The House of the 7 Gables features fabrics!

One thing you may or may not know about the 7 Gables' Executive Director, Anita Blackaby, is that she is a masterful quilt-maker. Her gorgeous quilts have garnered attention, as well as a goodly amount of money for the Gables in many of our fundraising auctions!

Blackaby, with her keen eye and attention to detail, decided it would be a great step for the Gables to create and sell fabrics inspired by the amazing wallpapers in The House of the 7 Gables! A fantastic idea! Take a look at just few of the many Gables-inspired fabrics (Remember, you can click on any photo to enlarge it):

They can be ordered through the 7 Gables' Museum Store. Just call 978-741-0991, then press 6.

This is the view from Blackaby's office just this morning. The views of the ocean, especially on these crisp winter days are just stunning!

We hope you enjoyed your virtual visit today and will join us soon to witness the amazing new exhibits on display in the 7 Gables and Hawthorne House!

Thanks for coming by our blog!

The 7 Gables with your Sweetie!

For some poetry today while you read our blog, please feel click HERE  

MassPoetry will be partnering with The 7 Gables for an amazing event, February 21st at 7pm, a Melopoeia performance! 

Melopoeia is a session of poems with musical accompaniment - how pretty will that be?

MassPoetry Blogger, Rhina Espaillat recently wrote:

"..during a recent visit I learned that the House now runs a series of Settlement Projects meant to reach, not just the community at large, but in particular the area's growing population of immigrant young people from various cultures, who need all the help they can get to become part of their new country. The Settlement Projects reach out to children and teens through programs that feature music, dance, the visual arts, language and literacy training, as well as career and college preparation.

And—of greatest interest to me as a writer and teacher—the newest program invites students to visit the House, use it as a resource for building familiarity with the period it represents, and goes on from there to explore how the past helps to create the present, and how it can teach us to shape the future. Those visits include a guided tour of the House, and an open-ended, informal Q & A session. Having once been cast as Mrs. Brewster in a play about the Puritans, at P. S. 94—not long after I had learned to speak English—I know how far such experiences can take the young mind toward empathy and a sense of belonging.

In addition, the House and its Settlement Programs sponsor a series of special events unrelated to the House itself, but intended to enlarge and build upon the growing cultural awareness of young people and foster their own creativity and desire to learn. For example, on February 14, at 7 p.m., the House is hosting a Melopoeia performance—a session of poems by various authors, including Federico Garcia Lorca—recited with a musical background. The performers—guitarist John Tavano, vocalist Ann Tucker, and two poets, Alfred Nicol and I—hope to interest the largely Spanish-speaking students in attendance, and their families, in music, in poetry, in the history behind the poems, and in the use of the arts to convey personal experience. There are plans afoot to extend these programs beyond Salem, to other communities of underserved young people."

For further information, please contact us at sevengablesblogger@gmail.com

or email us directly at The 7 Gables HERE.

Thank you for your virtual visit today!

The Store!

The 7 Gables' onsite gift shop is filled with the most wonderful goodies for you, your family and friends...I, who write this blog, was blown away by a recent visit to the store!

Storybook bracelets were one of the items that were so very special! Some of the bracelets feature only books that were once banned like Huckleberry Finn and other equally racy tomes!

Below (the top one) is a bracelet that this blogger is buying tomorrow! Payday at the Gables!

Among the amazing books, nautically-themed knick knacks, jewelry, candies, spices and other fantastic tchotchkes are a myriad of other fantastical goodies that would pique the interest of any man, woman or child! Lovely things and a really lovely group of people that work there that can help you decide on the perfect gift or item of memorabilia.

If you're lucky, you'll also get to meet the 7 Gables' mascot, Dusty, the Maine Coon cat! He is friendly and loves to make a nest on the paper in the gift shop! (Sorry for the blurry picture - I promise a better picture next time!)

We hope to see you soon and that you will make our gift shop (you don't need a ticket to enter) one of your destinations next time you're in Salem! Thanks for your virtual visit today!

Snow at the Gables

Salem FINALLY got some snow! Our first "real" snow of the winter season! It has been a great winter in New England - relatively mild and very dry, so we've been spoiled with unseasonably nice weather!

The Gables looks pretty in the snow - below is a shot of the House of the Seven Gables from our office looking very pretty against the blanket of snow!

And below are a few of the grounds this afternoon. First, the wisteria arbor asleep for the winter!

Our lawn and the ocean looking bright and lovely today:

The garden even looks lovelier with the contrasting snow:

Visitors are coming and enjoying the grounds and tours of the new exhibits and galleries - we hope to see you soon!

Thank you for your virtual visit today!

New Hawthorne Birthplace House galleries

Below are previews of two of the new galleries in the Hawthorne Birthplace House featuring personal effects of Nathaniel Hawthorne's that have never been exhibited before! We are also very excited for the lovely quotes by Hawthorne which have been hand painted in calligraphy on some of the walls in the new galleries! They look amazing in person and we hope you will visit us soon to see them for yourself!

