The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Glebe House holding annual garden party
WOODBURY — The Glebe House is holding its annual Garden Party from 6-8 p.m. June 25.
“Each year, friends, and guests enjoy this spectacular garden designed in 1926 by famed English horticultural designer, writer, and artist, Gertrude Jekyll, who had a profound influence on modern garden design,” according to members. “Today, it is the only remaining example of Jekyll’s work in the U.S., making this garden party a celebration of an American garden designed from across the pond.”
According to the Glebe House, in June, the flowers are beginning to pop in waves of colors, patterns, textures, and fragrances. Tables and chairs are placed amid the backdrop of the garden and blankets are spread out under large shade trees. There will be sweet and savory hors d’ oeuvres packed in decorated individual boxes, wine bottled in Woodbury, from Walker Road Vineyards, sparkling water, lemonade made from fresh lemons picked from the Glebe
House lemon tree, and a signature drink, “The Seabury Swing,” created by the Nutmeg Wine and Spirit Shoppe in Woodbury.
A strolling 4-part Cappella Barbershop Quartet, the Valley Chordsmen, who are affiliated with the International Barbershop Harmony Society, will also perform. They have been entertaining throughout the state for more than 73 years.
A silent auction will feature a number of items for bidding, including a catered “All Hallows Eve Cocktail Party for Ten” at the Glebe House.
The first floor of the Glebe House will be open. The 18th-century farmhouse is furnished as the home of the Rev. John Rutgers Marshall and his family that lived here, in the “glebe” during the Revolutionary War. It is especially atmospheric to tour the house in the early evening, imagining this is the way the family lived here with no electricity, members said.
The Glebe House Garden Party is the major fundraising event of the year for the museum. Proceeds support the
maintenance of the Glebe House and Garden and educational programs.
Tickets to this fundraising event are $40 per person and can be purchased at www.glebehouse
museum.org or by calling 203-263-2855.
Built about 1750, the Glebe House was saved by a committee that eventually became known as the Seabury Society for the
Preservation of the Glebe House and was restored in 1923 under the direction of Henry Watson Kent, founder of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York. It opened to the public as a Historic House Museum in June of 1925.
The Glebe House was the farm homestead of Woodbury’s first Anglican Minister, Rev. John Rutgers Marshall, his wife Sarah, their nine children, and three enslaved persons. It is historically significant because it is where the first Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, Reverend Dr. Samuel Seabury was elected in 1783.
At the time, this was a momentous decision because it assumed the separation of church and state and religious tolerance in the new nation. This significant historic house museum is beautifully appointed with period furniture, some of it locally made, and, it is surrounded by the only extant garden in the United States designed by Gertrude Jekyll, one of Great Britain’s most famous 20th-century garden designers. The garden includes a classic English style mixed border in Jekyll’s signature drifts of color, foundation plantings, and a planted stone quadrant.