special blend of experience, wisdom, and good humor benefits and enriches every organization she touches — including Tudor Place, where her leadership and advocacy have made an indelible mark. Tudor Place hosts more than 23,000 visitors annually. Its education programs serve more than 3,000 school children each year from schools in D.C. and surrounding communities, providing a living classroom on American history, the environment, architecture and other subjects.

Thank You, Sponsors

The Spring Garden Party, as Tudor Place’s most important fundraiser of the year, provides more than 20 percent of its annual operating budget. enabling it to serve as a destination for education and entertainment of broad audiences of local, national, and international visitors. Corporate sponsorship is led by Washington Fine Properties and Cooke & Bieler, and supported by Wagner Roofing, Davey Trees, and Huntington T. Block. Proceeds also support innovative programs employing Tudor Place as a living classroom for the teaching of American history, science and environmental studies, and architecture, for more than 3,000 public and private school children a year.

Director Leslie Buhler to Retire, Leaving Tudor Place Strengthened

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January 22, 2015

Knot Garden with Arbor by Ron Blunt

Knot Garden and Grape Arbor [CREDIT: Ron Blunt Photography]

A Change in Leadership

Leslie L. Buhler has announced she will retire as Executive Director of Tudor Place at the end of June 2015 after 15 years of transformational leadership. Since 2000, Leslie created on the historic site an engaging and educational modern museum serving a diverse audience of Washington-area residents, visitors to the nation’s capital, and a worldwide digital audience. A professional search for her successor is underway.

Executive Director Leslie BuhlerTudor Place was completed in 1816 by Thomas Peter and his wife Martha Custis Peter, a granddaughter of Martha Washington, and is noted for its architecture, archive, and extensive collections, including more than 200 items owned by Martha and George Washington. Now a National Historic Landmark on five and a half acres in Georgetown, the estate had been open to the public 12 years when Leslie took the helm. Her innovations and accomplishments included establishing regular tour hours and appropriate zoning as a permanent museum; building a rich schedule of education programs; undertaking archaeological explorations into the site’s past; and transferring many museum operations outside of the historic house so it could be properly preserved and interpreted.

“I’ve experienced great professional and personal satisfaction in advancing one of the greatest house museums in the nation’s capital, bringing attention to the extraordinary collection and archive it holds, and engaging the public with wonderful historic and cultural resources unique to Tudor Place,” Leslie said. “I look forward to the next chapter in my life knowing that the museum is stronger and poised to successfully complete a capital campaign to ensure its future as a 21st century museum.”

Assessing, Repairing, Readying for the Future

scaffold on South Facade
When Leslie came to Tudor Place, it badly needed repair and restoration. First tackling deferred maintenance and undertaking studies to assess restoration needs, she led a forward-thinking effort to develop a Master Preservation Plan to secure all the site’s historic and cultural assets. A first phase of work on the National Historic Landmark house was funded by a $3.5-million campaign funded in part by awards from Save America’s Treasures and the D.C. Government. In addition, Leslie advanced conservation of the landscape, collection, and archive and also built a strong, competent staff charged with continuing the museum’s momentum.

“Tudor Place has benefited enormously from Leslie’s outstanding leadership and engagement with the community,” said Geoffrey B. Baker, President of the Board of Trustees. “She has led the institution through a major assessment and planning process and developed an educational component that engages young and old with the powerful lessons of American history and culture. It is with profound gratitude that we wish Leslie well.”

Building Audiences, Collections, and the Institution

2 students with shardFrom early in her tenure, Leslie made it a priority to increase and diversify the visitor pool while enlarging the museum’s core supporters, and she broadened the museum’s reach into the local community through a lively education program. These efforts substantially increased visits by Washington-area children, families, young adults, and seniors. The dynamic school program introduced under her leadership now reaches 3,000 children each year.

Augmenting the collection, Peter family members gave several significant gifts during Leslie’s tenure. These include a collection of rare books from the original library of Martha and Thomas Peter and a William G. Webster pocket watch that Martha and George Washington gave Eleanor Calvert upon her marriage to Martha Washington’s son, John Parke Custis.

Leslie’s contributions also include judicious management in expanding the museum’s budget, increasing reserve funds, and raising monies from private and public sources to increase the capacity of the museum’s conservation, education and outreach programs.
Thank you for your support of Tudor Place.

