Thank you to everyone who came out to the house tours last weekend. Early reports indicate about 300 guests came through the houses, and around 480 shoppers visited the Hexagon House over our run. The weather cooperated and we were able to enjoy two groups of Winchester Little Theatre costumed carolers, along with the delicious hot chocolate prepared by Phyllis Breidinger at the Hexagon House. Overall it was a great tour, and we only heard positives about the homes. Be sure to thank the homeowners and volunteers for opening their homes and giving their time during our 45th annual event next time you see them!
As is usual, a few items have ended up in a “lost and found” bin, which we will have at the Hexagon House. If there’s an item you think you may have dropped at the shop or during the tour, please give us an email at phwinc.org@gmail.com or call 540-667-3577 to see if it was turned in. We usually hold items until mid-January.
One of the found items definitely did not come from any tour goers or shoppers. A fragment of blue and white glazed pottery was uncovered at the Hexagon House. To our knowledge, this is the first bit of discarded pottery that has been unearthed here. The pattern appears to contain ivy leaves and a grouping of urns or vases. Thanks to the sharp-eyed shopper who spotted it and brought it to us!
As we are entering the holiday season, our projected schedule through the rest of the year will be:
Open Monday-Thursday, Dec. 13-16 (please visit before 3 PM as we have a number of meetings in the afternoon of this week)
Out of office all day Friday, Dec. 17; the next “West of the Blue Ridge” blog entry will be posted
Closed for winter holidays December 20-January 2
Because the holidays both fall on Fridays this year, we will likely only have abbreviated Friday blog posts for Dec. 24 and Dec. 31.
Normal office hours and daily photo captions return January 3, 2022.
Did you procrastinate on getting tickets? You are in luck! Tickets are available for purchase at the Hexagon House, 530 Amherst St. at the Bough & Dough Shop this weekend, as well as at Kimberly’s, Winchester Book Gallery, and Winchester-Frederick County Visitors Center. Tickets are also available for order online through EventBrite (until noon on Sunday). If you are still not sure, tickets can also be purchased at the door of any of the houses on Sunday for $25 (cash or checks only).
If you ordered tickets online via Eventbrite, remember to bring your PDF ticket (printed or on your phone) as you start your tour. If you’d like an official ticket, you should be able to pick them up at any of the houses on the tour or the Bough & Dough Shop.
The weather forecast for the weekend appears decent, with overcast skies and low chance of precipitation. Winds may be your only damper to waiting outside, so be sure to dress warmly if you have to wait in line or for walking between sites. Along with dressing for the weather, remember to bring your masks for interior tours. Stay safe while you are having fun!
We heard 25 West Piccadilly may be the hardest address to spot from the street, but if you are familiar with Winchester, it is the former Joe’s Steakhouse or Colonial Arts and Crafts building at the corner of Indian Alley and Piccadilly Street. You can also check the map of all the tour sites on your phone via Google Maps. All homes will have the Holiday House Tour yard signs out front as well to help you.
While you are touring the homes, remember no photography is allowed inside the private residences.
We have heard two homes may be providing small refreshments for tour-goers, and we will have our free hot drink station going at the Bough & Dough Shop while supplies last. Please remember to be courteous to homeowners and other tour-goers while enjoying your snacks!
Be on the lookout for the Winchester Little Theatre costumed carolers again this Sunday to enliven your tours. Be sure to thank the volunteers, as well!
The Holiday House Tour is a huge undertaking every year, and it would not be possible without a number of volunteers, in-kind donors, and behind the scenes helpers making the magic happen. Below is a non-exhaustive list of helpers – say thank you to them for helping us make the tour and shop happen!
Advance ticket sale locations Kimberly’s, Winchester Book Gallery, and Winchester-Frederick County Visitors Center
Winchester Little Theatre costuming and carolers, organized by Dolly Vachon
Holiday House Tour chairmen Dan Whitacre, Bruce Downing, Anne Gillespie Scully, and Callie Fitzwater
Homeowners Scott and Barbara Bessette, Micheal and Lauren Peterson, and John and Jade Manuel
Volunteer docents, decorators, and door greeters for each house
While printed booklets should be available at the physical ticket sale locations now, if you would prefer a digital copy to have on your phone during the tour or ordered your tickets online, please feel free to save our digital version and refer back to it.
You may also want to keep the digital version of the tour map handy as well for navigating between the sites. The QR code for the map is also available on all the printed physical tickets if you are out and about during the tour and need some navigation help.
PHW is grateful for the support of Maral Kalbian, one of our business card advertising sponsors of the Holiday House Tour.
As you may know, PHW has pledged $10,000 to the Godfrey Miller Home and Fellowship Center to assist with their repairs to the facade of the historic 1785 limestone structure. The Historic Home and Fellowship Center serves seniors, in accordance with the wishes of Margaretta Sperry Miller, who bequeathed her home to Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church to be operated as a home for elderly ladies. The fellowship center is also available to rent for meetings, receptions, luncheons, and more. On the history side, the home is opened for tours and you may be familiar with the summer lecture series on local topics of interest. There is something at the Godfrey Miller Home for anyone to enjoy.
