In his 1969 book about Tudor Place, its final owner, Armistead Peter 3rd, commented that in the increasingly common conversations happening about old houses “they are hardly ever spoken of or considered in the light of their original function: to be a family home.” Five years after his passing, and in accordance with his wishes, his own family home opened as a historic house museum. Who is the man that turned his home into a museum, and how can a family home help us tell more than just the story of the Peter family?

Shelby Stevenson is the Visitor Services Coordinator at Tudor Place. Before coming to Tudor Place, she worked at Mount Vernon and Historic Alexandria. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Marymount University in 2020 and is currently working on a master’s degree in history at George Mason University.