W.H. Stark House Highlights Easter with Special Exhibit
March 27, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Patsy Herrington
The W.H. Stark House Director
pherrington@whstarkhouse.org
409.883.0871
ORANGE, Texas, March 27, 2009 - The first floor of The W.H. Stark House has been decorated for Easter with W.H. Stark family china, crystal, silver and linens. Visitors may tour the home now through April 30, 2009, to view the exhibit.
"The exhibition allows our visitors to imagine how the Victorian home might have been during the spring when Miriam Stark [who inhabited the home with her husband William Henry Stark] might have had an afternoon tea for her friends," said Patsy Herrington, Director of The W.H. Stark House.
The focus of the exhibit is the dining room table, which has been set for tea and dessert. The display features the one-of-a-kind sterling silver tea service designed by the Gorham Manufacturing Company as well as French porcelain cups and saucers in the Rose Trellis pattern by Rue Thiroux. The table is also set with several American Brilliant Period Cut Glass pieces, including an ice cream service, candlesticks, a punch bowl with matching cups and ladle, and stemware. Embroidered linens, a beautiful spring centerpiece arrangement and faux Easter eggs complete the setting.
Other first-floor rooms decorated for Easter are the library, the foyer, the breakfast room and the back hallway. These rooms include faux flowers, faux eggs and faux carrots stored in the beautiful rare and decorative sterling silver, crystal and porcelain pieces collected by the W.H. Stark family throughout their lives.
Tours of The W.H. Stark House are available Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with regular admission. Special group pricing is available for group tours that are scheduled in advance. Tour participants must be 10 years of age or older. All tours for the Stark House begin in the lobby of the Stark Museum of Art, which is located at 712 Green Ave., one block west of the Stark House in downtown Orange. Stairs are an essential part of the complete Stark House tour.
For more information, please visit whstarkhouse.org or call 409.883.0871.
The W.H. Stark House Dining Room
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The W.H. Stark House Foyer
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About The W.H. Stark House
The W.H. Stark House is a Victorian landmark in Orange, Texas, which has been restored to its original splendor.
The 14,000 square-foot home was completed in 1894 in Orange, Texas by William Henry Stark and his wife, Miriam M. Lutcher Stark, prominent philanthropists who occupied the home until 1936. Designed in the Queen Anne architectural style, the house features a distinctive turret, stained glass windows, and ornate woodwork in cypress and long leaf yellow pine.
Today, the three-story structure stands much as it did at the turn of the 20th century, with fifteen rooms of original family furnishings, personal effects and decorative arts, including antique rugs, original textiles, silver, cut glass and antique porcelain. Also featured are the Stark family's impressive collections of American Brilliant Period cut glass, pressed and pattern glass, milk glass, porcelains, and other 18th and 19th century decorative accessories. The interior of both The W.H. Stark House and its adjacent Carriage House depicts the home life of the Starks in the early 1900s and provides an extraordinary statement of Texas' social history.
The W.H. Stark House is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and designated as a Record Texas Historic Landmark by the Texas Historical Commission. It is operated as a program of the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, a private foundation established in 1961 by H.J. Lutcher Stark, the only surviving child of Miriam M. and W.H. Stark. Other programs of the Stark Foundation include the Stark Museum of Art, Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center, and the Frances Ann Lutcher Theater for the Performing Arts.
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