Author: PHW

The last batch of tickets for the Holiday House Tour have shipped. You may still order your tickets online, but note we will not attempt delivery by snail-mail. Please keep your email receipt for your ticket purchase handy – either printed off or on your phone – so you can pick up your tickets at any of the locations open for the Holiday House Tour. We recommend stopping at the Bough & Dough Shop, 315 W. Boscawen St., on Saturday between 9 AM-5 PM, or on Sunday between 11 AM-5 PM for your best chance to get a tour booklet or two. Preview Party attendees will also have their names on the check-in list at the Party House on Saturday evening, 6-9 PM.

You can also still get tickets at all of the advance sale locations around Winchester:
The Final Yard, 33 East Gerrard Street
Kimberly’s, 135 North Braddock Street
Wilkins’ Shoe Center, 7 South Loudoun Street
Winchester Book Gallery, 185 North Loudoun Street
Winchester-Frederick County Visitors Center, 1400 South Pleasant Valley Road

New this year, as part of the Sunday Daylight tours we will be leading guided walking tours for history and architecture along Boscawen, Washington, and Stewart Streets. The guided walking tours will leave from the Bough and Dough Shop at the Winchester Little Theatre, 315 W. Boscawen St., every half hour between 1-4 PM. The first leg of the tour will go to 21 South Washington Street and will take about 15 minutes; guests may break off for the house tour, and guests finishing the home tours may wish to join up with the guide to complete the loop back to the Bough and Dough Shop. The sidewalks are in generally good condition in this area, but they may narrow or have trip hazards in spots.

This is the first time an exterior guided walking tour has been a part of the Holiday House Tour since 1978. The walking tour is included with the purchase of either a Two-Day ticket or the Sunday-only ticket. If you just wish to take the guided walking tour, it will be priced like a single site ticket at $5 per person that day.

420 North Loudoun Street
The home of Karen Thomason

While the home is new, the built history on this site extends back to the construction of Fort Loudoun in 1756. The Colonial Revival-style home was built circa 1954 in the approximate area of Fort Loudoun’s northeast bastion. This symmetrical three-bay structure shows a conservatively decorative flourish of a smaller central second-story window, affixed shutters, and a small porch with square posts and a simple arched gable end. Houses like this one have provided the first opportunity of home ownership to countless Americans and are now joining the ranks of historically significant buildings in Winchester’s Historic District.

Karen Thomason has created a botanical oasis inspired by her membership in the Front Royal Garden Club. The home is decorated in a French Country design, with 18th century antiques throughout. Her interior decorations will include two primitive Christmas trees, magnolia, variegated holly, Leyland cypress, white pine and handmade wreaths and bows. The outside of the home will be enlivened with white pine roping along the wrought iron fence, and the northeast bastion will be illuminated for viewing.

The home will be open for Candlelight Tours on Saturday, December 2, 6-9 p.m., and Daylight Tours on Sunday, December 3, 1-5 p.m.

125 East Clifford Street
The home of Tom and Deanna Stouffer

This vernacular home with Italianate influences may date back to the 1830s. It was part of the estate of Philip Sherer, a veteran of the War of 1812. Sherer’s obituary in January of 1876 lauded his fifty years of wagon-making in the era before railroads dominated commercial traffic, noting “his work had almost a national reputation.”

The house itself has an unusually low-pitched roof. It is believed the house was originally 1½ stories tall, but likely after Sherer’s death the roof was raised to a full 2 stories, the front clapboards replaced, the windows changed to 2/2 lights, and the brackets and pedimented window frames added.

Preservation of Historic Winchester purchased the house through the Jennings Revolving Fund as part of the Irene Hodgson estate in 1979. The current owners, Tom and Deanna Stouffer, purchased the home in 2011 and have steadily been improving the home, inside and out.

Be sure to look for the directional signage at this home, as we plan to have tours enter through a side alley to see the deep back yard and garden improvements and exit the front porch to prevent congestion on the sidewalk.

The home will be open for Candlelight Tours on Saturday, December 2, 6-9 p.m., and Daylight Tours on Sunday, December 3, 1-5 p.m.

