Popular garden tour and patron party announced

“There’s something about peacefulness and connection one feels in a garden,” says Holly Shai, this year’s chairperson for the biennial garden tour, sponsored by Robbins Hunter Museum. “The garden brings serenity to me and I want others to feel the emotions I get when I’m in the garden.”

Holly Griesse Shai chairs the Granville Daffodil Stroll this year and as you can see, she loves flowers, especially Daffodils!

Shai, as chairperson of this year’s tour, is pleased to announce the “Granville Daffodil Stroll, A Celebration of Spring,” a tour of selected gardens in Granville, is set for Saturday, April 27, from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., with a Patron Party on Friday, April 26, the evening before. This year’s tour is scheduled two weeks after the popular Granville Daffodil Show, setting the stage for more Daffodil viewing as they grow and bloom in the natural settings of village gardens.

Past garden tours have taken place in the summer. This year, Shai says, the event will be a celebration of spring. “Everything is so hopeful in the spring,” she says. “It’s a good time for enjoying our local gardens, especially with the popularity of the Daffodil flower here in Granville. It will be fun to see them blooming in gardens.”

Five gardens are on tap for touring, from those professionally designed to those that are homeowner labors of love. Shai’s own garden will be included, where visitors are invited to stroll her hybrid garden of rhododendrons and azaleas. “We’re now 24 years into our garden,” Shai says of the gardens on the 26-acre property, “and each year my husband, Park, and I add something new.”

A statue stands in the Shai garden, as seen at the 2017 Granville Garden Tour.

The weekend kicks off with the Patron Party on Friday, April 26, at 6 p.m. at the Museum, a pre-tour event open to the public. Tickets are $75 and include one ticket to the garden tour the next day, food, beverages and lots of socializing. As tour day dawns, volunteers gear up to sell tickets and be on hand at tour gardens to welcome visitors.

The tour, in its 3rd year and the largest fund raiser for RHM, attracts more than 450 people. Tickets at $25 each can be purchased on line HERE or at the door of the museum anytime during tour day. The event is rain or shine. All proceeds support on the ongoing development and maintenance of the Jill Griesse Historic Garden on the grounds of the Avery-Downer House, the home of the museum, which just this last year earned the notable distinction of being placed on the National Registration for the American Daffodil Society. Shai is the daughter of Paul and the late Jill Griesse. Jill is noted for her vast Daffodil gardens, and for leadership on the national level as the chairperson for the Chicago and Columbus Conventions of the ADS. The Griesse Historic Garden at RHM, which features many of the special Daffodils moved from her mother’s garden, is a gem for Granville, Shai says. “And it’s open 365 days a year.”

Shai is quick to say she owes much of her love and commitment to gardening to her mother. “It was a chore to weed, water and help my mother maintain the garden when I was a kid, “ she remembers, “but as an adult when I planted my first bulbs and they grew and bloomed, I was so proud of myself for having done it on my own.”

That first small success turned into a lifetime of gardening and it is that love of planting, growing and blooming she hopes visitors to the Granville Daffodil Stroll will feel when they enter those backyard spaces of beauty and tranquility.

Help Holly make this celebration of the gardens a resounding success! Support the RHM Garden Tour with your sponsorship at one of four levels:

 Daffodil $2,500

Your name and logo on the RHM donor wall and sponsor’s board, with six complimentary tickets to the party and tour.

 Bouquet $1,000

Your name and logo on the RHM donor wall and sponsor’s board, with four complimentary passes to the party and tour.

 Blossom $500

Your name and logo on the RHM donor wall and sponsor’s board, with two complimentary passes for the party and tour.

 Bulb $250

Your name and logo on the RHM donor wall and sponsor’s board, with 2 tickets for the tour.

 All gifts are IRS tax deductible and the Robbins Hunter Museum is a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization. Make your donation with payment to RHM, PO Box 183, Granville, 43023 or click HERE to complete your donation online. All proceeds support the Jill Griesse Historic Garden.          

RHM honors Gibson as 2018 Woman of Achievement

Flo Gibson

2018 Victoria Woodhull Woman of Achievement

A luncheon honoring Flo was held on February 14, 2019, at the Robbins Hunter Museum.

Tricia Hufford, Director of Domestic Violence Services at New Beginnings, Newark, OH., attended the luncheon to honor Flo.

Flo enjoyed lunch with friends and family who shared in her moment.

Cindy Palumbo attended to recognize the accomplishments of friend Flo Gibson.

Flo Gibson (center) shown here with two of her children: daughter Kathy Maloney (L) and Shirley McClelland (R).

Book Cover and the Front Door

Visitors astute to architecture and history sometimes ask questions that we can’t always answer as they tour our beautiful house museum. One such question reminded us that while we know a lot, we don’t always know it all. And in the process of tracking down answers, we learn something more about the wonder that is the Greek Revival Avery-Downer House, home to the Robbins Hunter Museum.

Doug Johnson, the archdiocese of Baltimore, toured the museum on his first visit to Granville not long ago. He noticed the design of the front door differed from the drawing of the door in the book The Modern Builder’s Guide by Minard Lafever, originally published in 1833.

