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Thank you for a great 2023 season!
Holiday season tickets are now available!
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In this newsletter:
- Events Recap: A Bizarre Victorian Bazaar, member and docent outings, Preservation Trades Workshop
- Holiday Season Preview
- Upcoming Public Programs & Events - Save the Dates for our Holiday Programs!
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A Bizarre Victorian Bazaar: An Exhibition of Oddities and the Obscure | |
On Saturday, October 7th, over 400 guests gathered at Victoria Mansion for our Bizarre Victorian Bazaar: An Exhibition of Oddities and the Obscure. Throughout the day, we offered a full schedule of performances, demonstrations, crafts, and exhibit booths focused on Victorian oddities - from patent medicine to a Cabinet of Curiosities - and activities of a Spiritualist nature, including several forms of divination and an educational look at the pseudoscience of phrenology.
Thank you to all of our attendees, volunteers, staff, and special guests for making this event a success!
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Portland-based pirate band the Shank Painters sing sea shanties from the Parlor piazza. They also shared the history of working-class maritime music. | |
Moxie historians Merrill Lewis (right) and Rick Seferian discuss the history of Maine's most famous patent medicine turned soda at their booth. | |
Guest divination specialist Anna Halloran (right) reads Ogham staves for a visitor and discusses the history of this Celtic tradition. | |
Historian Tom Kelleher of Old Sturbridge Village demonstrates the 18th and 19th century psuedoscience of phrenology: determining character by the shape and "bumps" of a person's skull. | |
Docent Outing to Western Cemetery | Victoria Mansion's Docent Committee organizes group outings and other learning opportunities for our dedicated docent corps throughout the year. This year's fall outing, on October 14th, was a guided tour of Portland's historic Western Cemetery, led by fellow docent Mary Anne Wallace. Mary Anne also works with Evergreen Cemetery, and is an expert in historic burial customs and mourning rituals. Western Cemetery was once an ideal place for internments, but fell into disuse and later disrepair, with many stones becoming illegible over time. Friends of Western Cemetery have spearheaded conservation of the grounds and stones, leading to a resurgence in interest among Portland locals. Situated along the Western Promenade, Western Cemetery is located just a few blocks away from Victoria Mansion. Thank you Mary Anne for leading this walking tour! | |
Morse Associates Fall Outing to Boston | |
Every year, Victoria Mansion offers our highest-tier members, the Morse Associates, a fall outing to other New England sites of historic significance. This year, the outing brought members to Boston for three exclusive opportunities. The day began with a tour of the conservation laboratory at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where Holly Salmon, John L. and Susan K. Gardner Director of Conservation, discussed objects from the collection and current conservation projects. The museum boasts an eclectic collection of decorative art bequeathed by its namesake founder.
Lunch was provided at the Omni Parker House restaurant, an historic landmark founded in 1855. The Parker House has seen the development of numerous New England culinary staples and has employed countless successful chefs. It also happens to be located steps away from Tremont Street, where the Mansion's first owner, Ruggles Sylvester Morse, began his hotel career at the Tremont House, and where its second owner, J.R. Libby, began working in the dry goods trade, some years apart.
The last stop in Boston was a private tour of the Gibson House Museum, a row house built in 1856 with an impressive collection of original furnishings, objects, and art. Like Victoria Mansion, Gibson House staff are actively researching the lives of domestic servants who lived and worked at the house, as well as the Gibson family patriarch's involvement in the slave economy - in this case, sugar plantations in Cuba.
Before the day ended, members enjoyed a wine reception at the home of fellow Morse Associate member Tinker Newick. Thank you to Tinker for hosting a reception for the second year in a row! Many thanks as well to our hosts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Omni Parker House, and the Gibson House - and of course to our Morse Associates members for their ongoing generous support of the work we do at Victoria Mansion.
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Members tour the conservation lab at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and hear from Holly Salmon, John L. and Susan K. Gardner Director of Conservation for the museum. | |  |
Holly discusses conservation needs for this iconic John Singer Sargent portrait of museum founder Isabella Stewart Gardner. | | |
Members enjoy lunch at the historic Omni Parker House restaurant, located just a short distance from the Tremont block where both of Victoria Mansion's owners, Ruggles Morse and J.R. Libby, began their careers. | | |
Guide Isabella Dobson gives members a private tour of the Gibson House Museum. Like Victoria Mansion, most of the objects on view at the Gibson House are original to the family who lived there. | | |
Preservation Trades Workshop | |
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On Sunday, October 15th, Victoria Mansion hosted a Preservation Trades Workshop. For years, preservationists have lamented the lack of workers skilled in the special methods and techniques required to work sensitively on older and historic buildings. While this problem can’t be fixed overnight, we firmly believe that knowledge sharing will be part of the solution.
Historic preservation specialists Edward Reilly, Peter de Paolo, and John Leeke (who was recently named one of Traditional Building Magazine's 25 Leaders in historic preservation) demonstrated window sash glazing, a sanded paint technique to make wood mimic brownstone, and architectural woodcarving.
John Leeke will also lead a series of workshops at Victoria Mansion in the spring for building trades professionals who are interested in honing hands-on preservation skills.
