Finally. With about 95% of the work completed, we "opened" to the public last week. On Thursday evening we had a reception for Locust Grove members and friends, and on Friday we hosted our symposium on the restoration, "Arabesque and Verdigris", with presentations by Samuel Thomas, Gwynne Potts, Rabbit Goody (textiles), Steve Larson (wallpaper), Carol Ely, and with wrapup by Scott Erbes, Speed Museum curator. The Powerpoints all worked! Except for the remote control mouse. It's always something. Usually something technical.
But we do have it all on tape. Videographer Brent Humes is editing the footage of the symposium, and we will copy it to DVD and have it available in our library in case you missed it, or just want to relive the experience.
To introduce the renewed House to the public, we had an open house/free day on Saturday the 26th, and about 750 people showed up. That was fun, and very gratifying to know that that "general public" really does care about history. We had the band "Whistling Rufus" on the porch, and a good time was had by all.We capped off the weekend with our Antiques Fair on Sunday, which will go down in legend as "the hot one". It was really, really, hot. Upper 90s, humid. People came anyway!
And now we are tired but happy. We have a few more components of the House coming in the next few months, so there will still be surprises.
And now this blog will become the general Locust Grove blog, with all happenings and commentary about the site (including restoration updates) that we can find the time for, so we hope that our readers stay with us.
