Shelburne Museum

These well-dressed ladies greeted us as we entered Shelburne, VT.

When the ticket agent tells you your ticket to a museum is good for two days, listen.  We did and so did Jim and Joann, friends from back home.

  The four of us arranged to meet at the museum for a day, their second and our first.  With 38 buildings on over 40 acres we knew we would be seeing a lot but what we saw was beyond our expectations.

Electra Havemeyer Webb, whose mother was a Vanderbilt who collected Impressionist Art with her railroad fortune and a polo playing father who made his fortune in his father-in-laws Domino sugar business, was a collector.  At fifteen Electra began a “lifetime fascination with color, pattern, whimsy, and scale.”  She started her collection of collections with a cigar store Indian and spent her life accumulating buildings, glass canes, apothecary items, dolls and so very much more.  All these she situated near her home in Shelburne, VT.

The four of us wandered amazed and delighted by Electra’s ability to see beauty in a vast variety of items and to display them in such a way that we visitors shared her enchantment.

Docents are key to the enjoyment of museums and the ones we encountered at Shelburne added special stories and information that enhanced our visit.  On the 220-foot sidewheeler Ticonderoga, our docent told us  about travel on Lake Champlain before the automobile. 

 It took 65 days to haul the steamboat two miles overland to the museum.  The tour takes place on “October 3, 1928" and shows what passengers and crew would experience back then.

Another docent explained that the Webb children took six rooms (one of three floors) from the Webb home on Park Avenue and placed them in the Greek Revival Webb Memorial Building to display some of Electra’s Impressionist (Monet, Manet, Degas), pre-Impressionist (Rembrandt), bronzes and Vermont landscapes. 

The center piece of the art in the building is of Electra as a young girl and her mother painted by Mary Cassatt, who guided the mother to collect Impressionists when their art sold for less than $100. 

 Another docent in the home explained that Electra’s grandfather General Webb was general in pretension only. 

He was a friend of Lincoln’s Secretary of State and managed to get appointed Ambassador to Brazil.

A current exhibit has outstanding quilts by Velda Newman from Nevada City, California.

 In the next room are Patty Yoder rugs, The Alphabet of Sheep, with letters of the alphabet hidden in the weaving.

An 1835 wood frame building, original to the site, is filled with toys and trains,


while next door is the Variety Unit, filled with all the wonderful things that didn’t fit anywhere else, like automata, dolls, ceramics, and much, much more.

 The covered bridge dates back to 1845.

The Round Barn is filled with horse drawn carriages.

The circus building has memorabilia from Barnum, Ringling, Beatty, and others.

Nearby is the 1920s carousel awaiting riders.

The newest exhibit is a collection of N.C., Andrew, and Jamie Wyeth paintings.  One is owned by the museum, the rest are on loan.  Our excellent docent, who felt her English major defined her interpretation, gave us a family and stylistic background on each of these great American artists.  She pointed out details that we would have missed and welcomed comments from our knowledgeable fellow guests.  No photos were allowed.

The above visits took each couple two days, though we only spent one of them together.  To relax and replenish after our museum day together, we went to Misery Loves Co., a rather funky restaurant in Winooski.  The cooks and servers dressed as if they had just come in from their factory work but the food they served was creative and delicious.  We started with a selection of small plates to share.  These included squid ink spaghetti, smoked chicken wings, and corn pudding.  Then we shared a hanger steak with three sides.  Pinot noir enhanced the flavor of these dishes. 

 Chocolate pudding and a slice of cake topped off a unique and luscious dining experience and the end of a lovely day.