Home for the Holidays in DC? FOUR Historic Homes Welcome You!

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Press Contact:

Communications Officer

Mandy Katz, mkatz@tudorplace.org

202.965.0400

Website: www.tudorplace.org

Tudor Place Historic House and Garden

1644 31st Street NW

Washington, DC 2007

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 17, 2012

Washington, D.C. – October 17, 2012 — Four museum neighbors will open their doors to
celebrate the season with a special “Holidays through History” multi-house tour on Saturday,
December 14, from four o’clock until eight o’clock in the evening. Advance tickets are now on
sale for the event, which includes Dupont Circle’s Anderson House and The President Woodrow Wilson House, and their Georgetown neighbors, Dumbarton House and Tudor Place Historic House and Garden.

The public is invited to experience these four privately-owned historic house museums – all on
the U.S. Register of Historic Places and three designated National Historic Landmarks – fully
decked out for the holidays. Guests can stroll the mansions’ historic rooms, delight in the
ambiance of festive period decorations, enjoy music that will interpret traditional holiday
celebrations from the Federal period through the Roaring Twenties, and sample seasonal treats.

At Anderson House, a grand Beaux-Arts mansion completed in 1905, visitors will learn about Gilded Age Christmas traditions at the turn of the 20th century through the eyes of Ambassador Larz and Isabel Anderson, one of the era’s most distinguished couples. Visitors are invited to stroll through the festively decorated house, where each room will present a different theme—including decorations, gift giving, entertaining and charity. Traditional holiday music will be performed live throughout the evening. Light refreshments inspired by the Gilded Age period will be served in the Winter Garden. Guests will also have the opportunity to view the exhibition Remembering the Revolutionaries: Heroes of the Revolutionary War in American Culture, 1783-1863 (through March 1, 2014). Anderson House is located at 2118 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest.

Dumbarton House, built circa 1800 on the heights of Georgetown, is a fine example of Federal period architecture. The home will be decorated in elegant and simple Federal-period style with greenery and an elaborate dining table where Joseph Nourse, first register of the U.S. Treasury, and his wife Maria entertained guests. The formal Parlor will come alive with music of the period performed by musicians from The Friday Morning Music Club. Our newest exhibit “Five Generations of Nourse Family Artists” will be on view, bringing this honored family tradition into the 21st century. Guests will be invited to partake of light refreshments and crafts in the contemporary Belle Vue Room ballroom. Dumbarton House is located at 2715 Q Street, Northwest.

Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, an elegant neoclassical house dating to 1816, inaugurates a change this season, blending tradition and 21st-century flair. Through six generations, the Peter family celebrated their heritage here while also embracing contemporary art and fashion. For the first time, in 2013, the museum imagines how they might have decorated for a contemporary Christmas, blending heirloom spaces and collections with modern style, in winter greenery, ribbons and bows, and the sparkle of lights and color. Visitors are invited to stroll through the mansion while listening to enchanting holiday music performed by Seraphim. Family fun continues with children’s craft activities and light refreshments. Tudor Place is located at 1644 31st Street, Northwest.

The President Woodrow Wilson House, was the final home of our twenty-eighth President. Furnished as it was in Wilson’s time, the fashionable 1915 house just off Embassy Row is a living textbook of modern American life in the 1920s—from sound recordings to silent films, from flapper dresses to zinc sinks. A splendid ten-foot tree, heavily adorned with electric lights, will fill the solarium and radiate through the Palladian window at the top of the foyer stairs. Guests will have the opportunity to explore the main museum rooms, decorated in the style of the 1920s, and visit the craft table to make their own ornaments. Woodrow Wilson House is located at 2340 S Street, Northwest.

The tour can be easily walked. Complimentary shuttle bus transportation will also be provided
for all ticketed guests, with frequent shuttles among the sites from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m.

ADMISSION: Entry to all four sites is $16 in advance and $20 at the door; children aged 17 and younger are ten dollars ($10) each. Admission to one museum only (adults or children) is $10. Admission for the museums’ members is complimentary.

Tickets may be purchased at https://holidaysthroughhistory2013.eventbrite.com/

For additional information, please contact:

  • Anderson House, 202-785-2040
  • Dumbarton House, 202-337-2288
  • Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, 202-965-0400
Located in Georgetown’s Historic District, this National Historic Landmark is a house museum distinguished for its neoclassical architecture, decorative arts collection, and five-and-a-half acre garden. Built in 1816, it was home to Thomas Peter and his wife, Martha Custis Peter, granddaughter of Martha Washington. It housed six generations of the Peter family over the course of 180 years. Now, open to the public, the historic home is one of our nation’s hidden gems. For details visit www.tudorplace.org

– Woodrow Wilson House, 202-387-4062