While you are shopping in Old Town Winchester and supporting other local businesses, be sure to walk by the building at 28 South Loudoun Street. See first-hand the work that needs to take place – and what progress may be underway already.
If you find this project as worthy of support as we do, please donate directly to the Godfrey Miller Home, and let them know you heard about them from PHW. We’d like to see our supporters match our pledge and make a substantial dent in the $109,000 project. Thank you for helping keep this historic building a functional and beautiful asset to our historic downtown!
PHW is grateful for the support of Frederick Block, Brick & Stone, one of our half page advertising sponsors of the Holiday House Tour.
The pebbledash-covered late Italianate-style home was built for Maurice M. Lynch around 1890. Lynch entered the University of Virginia in 1885, but he withdrew for financial reasons before completing his studies. While teaching school, he studied law in the office of Judge William L. Clark and was admitted to the bar in 1887. His own struggles to receive education drove him to better the schools for the area’s children. He served on the Handley Board of Trustees, the State Board of Education, and as Superintendent of Winchester and Frederick County Public Schools.
The new owners, John and Jade Manuel, have spent the last four years bringing colorful life back into their home. The Italianate styling was the inspiration for the arched openings with black and white Italian marble floors in the foyer, as well as the Italian range in the updated Art Deco-themed kitchen. The home is filled with original character including the original 130- year-old antique heart pine floors, three brick chimneys, picture rail, and 9-foot windows in the living room.
John and Jade have partnered with the extraordinarily talented Desiree Chandra Lee, owner of Hunt Country Gardens, as well as donations from The Little Garden Club of Winchester, to decorate their home with luscious garlands and wreaths. The home will feature three themed trees: A whimsical forest tree, a family heirloom tree, and a Childhood Leukemia tribute tree in honor of their nephew, Oliver Manuel.
PHW is grateful for the support of Summit Community Bank, one of our half page advertising sponsors of the Holiday House Tour.
Julia Beverley purchased the corner lot on Stewart and Cecil streets on July 14, 1911. The pebbledashed Colonial Revival-style house was built by 1913, when the Beverley family hosted an elegant supper for a number of out of town guests visiting their daughter Miss Frances Beverley in their newly-built home. The property remained in the Beverley family until 1957.
The house has remained largely unchanged on the exterior since its construction. The classic facade harkens back to the mid-1800s and the era of Greek Revival style in American construction with its clean white exterior, dark shutters, and a pedimented entry. The gentle arch in the pediment, along with the understated dentil molding, is carried around to the Cecil Street side of the home on the small southern addition. Look carefully for the arched window with Y-tracery tucked behind this sunroom.
The current owners Michael and Lauren Peterson bought the house in 2018 to fit their multi-generational family. Their own design elements have been used to refine the traditional living and dining spaces. Most recently they have renovated their kitchen to a more contemporary and comfortable space for their active family of eight, including their four daughters and Lauren’s parents, Arlene and Dennis Torbett.
PHW is grateful for the support of the Belle Grove Plantation, one of our half page advertising sponsors of the Holiday House Tour.
The music selection for this installment is “Chester.”
“The commerce of Winchester is carried on with great activity and success with the people of the back countries, who resort here for salt, and a supply of commodities which are manufactured in this town, and give in exchange the produce of their lands, the fruits of their industry and of the chace, consisting chiefly of grains, flax, and hemp, of coarse linens and skins.”— Charles Varle, 1809
“Norton’s Dry Goods Store” was part of the Valley Childhood Life hands-on display to complement the “West of the Blue Ridge” exhibit.
Between 1785 and 1815 life in the Lower Shenandoah Valley grew considerably less insular. Along Valley roads new ideas moved along with people and goods. The diverse population created a class system that was possibly less rigid than elsewhere in Virginia. Even as language, religious and cultural beliefs helped to maintain ethnic identity, evidence indicates that assimilation occurred among various groups in this period.
Historian Warren Hofstra identified three integrated areas of commerce the accelerated the growth of Winchester: the migrant, the backcountry, and the market town trade. People traveling south and west along the Valley’s Great Wagon Road stopped in Winchester for provisions. The city became a supply center for backcountry peddlers and merchants and functioned as a wholesale market for Kentucky retailers. At the same time local merchants maintained strong ties with Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Alexandria where they acquired merchandise.
Advertisement for a horse named Young Pilgrim, standing at stud in Winchester, Stephens City, and White Post in 1820.
Livestock functioned as both a source of transportation and income for the Valley. Kercheval recalls “Stage coaches travel all our turnpike roads, drawn by the most splendid horses; and most of our substantial farmers rear the finest cattle, sheep, and hogs . . . . Our valley furnishes the several markets with vast quantities of superior beef, pork, mutton, butter, and the finest of breadstuffs.” Cattle, both locally-raised and those shipped to Winchester from western Virginia and Kentucky, were delivered to markets in Philadelphia, Alexandria, Richmond, and Baltimore.
