WOODBURY – The Glebe House is hosting its annual garden party on June 25 from 6pm to 8pm.
“Every year friends and guests enjoy this spectacular garden, designed in 1926 by the famous English horticultural designer, writer and artist Gertrude Jekyll, who had a profound influence on modern garden design,” said members. “Today it is the only remaining example of Jekyll’s work in the United States, making this garden party a celebration of an American garden designed from across the pond.”
According to the Glebe House, flowers begin to burst in waves of color, pattern, texture and scent in June. Tables and chairs are set amidst the garden and blankets are spread under large shady trees. There are sweet and savory hors d’oeuvres packaged in decorated individual cases, Walker Road Vineyards wine bottled in Woodbury, sparkling water, lemonade made from fresh lemons plucked 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, affiliated with the International Barbershop Harmony Society, will also perform. They’ve been entertaining across the state for more than 73 years.
A silent auction will feature a range of items including an All Hallows Eve Cocktail Party for Ten at Glebe House with catering.
The first floor of the Glebe House will be open. The 18th Century Farmhouse is furnished as the home of Rev. John Rutgers Marshall and his family who lived here in the ‘Glebe’ during the Revolutionary War. It’s particularly atmospheric to tour the house in the early evening and imagine how the family lived here without electricity, members said.
The Glebe House Garden Party is the premier fundraising event of the year for the museum. Proceeds support the maintenance of the Glebe House and Garden and educational programs.
Tickets for this benefit are $40 per person and can be purchased at www.glebehousemuseum.org or by calling 203-263-2855.
Built circa 1750, Glebe House was saved by a committee that eventually became known as the Seabury Society for the Preservation of the Glebe House and 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 was opened to the public in June 1925 as the Historical House Museum.
Glebe House was the homestead of Woodbury’s first Anglican minister, the Rev. John Rutgers Marshall, his wife Sarah, their nine children and three enslaved people. It is historically significant because in 1783 the first bishop of the American Episcopal Church, Reverend Dr. Samuel Seabury, was elected.
At the time, that was a momentous decision because it was based on the separation of church and state and religious tolerance in the new nation. This important historic house-museum is beautifully furnished with antique furniture, some locally made, and is surrounded by the only surviving garden in the United States designed by Gertrude Jekyll, one of Britain’s most famous garden designers of the 20th century . The garden includes a classic English style mixed border in Jekyll’s signature gradients, base planting and a planted stone quadrant.