The Warner House

New Sponsor Alert! Many thanks to our Fete de LaFayette Gala Silver Sponsor, The Nvest Group for their continued support in our cupola restoration project. Tickets are still available but they're going quick. Join us for a magical evening of delicious food, drinks, friends, and entertainment all in our beautiful garden on 8/29. For tickets and details visit warnerhouse.org/gala.

Twilight Tour is THIS Friday! Join us along with 10 other historic sites open after hours for special tours and exhibits centered around "Flames of Revolution" as we head towards the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. We'll be highlighting Jonathan Warner's loyalist ties and views - and how he managed to stay in Portsmouth and maintain his social and financial status.

For tickets head over to portsmouthhistoric.org/events or call us at 436-5909.

We welcomed a group of Summer Fellows on Monday as they made their capstone tour of historic sites throughout northern New England. It was great fun sharing this incredible house and history with them. Thanks for visiting and best of luck!

What an incredible day to welcome the tall ships into port! Days like this help us get a glimpse of what the port used to be like with such ships when Macpheadris and Warner lived in the house.

Many thanks to everyone who have worked hard to bring these beautiful ships to Portsmouth, including , , and many others. Ships are available for tours this weekend - Sail Portsmouth has all the details.

Many, many thanks to our Fete de LaFayette Gala Silver Sponsor DTC Lawyers for their support in our restoration of the Warner House Cupola. Tickets are still available for the gala and we'd love to have you join us! For more info, please visit warnerhouse.org/gala. Proceeds go to the cupola restoration project.

We're looking forward to the tall ships visiting this weekend! We will open a bit later tomorrow, 7/26 so that our volunteers can enjoy the parade of sail. We'll be open for tours 12pm to 4pm tomorrow. We hope you can visit the tall ships this weekend and come for a tour of the Warner House, which was home to several ship captains!

We are so excited to bring tall ships to Portsmouth, NH*, starting with a Parade of Sail and continuing for several days with tours of the ships and related activities. Need more info? Visit https://loom.ly/Yjvv9dI

*Some of the times have been updated:
Parade of Sail – Friday, July 26, 10:30 – 11:30 am
Tall Ship Tours – Friday, July 26, 2 – 4 pm, Saturday, July 27, 10 am – 5 pm and Sunday, July 28, 10 am – 5 pm

About 6 weeks ago we noticed birds going to and from, with great frequency, one of the chimneys on the house. After monitoring them for a bit we also noticed debris appearing on the iron stove in the northeast bedchamber. Sticks, dirt, feathers. The birds had made quite the lovely home in the chimney 😩 We quickly closed off the room, covered our 18th-century bedhangings and asked our expert mason, John Wastrom, to help us evict our new, unwanted tenants. Luckily they seemed to have left by the time we got there and John sealed up the chimney. We've now reopened the room and it's available on our tours again. Phew!

The bedhangings date to ca 1775-1800 and are copper plate printed with indigo ink. They are some of the oldest known textiles of this type in America and feature some pretty vicious-looking squirrels and foxes. Not what I'd want to wake up to! You can now see them for yourself again this season.

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We're excited to be a small part of the Gundalow Company's Riverfest this Saturday at Strawbery Banke Museum. We'll be at the Portsmouth NH Historic Sites Associates table sharing info about the Warner House. This is a free event and great for families and runs on the grounds of Stawbery Banke from 10am to 5pm. Check out more details here:

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The Warner House will be hosting a special garden gala event Thursday August 29th, titled Fete De LaFayette! It is a celebration and honorary gala of Revolutionary War hero General Marquis De LaFayette's 200th Anniversary visit! If you would like to learn more or purchase tickets, visit www.warnerhouse.org/gala

We hope everyone has a great 4th of July tomorrow! We will be closed tomorrow so that our staff and volunteers can enjoy the holidays with their families and friends. We'll reopen Friday through Sunday for tours and return to our regular hours, 11am to 4pm with the last tour at 3:30.

Did you know that Jonathan Warner was a loyalist? He was a member of the Royal Council in Portsmouth and his finances were heavily connected to Britain and the Crown. However, he quickly realized that if he wanted to remain in Portsmouth, he would have to play both sides. He managed to do so and remained a respected member of the community, even if he was considered a bit old-fashioned, throughout his life.

Image from Portsmouth Athenaeum

A huge thank you to everyone who gave to The Warner House during NH Gives last week - we totaled $2,075.00! We so appreciate your generosity and support of our cupola restoration project!

If you're still interested in supporting this critical project, please visit warnerhouse.org/support

We hope you're all able to get some relief from the warm weather! We've been seeking refuge in our shady parts of the garden and we hope you can too! The garden is open, free, from dawn to dusk.

Due to the expected high temps tomorrow, we will be closed for tours on 6/20. We expect to open on Fri 6/21 at 11am.