Until the advent of the railroad, wagon drovers and teamsters created the country’s most effective system of commercial transportation. Carrying loads of several tons, wagons rarely traveled more than twenty-five miles per day. A heavy freight wagon pulled by a four to six horse team and sometimes canvas-covered to protect their cargo, Conestogas were used for hauling goods and supplies throughout the Valley and into Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and west through the Cumberland Gap. Roads were narrow and wagon bells, worn by the horses closest to the wagon, announced the arrival of a wagon and team. (1)
One of the Newtown wagons placed outside the Kurtz Building during the exhibit.
Ferdinand Bayard reported in 1791, “Famous four-wheeled wagons are already being built in Winchester.” Stephensburg or Newtown (Stephens City) soon eclipsed Winchester as a wagon-making center. Newtown wagon makers built a unique form of the Conestoga wagon to carry goods over rough roads and dangerous terrain. For a small town, around a dozen wagon-making establishments were in business there in the early and mid-19th century. In addition, numerous other related trades like saddlers, harness makers, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths contributed to the growth of the town through transportation-related industries.(2)
The late 18th-century consumer revolution offered greater selections to ordinary people in the marketplace. Local artisans and small manufacturers produced an astonishing range of goods for sale in the town’s shops. Account books provide a glimpse of the trade happening in the town. Beatty Carson, mayor of Winchester in 1808 and 1810, employed fifteen to twenty people in his small boot and shoe factory. Godfrey Miller, a stocking weaver by trade, expanded his business into dry goods and apothecary supplies, providing the raw materials for other local artisans like Andrew Pitman, a potter in Stephensburg. Other merchants, like John Conrad, made purchases in Baltimore, Alexandria, Philadelphia, and bought goods from local sources for resale to other merchants and townspeople. Residents such as James Wood, Jr., one of Winchester’s more prominent citizens, ordered goods directly from artisans and storekeepers in the larger East Coast cities. Philadelphia silversmith, Joseph Richardson, made this pair of beakers, now in the collection of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.
A saddled horse was one method for traversing the Valley in the early 19th century. Panel and artifact from “Away, I’m Bound Away” exhibit.
“The Chancery District west of the Blue Ridge embraces a territory of several hundred miles, from east to west and of greater extent from north to south; including a population equal to one third of the entire population of the State-The rugged and mountainous face of the Country presenting obstacles to easy and rapid intercourse….The people wealthy, enterprising and trading…” –Petition to the Virginia Legislature, December 3, 1811
When Isaac Weld traveled Valley roads in 1796 he met “great numbers of people” searching “for lands conveniently situated for new settlements in the western country.” The quest for cheaper, larger quantities of land in less populated areas lured many local residents over the Appalachians. In the 1790s the new state of Kentucky was dominated by former Virginians. Although the Valley remained a significant source for the nation’s wheat until after the Civil War, the opening of the National Road to the northwest in 1818, which bypassed Winchester, delivered a severe blow to the Valley’s commercial dominance.
Join us next time on December 17 to examine the firearms of the frontier!
The Philip Williams House was constructed in 1838 in the Greek Revival style. On Nov. 5, 1845, John R. W. Dunbar of Baltimore deeded this property to his brother-in-law Philip Williams, Jr. It was described as “a lot of land in Winchester on which the said Philip Williams, Jr. has lately erected a dwelling house.” Williams, who was born in Frederick Co., was admitted to the bar in 1832, was Commonwealth Attorney for Shenandoah and Warren Counties and also represented Shenandoah County in the Virginia House of Delegates. His first wife was Ann Hite of Belle Grove.
In 1898, the dwelling and property were sold to Minnie A. Miller, and under her stewardship several additions were constructed to the rear of the building. The interior enlarged room openings, mantel changes, and pressed metal facade design are similar to those seen in other grand homes receiving attention after the Civil War.
In the early 20th century, the building began its second life of commercial uses, including a tea house, an inn, and perhaps the best remembered, the Colonial Arts and Crafts Shop. After the closure of Joe’s Steakhouse, the current owners Scott and Barbara Bessette undertook a historic tax credit project to rehabilitate the structure for an event center.
PHW is grateful for the support of the Winchester Little Theatre, one of our full page advertising sponsors of the Holiday House Tour.
Tickets officially go on sale today for the 45th Holiday House Tour – and our Bough & Dough Shop opens at 10 AM! Adult tickets are $20, children ages 12-6 are $6, and children under 6 are free.
You can pick up Holiday House Tour tickets, along with PHW memberships (including a free copy of Winchester: Limestone, Sycamores & Architecture, valued at $25) at the Bough & Dough Shop at 530 Amherst Street. Remember to get your renewals in to PHW by the end of this year if you would like to take advantage of the free book offer!
Prefer to shop online? Ticket sales are open on Eventbrite for the Holiday House Tour – remember to grab your online tickets before noon on December 5 when the online sales end!
PHW is grateful for the support of Lisa T. McCoig, one of our full page advertising sponsors of the Holiday House Tour.