“Tradition”? Finding Surprises in Christmases Past

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Those age-old Christmas “traditions” we revel in – how traditional are they really? Whether we celebrate the holiday or not, most of us consider Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and paper-wrapped gifts almost timeless. But like the American melting pot itself, many holiday staples came from overseas and changed over time. See for yourself how customs change, during the festive installation, Red, Green & Gold, The New and the Old, running through December, as Tudor Place “Sparkles for Christmas” — on view during all regular tours and seasonal programs.

Throughout the 1816 mansion, compare nearly 200 years of celebrations with your own winter pastimes and family gatherings. And feast your eyes on sparkling décor that imagines how it would have looked if the home owners, the Peters, were decorating today. You will leave with much to think about and appreciate!

mantel with clock and decor

In the Drawing Room mantel, ornament trees flank the French ormolu-and-enamel clock.

This creative installation melds 21st-century decorations and Peter family collections to celebrate the Washington-Custis lineage and contemporary flair. Few written descriptions or photographs show how or if the Peter family decorated, so our Collections team drew inspiration from the family’s interest in horticulture and nature. That’s why you’ll find lush greenery and more than 100 feet of lights alongside classic standbys like the circa-1910 goose-feather tree and fragile but playful pressed-paper ornaments made more than a century ago.

The weeks leading to December 24 appear to have been far quieter than our modern hail of festivities and engagements. As a student at Saint Albans School, Armistead Peter 3rd in 1914 described dinners, dances, and other family socializing at Tudor Place that commenced only on Christmas Day and ran through New Year’s. Still, the Peters lavished great attention and expense on their celebrations. Grocery invoices from 1926 in the archive show that they spent $322.88 – about $3,500 in 2013 dollars – on Christmas and New Year’s dinners alone.

In the 1920s office, you will find holiday greeting cards, also from the Archive. Though Christmas cards have been in circulation since the mid-1800s, they became a holiday ritual only in the early 1900s, supplanting the practice of giving small trinkets to friends. Another use for paper in the late 19th century was for small candy holders; vintage examples of these chromolithographs are also on view in the office.

In the Children’s Bedroom upstairs stands the goose-feather tree, imported from Germany. The tradition of live and faux indoor trees came from Europe in the 19th century, but mistletoe and holly sprigs were already popular here for decorating. Vendors began selling decorative greens in quantity at public markets in Washington in the 1870s and 1880s. You will see them in the house today and might want to pass with someone special under one of the mistletoe “kissing balls” that hang between the Saloon and adjacent reception rooms. In 1923, with the spread of electrification well underway (Tudor Place was wired in 1914), President Coolidge lit the first “national Christmas tree.”

Under their trees at home, children in the late 1800s might have found books, dolls, roller skates, sleds, baseball mitts or board games. Many such items are preserved in the Tudor Place toy collection, and you’ll find them beneath the feather tree. It was only in 1900 that paper gift wrap began to appear, usually in solid colors. (White tissue with red ribbon was most popular.) In the 1920s, however, printed patterns emerged – you can view examples from the 1950s in the Servant’s Sitting Room.

Felt stockings on the Parlor mantel today would have first appeared there after World War I and were probably purchased by the two last generations of Peters to live in the mansion, Armistead Peter 3rd, his wife Caroline Ogden-Jones Peter, and their daughter Anne. After opening presents on Christmas morning, the family would have retired to this room for a late breakfast and tea.

magazine cover image

In the Servants’ Sitting Room, wrapping, polishing, and seasonal magazines.

Tudor Place domestic staff were most numerous from 1918 to 1923, the years surrounding the marriage of Armistead the 3rd and Caroline. Their number included African-Americans and immigrants from Ireland, Italy, England, and Russia, most of whom lived off-site. Well paid for the time, as demonstrated by Peter family records in the archive, they may have received bonuses at Christmas and other holidays. In the Servants’ Sitting Room, where gift wrapping is under way, the traditional Irish Christmas candle in the window welcomes those looking for shelter.

In the Kitchen, you can visualize the staff bustle as preparations are underway for a family feast. Recipes and receipts in the archive include a name familiar to modern D.C. shoppers: Bills from John H. Magruder Fine Groceries and other invoices show that the family’s 1926 Christmas turkey weighed 13½ pounds and was served with beef. Festive meals around 1920 were served à la Russe, with staff serving and clearing dishes one by one, a job that probably fell to butler Jacob Taube. After Taube’s departure, the Peters appear – like most of us – to have mostly served themselves.