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John Leeke of Historic HomeWorks discusses the "Trades Triangle," and the skills needed for historic preservation. | | |
Edward Reilly of Deering Sashworks demonstrates window sash glazing on an historic window as attendees take notes. | | |
Frequent Mansion consultant and collaborator Peter de Paolo grinds brownstone sand that he later blew onto the primed wood surface on the easel. | | |
John Leeke carves an Ionic capital from wood, using historic Greek and Roman proportions documented in 1562 by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola. The large-scale schematic above the wooden capital John Leeke is carving was drafted by John Howard Stevens for his father John Calvin Stevens's firm, based on da Vignola's work. A wooden capital like this takes around 14 hours to complete. | | |
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Victoria Mansion will be closed for most of November as local designers begin transforming the house with installations for our annual holiday season. The theme for this year's decorations is "Colors of the Season."
Tickets are available on our website. Victoria Mansion's holiday season runs from Friday, November 24th, 2023 through Sunday, January 7th, 2024. Open 10am-4pm Tuesday through Sunday, tours on the half-hour with final admission at 3pm. Final admission at 12pm on December 24th and 31st. Closed Mondays, closed December 25th and January 1st.
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Upcoming Public Programs & Events | |
Keep an eye on our Events page for tickets and more information about upcoming programs. | | |
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Mr. Dickens (portrayed by professional British actor Andrew Harris) returns to the Mansion this festive season with Mr. Dickens and His Carol. Andrew's entertainments have delighted Mansion visitors over many years and in this, the 180th anniversary year of A Christmas Carol, audience members are promised a little more sparkle at each of the two performances. Tickets are limited and always sell out.
In a house such as the Mansion, a Victorian Christmas was a veritable visual feast. Come see us in our seasonal glory and experience the delights of December!
Ticket prices:
$25/Victoria Mansion members
$30/general public
Watch our Events page, Facebook and Instagram for more info!
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Join members of Portland Ballet as they perform scenes from the Victorian Nutcracker in Victoria Mansion’s Stair Hall!
This family-friendly event is fun for kids of all ages. After the performance, walk through the house, see the decorations, and meet the ballerinas!
Ticket Prices**
$5 per child ages 3-17
$8 for 1 accompanying adult
$20 for any additional adults/adult only tickets
**Space is limited due to Mansion capacity. Children must have at least one accompanying adult present.
Watch our Events page, Facebook and Instagram for more info!
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Ruffi Stuffie Sleepover!
Stuffie drop-off and story time Wednesday, December 13th at 4:30pm, pick-up Thursday, December 14th at 9:00am
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A brand new program for our youngest visitors, their caregivers, and their stuffed animals!
Would your child’s stuffie like to explore the Mansion with host Ruffi the (stuffie) Museum Cat? Bring your stuffed friend from home to join us for a story time and a sneak peek at the Mansion’s holiday decorations on December 13th at 4:30pm.
Then leave your stuffed animal with Ruffi and our museum staff for a Mansion stuffie sleepover! Photos of all their fun activities will be shared with participants when they pick up their stuffies in the morning on December 14th.
This program is $5 per group (1 child, 1 stuffed animal, and an accompanying adult). Reservations are required due to Mansion capacity. Tickets will go on sale on November 22nd.
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Support Victoria Mansion's Annual Fund! | |
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Victoria Mansion relies on the support of our community near and far to help us realize our mission to conserve, maintain, and restore this one-of-a-kind property and share its history with the public. Our mission is put into practice every day, with preservation often happening in the public eye. Ongoing research initiatives help us better represent the Mansion within the context of its period to scholars, students, and our everyday visitors.
Support from our community helps us fund the much-needed care this historic structure requires, allowing us to consult with some of New England's top experts in historic preservation, as well as to bring our history curriculum, A Century of Change, to Maine classrooms at no cost to schools.
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When you give to the Annual Fund, 100% of your gift goes directly to support Victoria Mansion, making the greatest possible impact on our educational and curatorial programs, restoration initiatives, and ongoing maintenance—all while allowing us to move the Mansion’s top priorities forward. | |
Support Victoria Mansion's Stair Hall Matching Fund! | |
Above: Paintings conservator Corrine Long of Gianfranco Pocobene Studio cleans a section of the west side of the first floor Stair Hall, March 2023. | |
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As conservation of the decoratively painted surfaces on the first floor of the Mansion's Stair Hall continues apace with breathtaking results, we have been setting our sights on continuing this project onto the second floor of the hall. Following a series of tests and consultations, we were fortunate to receive a federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services*, and we need our community's support to help us continue this important work. A gift of any size to our Stair Hall Matching Fund brings us closer to our goal of $148,043 to match the generous funding from this grant.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, grant number MA-253203-OMS-23.
*The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
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We are looking for docents to join us for our 2023 holiday season!
For more information or to sign up, please email Stacia Hanscom, Director of Education & Public Programs at shanscom@victoriamansion.org.
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Members enjoy year-round free admission, discounts in the Museum Shop, and invitations to exclusive events. Become a member today to assist in our conservation efforts and receive the first news about upcoming Victoria Mansion events and programs. | |
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The Staff of Victoria Mansion
Timothy Brosnihan, Executive Director
Ann O'Hagan, Director of Development
Stacia Hanscom, Director of Education & Public Programs
Siobhan Lindsay, Conservator
Brittany Cook, Development & Communications Coordinator
Molly Kingsbury, Museum Shop Buyer & Merchandiser
Sue Flaherty, Visitor Services Coordinator
Michelle Josephson, Senior Site Manager
Sarah Coughlin, Scheduling Coordinator
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