Why so, he asks? To answer his question, we turned to our expert, Architect Dr. William Heyer. Here’s what he said. “Because Minard Lafever was really only a consultant on the house for Mr. Avery and because Benjamin Morgan was in fact the designer/builder, it does not come to me as odd that some alternative design elements were used. This was common in the Grecian period. In fact, many of the design elements in the house were inspired by Lafever’s guidebooks and also Asher Benjamin’s guidebooks of the same date (1832-33). But they were really only a starting point and it is refreshing to see that Lafever trusted the local builders with whatever napkin sketches he provided for Mr. Avery in New York.”

Ann Lowder, director, adds “We had records noting the door itself was originally grain painted, a trompe-l’oeil, to resemble fine mahogany.” Delicate tracery of lotus vines above the door, restored to its original gold leaf, should be observed, she notes.

Above the front door of the Robbins Hunter Museum.

“The museum is grateful to Tom King, a Denison alumnus, who knew Robbins Hunter and donated his time and talent to restoring the finish to the door,” she adds.

Heyer also offers a broader perspective. “Much of the beauty of Ohio Grecian architecture resides in the inspired uses of Greek elements such as those of Mr. Morgan. That is why I—having moved here from New York—find the Grecian architecture of the “new” states after the revolution to be the most clever and original of the entire Grecian period. Look at Hamlin’s Greek Revival Architecture in America for other fun examples.”

An outstanding feature of the design of the house, perhaps another of those fun examples, is that it incorporates all three Greek column designs: Doric (found on the side porches), Ionic (found on the front porch), and the magnificent Corinthian columns that flank the front door.

Next time you step up to the front door, pause a minute and take a good look!

Facilitating learning and laughter at RHM

For the past nine years I have been a tour giver at Granville’s Avery-Downer House/Robbins Hunter Museum. Tour guides are known as “docents” and although I found the word rather archaic, it seemed acceptable. That is, until I recently came across an article that resonated with me, describing the power of giving oneself a job title that accurately reflects how one views what they do. I have therefore renamed my role. My new title is “facilitator of learning and laughter.” Less staid, more accurate and well, embraceable.

But, I digress. Back to museums. I love museums. Museums are what I do. Historic house museums are at the top of my preferred list. And, I swoon over Greek Revival architecture. Not only does the movie-set town of Granville have a historic house museum, the house itself is one of the premier examples of domestic Greek Revival architect in the nation! I’m not kidding here.

And here’s the best part. If what I’ve described resonates with you—and if you live in Granville or the surrounding area—you could be one of the lucky ones who brings this incredible Greek Revival treasure to life. One who invites visitors to step into the past to experience the way a family lived. The museum embraces volunteers who enjoy enlightening an audience thru tour giving. But that’s not all. We welcome volunteers in multiple areas: our intimate apparel collection needs care, tours need greeters, seven breath-taking Christmas trees need all hands on deck, school children need facilitators, special events need hosts, seminars need an audience.

Rebecca Dungan and her collection of antique valentine cards at the Robbins Hunter Museum.

The 50’s tree in the Octagon room at the Robbins Hunter Museum.

The next time you visit Granville, visit the Robbins Hunter Museum. I’ll give you a personal tour, one that is enlightening and participatory, one that will elicit the response “I didn’t know that!” And, if it gives you joy and the stars are aligned, you will become a part of this grand, significant place!

From the Collection

Mystery abounds at the Robbins Hunter Museum.  It seems that for every question we answer, three more arise.  This month’s question pertains to who really donated several pieces of a rare black and white transfer English pottery.

William Cullen Bryant wrote in 1830, ”There is in our scenery enough of the lovely, the majestic, the romantic, to entitle it to be ranked with that of any other country in the world….” And yet, he continued, “It would be easier to find a series of good scenes of China or Southern India than of the United States.”

Five years later, an English topographical artist, William Henry Bartlett, sailed for America with the express purpose of making “lively impression of actual sights.”  Between 1835 and 1852, he made four excursions to the US to draw the buildings, towns, and scenery of the northeastern states.  He was accompanied by on his first adventure by Nathaniel Parker Willis, an American journalist who wrote the text for the first comprehensive picture book of authentic American scenes.  That book was American Scenery, or Land, Lake, and River Illustrations of Trans Atlantic Nature.  The book was published by George Virtue, who employed Bartlett as an artist, author, and editor for two decades.  It was quickly translated and published in French and German editions.

W. H. Bartlett self portrait 1836

This book, along with its companion Canadian Scenery, remain our best picture books of the landscape scene of America almost two hundred years ago.  Bartlett made his images directly from nature and reproduced each with almost photographic accuracy.

These drawings were not only reproduced on paper. The potters of England promptly seized on the opportunity to decorate their wares with views of the Hudson River and drawings of buildings and towns.  Some of the potteries to produce such wares include J. Ridgway; William Ridgway; William Ridgway & Son; Thomas Godwin; Charles Meigh; and Mellor, Venables & Co.

In 1984, the Robbins Hunter Museum received a generous donation of several pieces decorated with black and white transfer patterns including “Columbia Bridge on the Susquehanna,” “Undercliff near Cold Spring,” and “View from Ruggles House, Newburgh, Hudson River.”

“Columbia Bridge on the Susquehanna” on a platter.

“Undercliff near Cold Spring” on a chocolate pot.

“View from Ruggles House, Newburgh, Hudson River” on a teapot.

We are delighted to hold these exquisite early picturesque renderings on china in our collection.  Our records are incomplete in that the donor is only identified as “Mavis”  with a donation date of May 19, 1984.  If any of our readers might know who this  Mavis is, please contact annlowder@robbinshunter.org.