Cakes and roasts have never fallen from fashion, but the Peter family table also bore dishes less common today. The plum pudding and figs on the Kitchen tables may be faux (made by Artist-in-Residence Peter Waddell), but the Chocolate Plum Pudding recipe on the baking table comes from a 1915 cookbook actually owned by the Peters, Knox Sparkling Granulated Gelatine Makes Desserts, Salads, Puddings, Sherbets, Jellies, Ice Creams, and Candies. The handwritten eggnog recipe likewise comes from the archive, and on the wooden table beside the door is another family recipe, typed in the early 1900s, for “Sweet Stuffing for Turkeys, Capons, or Chickens.”

In the kitchen, gelatin molds would have been in frequent holiday use.

In the kitchen, gelatin molds would have been in frequent holiday use.

Through December 2015, these holiday vignettes and the collections riches that surround them will be on view on all regular tours (docent-guided and offered hourly, Tuesdays through Sundays), as well as at Tudor Nights on December 4 and the festive Holidays Through History four-museum open house on December 6. Take a break from the season’s hubbub and rush to enjoy the panorama of holidays past, adding fun, elegance, and a taste of history to your own celebrations!

Tudor Place Friends and Collaborators Celebrate National Preservation Award

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Current and past staff members, consultants, conservators, and other supporters gathered June 18 to celebrate the bestowal on Tudor Place of the coveted Ross Merrill Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections. Cool wine and beverages offered relief from the heat for the 64 guests gathered for the awards ceremony, catered reception, and socializing in the Dower House administration building.  In recognition of a conservation focus that permeates all aspects of the house, collection, and grounds, select museum areas were open for viewing, with the spotlight on collection pieces that have received special conservation care.

“Tudor Place excels in telling its story,” enthused Eryl Wentworth, executive director of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) as she presented the award jointly with her counterpart from Heritage Preservation. The Merrill Award confirms Tudor Place’s reputation for a level of collections stewardship more often found in far larger institutions. Past recipients include the National Archives and Records Administration, Shelburne Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, among others. So selective is the awards committee, according to the AIC director, that in some years, since it was first presented in 1999, the prize was not awarded at all.

Since Leslie Buhler became executive director of Tudor Place 14 years ago, Ms. Wentworth said, “[I] have watched and applauded her stewardship of this remarkable site… There is no question in anyone’s mind–Tudor Place well deserves the honor of receiving this special award.”

In his remarks, Heritage Preservation President Larry Reger praised the long-term focus on preservation concerns that recommended Tudor Place to the committee. “Even in the early years of its transition from private ownership to a public institution, the Tudor Place Foundation made it a priority to ensure there was a sustained review its collections and archives,” he noted. The award recognizes, the comprehensiveness and systematic nature of the museum’s collections care, the daily attention devoted to it from an expanding collections staff, cultivation of strong board support, and the engagement of conservators, preservation architects, architectural historians, archivists, engineers and others with necessary skills.

In accepting the award, Ms. Buhler alluded to the capital campaign and Master Preservation Plan that will undergird the museum’s future. “What we collectively have achieved in the past is truly remarkable, but it is what we must achieve in the future that will secure Tudor Place,” she said, noting, “we are not celebrating in the main house tonight because of the heat. Not only is the heat dangerous for visitors and staff, but heat extremes cause fluctuations in humidity that damage the collection and archive.”

The proposed master plan includes HVAC modernization and other practical improvements crucial to conservation and preservation of valuable objects and structures, she noted, adding, “This is the future of Tudor Place, one that is imperative to secure if we are to continue to exist as a public museum.”

All images © AVANTphotoDC.

Lives Measured in the Garden: “As Time Goes By”

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· Family and Friends ·

Armistead Peter Jr., the third owner of Tudor Place, cherished the labors and traditions of the estate’s landscape. His grandmother, Britannia Wellington Peter Kennon, inherited the property from its founders, her parents. She taught her grandchildren to honor these forebears and in many ways Armistead Peter Jr. measured out his own life by following the garden’s rhythms and answering its demands. This essay by Archivist Wendy Kail traces intergenerational change within the Peter family through diaries, notes, and the natural history of Tudor Place.

A mid 20th-century view of the Box Knot rose garden, where time’s passing registers on the face of a sun dial from Crossbasket Castle.


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