Dr. Cornelius Baldwin House
522 South Loudoun Street
The home of Patrick and Ann Rodgers
Decorations by Jenny Baker

Tradition states Dr. Cornelius Baldwin built this impressive timber-frame Federal-style home circa 1785. Dr. Baldwin was a surgeon in the Revolutionary War and the physician to Lord Fairfax. In addition to the illustrious career of Dr. Baldwin, many of his children and grandchildren continued to make names for themselves in medicine and education. Perhaps best remembered today is granddaughter Mary Julia Baldwin, the founder of Mary Baldwin College.

The Baldwin home was subsequently used as a tavern and eventually much altered, obscuring its historic charm. In 1977 it was restored to a single family residence by Tom and Katie Rockwood. The elaborate interior woodwork, corner fireplaces, and many of the original six-paneled doors have remained intact for more than 200 years.

The home will be open for Candlelight Tours on Saturday, December 2, 6-9 p.m., and Daylight Tours on Sunday, December 3, 1-5 p.m.

21 South Washington Street
The home of Richard and Melanie Lewis
Decorations by Debbie Langfitt

This Richardsonian Romanesque–style home at 21 South Washington Street was built in 1896 of limestone from the Strasburg area. The Baker family, locally prominent businessmen, built many of the homes in this block of South Washington Street around the turn of the twentieth century. Col. Harry Hunt Baker, mayor of Winchester from 1904-1912, constructed this castle-like building as his home. The interior features floors of long-leaf yellow pine and hand carved woodwork with lotus flower motifs. For many years, it was the home of Eloise Strader and Dorothy Overcash, two local teachers and historians. Richard and Melanie Lewis, the home’s third family of owners, have painstakingly restored the magnificent house to its former glory.

The home will be open for Candlelight Tours on Saturday, December 2, 6-9 p.m., and Daylight Tours on Sunday, December 3, 1-5 p.m.

102 South Stewart Street
The home of Robert and Tina Marie Scully
Site of the Preview Party
Open only on Saturday, December 2, 6-9 p.m.

The brick Colonial Revival home on the corner of Stewart and Wolfe Streets was constructed circa 1898 for James Beverley, Sr. The Scully family subsequently owned the home from 1923 to 1966. The house follows the pattern of the “Classic Box” subset of revival architecture, featuring a hipped roof with paired pedimented dormers, large double-hung windows, a full-width one-story porch with fretwork balustrade panels between the paired columns, and a solid door surrounded by sidelights and a transom. Lingering Victorian influences can be seen in the corbelled chimneys and gentle brick arches over the windows and doors. Even older interior items were salvaged from homes demolished on Loudoun Street, including a mantel identical to one found in Thorn Hill Manor. In 1996, Robert and Tina Marie Scully purchased the home from the Winchester Medical Center and returned it to Scully family ownership.

The Scullys will open their home for the first time for this event, and only on Saturday, December 2 between 6-9 p.m. during the Preview Party.

Time flies in November! We are expecting the program booklets to arrive late Monday, but if you have a strong internet connection, you can view or download the booklet as a PDF (about 22 MB).

Online ticket sales for the Holiday House Tour are available now at www.phwi.org. We will plan to mail online orders received by Friday, Nov. 24. For orders placed after that, keep a copy of your receipt to use as your temporary ticket.

We are planning for the tickets and program booklets to be available at our physical sale locations around Winchester by the afternoon of Tuesday, Nov. 14 at the following locations:

The Final Yard, 33 East Gerrard Street
Kimberly’s, 135 North Braddock Street
Wilkins’ Shoe Center, 7 South Loudoun Street
Winchester Book Gallery, 185 North Loudoun Street
Winchester-Frederick County Visitors Center, 1400 South Pleasant Valley Road

If you are waiting to see how the weather pans out that weekend, tickets will also be available at the advance sale price at the Bough & Dough Shop at the Winchester Little Theatre, 315 West Boscawen Street, on Dec. 2 and 3.

And as in past years, if you only want to visit a site or two or take the Sunday walking tour, each site is a $5 single admission paid at the door (excluding the Preview Party home, which is full price to cover the food and drink).