The Mansion is teaming up with our friends at Portland Stage to offer a $5 discount* exclusively for Victoria Mansion members to the January 31st performance of The Importance of Being Earnest. The night will include a pre-show reception at 6:30 with VM Executive Director Tom Johnson and Portland Stage's Artistic Director, Anita Stewart as they lend perspective [...]
For the first time in Mansion's history, there are two major interior conservation projects happening concurrently. In the Reception Room, conservators have completed the conservation of the magnificent gasolier (originally a gas-powered lighting fixture), which will be reinstalled in the room in the coming weeks. Planning continues to restore the room's original textiles, including the teal and [...]
We are pleased to report the Mansion enjoyed a very healthy 2018-2019 holiday season overall. Evening events Night of the Nutcracker and A Taste & Tipple with Mr. Dickens enjoyed sold out crowds and over 360 people visited the Mansion for the First Friday Art Walk on December 7 alone. We ended the Christmas season with an overall 14% [...]
Ruggles and Olive Morse foretold the future of archaeology in featuring the myth of Leda and the swan in their Dressing Room, adjacent to a Bathroom styled after the frescoes at Pompeii on the second floor of the Mansion. Queen Leda’s ravishment by the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, is one of [...]
Over the years, Victoria Mansion has been presented with a number of objects that, while not original to the house, are typical of what upper-class Victorian families in Portland such as the Morses and the Libbys might have used to accent their interiors. Usually kept in storage and not normally on view, the following objects [...]
The Mansion's 2018 Christmas Gala on November 28 was a record breaker! We welcomed over 200 members and friends and raised over $17,000 in ticket sales for the Mansion's educational programming and conservation initiatives. Guests enjoyed musical stylings by Jazz singer Viva, great hors d'oeuvres courtesy of the Cumberland Club, signature drinks (including fabulous ale from Allagash Brewing Company), and [...]
The Mansion has been popular fodder as of late! The release of the major motion picture Buttons, with Dick Van Dyke, Angela Landsbury, Jane Seymour and many other famous faces featuring the Mansion's interiors brought us some great publicity. Buttons director Tim Janis stopped by WCSH's show 207 to talk about this filming process. For those who [...]
Conservators Siobhan Lindsay and Harper Batsford, and volunteers John and Eunice Wilcox are currently working to conserve the Reception Room's original, monolithic gilded bronze gasolier (gas lighting fixture). The first step in this arduous process is the careful dismantling and labeling of each piece of this elaborate Rococco-inspired fixture, a total of 225 pieces in all! Throughout the [...]
We are so pleased to announce Victoria Mansion recently received a $132,050 matching grant from the Department of Interior, National Park Service (NPS) through the Save America’s Treasures (SAT) grant program to finance in part the conservation of the original decoration of the Parlor. This funding will allow conservators to remove over 150 years of soot, grime, and overpaint, stabilize [...]
Since our last update on the ongoing project to conserve the Mansion's Reception Suite, Executive Director Tom Johnson and Assistant Director Tim Brosnihan joined up with stone conservator Ivan Myjer to investigate the possible sources of brownstone to rebuild the exterior of the badly deteriorated bay window. Large pieces of high-quality brownstone have been difficult [...]