Our talk today by Sylvia Olson, Stonewalls and Seacoast Geology, is still on despite the heat - we have air conditioning! We'll have a chilled soup and cold drinks to help beat the heat. Join us starting at 11:30 with the talk starting at noon in our carriage house.

If you participate in NH Gives, please considering The Warner House! Proceeds go toward the Cupola Construction Project. NH Gives begins Tuesday June 11th at 5 pm!

https://www.nhgives.org/organizations/the-warner-house-association

Today we welcomed students from the archaeology field school at to spend time with our ceramics collection. They learned about the major dig in 1995 on our property where we found the majority of our archaeological collection as well as viewing the whole pieces that represent those sherds. Experts in their fields, we were grateful to have Martha Pinello and Richard Candee join us to share their first-hand experiences running the dig. It was a lovely collaboration this morning and we were so glad to share our incredible collection!

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We've spent the last few weeks getting ready for opening day - waking the house back up from the winter with cleaning, rearranging, training our guides, welcoming new faces. We're now ready to welcome YOU! We open for the season on Saturday! Join us for guided tours Thurs-Sun, 11am to 4pm all summer until mid-Oct. We can't wait to share this gem with you!

We remember all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, including Amiel Whipple who was killed by a sniper in 1863, while serving as a Major General in the US Army. Amiel married Eleanor Sherburne and lived in the Warner House for a time after their marriage.

John Pitts Sherburne also served in the US Army during the Civil War and finally retired 1870. John grew up in the Warner House and after leaving the Army, he settled in San Francisco where he lived until he died in 1880.

Both are memorialized with these commemorative bricks in the Memorial Park just a block from the house.

Today we had 6 employees volunteer their time to help us prepare for the season! During , LM employees can sign up for a session to help at an area non-profit or school. We had such a productive day in the garden and inside the house and we're so grateful for their help!

Many thanks to the Portsmouth Garden Club for leading the projects in the garden and to little pup Oscar for his moral support! ❤️

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If you've ever found yourself wondering how an 18th century house was supported, we have your answer! Full-sized tree trunks! Complete with bark! No need to incure the expense of milling the trees when they'll rarely been seen 🌳

Luckily for us now, these have been reinforced in the 19th and 20th centuries with brick support columns along with steel supports so the house is secure.

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Mark your calendars! In just one month from today, we open for the 2024 season! The Warner House will reopen for the season on June 1 and will be open for tours Thursdays to Sundays, 11am to 4pm until October 13. We can't wait to welcome everyone back into the house!

Thanks to members of the Portsmouth Garden Club, we have dozens and dozens of daffodils blooming! Tulips are up next 😍

Many thanks to the Portsmouth Garden Club for our spring planters! What a welcome sight!

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Our site manager, Stephanie, went to the Old House & Barn Expo hosted by on Sunday. It was excellent! Well done by the NH Preservation Alliance, their organizers and participants. It was energizing to see the preservation arts thriving and enjoyed by so many!

The garden is starting to come to life! Won't be long till the flowers are out and the sun is stronger!

Happy everyone! Today we are spotlighting Edith Wendell, the woman who helped save the Warner House!

In 1930, after Thomas Penhallow died (the last descendant born in the Warner House), the house sat vacant and the family had its contents removed. Standard Oil put in an offer to buy the house, with the intent to demolish it and build a gas station on the site.

In 1931, Edith Wendell was able to convince a group of friends to all pitch in and buy the house to save it from demolition, thus forming the Warner House Association. Edith and her friends turned the house into a museum that was open to the public by the summer of 1932! It was considered an incredible feat of preservation, during a particularly rough period of the Great Depression.

Caring for a 300 year old house can be a challenge in many ways, especially when Mother Nature plays a role! With the high winds yesterday and overnight, we discovered several rattling windows throughout the house - some fairly significant. In figuring out a fix, today our house manager discovered one of the windows in the cupola slid down, leaving a very attractive entrance for animals, birds, and water 😬 Luckily a few of our board members sprang into action and fixed all of our window problems this afternoon. And have no fear, no unwelcome guests were found in the house 😁

Tickets are now on sale for Portsmouth NH Historic Sites Associates annual Life & Death in the Piscataqua on Sat. Feb 17 from 10am to 3pm. We hope you'll join us for a day of local history and incredible soup! The symposium will be held at St. John's Masonic Hall on the corner of Miller and Middle Aves. $15 in advance or $20 the day of. To buy tickets online or to find out where to send a check, please visit www.portsmouthhistoric.org/events.
We'll be there along with Gov. John Langdon House, the Gundalow Co, -Ladd House & Garden, Historical Society, Strawbery Banke Museum, Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, the Athenaeum, and the Thresher Memorial Albacore Park. We hope to see YOU, too!

Many thanks to Tad Baker of who gave a talk on the history of beer on Saturday. It's always an enjoyable time with Prof. Baker! We're taking February off from our talks but we'll resume in March with a talk on tea and teapots on 3/16 and then a talk on farming in the 17th & 18th centuries in the Piscataqua Region on 3/30. See you then!