Historic Wethersfield

Homes Open For The Holidays

WETHERSFIELD  — Historic homes, live music and decorated streets… The public is invited to experience three centuries of celebration in historic Wethersfield this month. The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum has joined with Wethersfield Historical Society to present holiday tours of three homes and re-create the festivities of centuries past. All the holiday homes are open through December 23.

Wethersfield Historical Society’s Holiday Floral Show House has returned to the historic Hurlbut-Dunham House, 212 Main Street. Featuring holiday room decorations by ten of the area’s finest florists and designers, the Victorian house museum will provide holiday decorating ideas.

Holiday guests also will experience the lifestyle of Connecticut’s early high society couple, Jane and Howard Dunham, whose home features the family’s opulent early 20th Century décor.

At the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, 211 Main Street, the Isaac Stevens Home has been decorated to depict holiday celebrations during the 1820s. The dining room has been set for a holiday feast, and the house’s Christmas tree reveals the origin of this holiday tradition.

On the second floor, the new children’s exhibits and toy museum, which feature 19th Century clothing, toys and games, are open for the holidays for the first time.

In the Joseph Webb House, visitors will see decorations that were part of the Colonial Revival style of the 1920s and 1930s. The front parlor includes a tree with period ornaments, greens and flowers, the Yorktown parlor has been converted into a dining room, and the other rooms feature period holiday decorations and ornaments from the 1920s.

On the second floor, the bedroom shows holiday preparations with packages and gift wrapping and period Christmas cards.

For the first time in 40 years, visitors can view the drawing room’s recently uncovered wall murals installed by Wallace Nutting, owner of the Webb House in 1916. In addition to the Webb House, he owned, as part of his “Chain of Colonial Picture Houses,” four other important historic sites in New England that are portrayed in the wall murals.

All decorated homes are open 10 am to 4 pm Monday through Friday, 10 am to 8 pm on Saturday, and 1 to 4 pm on Sunday. Admission is $20 to tour the three homes, or $10 for admission to the Hurlbut-Dunham House and the Wethersfield Museum only or the Webb and Stevens houses only. Funds will help support the museums’ educational and cultural programs and events, as well as the preservation of these historic treasures.

Wethersfield Historical Society is at 150 Main Street. For information, call 860-529-7656 or visit www.wethhist.org.

For information on the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, call 860-529-0612 or visit www.webb-deane-stevens.org.