Seven Gables events

We have been busily going through our photo archives (among other things) and have found some fabulous pictures from the past that we would like to share.

As you may or may not be aware, the House of the Seven Gables has fantastic buildings and gardens for hosting a perfect event. As spring and summer are upon us very shortly, we thought we would show a few pictures of the property during a gala!

Whether a wedding, baby shower, party, auction or a private corporate event, the 7 Gables has the perfect solution to your amazing event! Let us help you plan an experience for your guests creating memories as long-lasting as our House!

For information, please call us 978-744-0991.

Our next blog will feature the finished calligraphy in the Hawthorne House and a bit more about the amazing calligrapher who did the work.

Thanks for your virtual visit to the Gables!

Come back soon for more updates!

Calligraphy in the Hawthorne House

Here are a few more photos to show the calligraphy being installed in the Hawthorne House! First the quotes were mapped out to size on paper:

Then pencilled precisely in on the wall to match:

Painstakingly hand-painted on the wall:

And the finished product:

The final touches are to heat-dry the paint and then erase the pencil guide markings. Fascinating!

Be sure to check back again for the completely finished changes. We are very excited to unveil all of the lovely new exhibits and galleries at the Gables!

Thanks again for your virtual visit.

Opening Day at the 7 Gables

Happy New Year to you and to the 7 Gables! Today is our opening day for the New Year with loads of fantastic changes for our visitors to experience. In comparison to the disarray of the rooms in the Gables and the Hawthorne house, today all the rooms are put together perfectly:

 The bedroom in the Hawthorne House.

 The dining area in the House of the 7 Gables.

One of the really amazing additions that visitors will soon see are beautiful quotes from Nathaniel Hawthorne that are being installed on the walls in his birth house on our site. A very talented calligrapher is here today to do the installation and we will be updating the work in progress throughout the day. Here is a sample of one of the lovely quotes that she has sketched out on paper:

Because of this new installation, a few rooms in the Hawthorne House will not be available for tours until January 18th.

After a rainy night, Salem awoke to temperatures in the 50s today and a very dramatic sky to begin our day. More seasonal temperatures are coming, so we are happy to have our visitors enjoying the gorgeous grounds while this warmth is with us! Note, the grass is still green on our lawn:

Check back later to see the beautiful calligraphy in progress!

Thanks for your virtual visit!

Behind the Scenes

We are re-opening on Friday, January 13th after a hiatus for most of the staff here at the Gables. Many of the core staff, however, have been hard at work reworking the Gables' exhibits, creating new galleries, new  marketing pieces and even creating some new educational pieces to be shared with our visitors.

In the Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace House as well as the House of the Seven Gables, each room has changed either slightly or drastically according to the treasures that our curator, Alan Collachicco has recently unveiled.

Here are some of the wonderful rooms he is in the midst of re-vamping:

The bedroom in the Hawthorne House.

The bedroom in the 7 Gables.

Gorgeous curtains (made by Collachicco himself!)

 recently added in the dining room of the 7 Gables.

Lastly, for today, we will leave you with views of the garden,
which remains lovely even in the heart of the winter!

We hope you will schedule a visit to see us and enjoy the new changes! We are open daily starting tomorrow, January 13th, from 10am until 5pm.

Thanks for visiting our blog!

Winter at the Gables!

We got a bit of snow here in Salem a couple of days ago and it has remained in just a few choice areas around our site including a very small "pile" here by our sign!

It has been a mild year so far for those of us in the Northeast and really quite pleasant for outdoor activities - be they shopping around the city or walking the grounds here at the Gables.

Though it is winter, the garden and amazing views of the ocean are utterly breathtaking, particularly on the lovely, sunny days we've been having recently!

We have many current photos which we will be featuring over the next few days. 

This picture was taken from our Executive Director's office just this morning:

These two were taken from the Nathantiel Hawthorne House, not a perspective most people have seen:

And last, but not least, our Deputy Director & Curator, Alan Collachicco, creating a "breakfast scenario" in the House of the Seven Gables, utilizing Canton China and English silver, both from the 1800s.

And here is your 7 Gables Gab fun factoid for today! One of Nathaniel Hawthorne's best friends in college was Franklin Pierce - who, as you may know, went on to be the President of the United States!

The House of the Seven Gables & Big Plans for 2012

Welcome to the official blog for the House of the Seven Gables!

We are excited to introduce our blog and hope that this forum will be able to capture some of the vibrant new changes we have planned for 2012 and beyond. We will also be featuring some of the lesser known facts about the Gables' history and site.

For instance, did you know that Nathaniel Hawthorne added the "w" in his last name after he graduated from college so that he would not be linked to his great-great-grandfather, Justice John Hathorne. Turns out Hathorne was one of the key interrogators during the witchcraft hysteria, and never regretted or apologized for his responsibility in the deaths of the 19 people who were killed. Pretty amazing stuff! And there are loads more really interesting facts to come!

2012 marks the 102nd year the House of the Seven Gables has been in operation in Salem. We plan to offer a variety of new exhibits, tours and programs that pay homage to Caroline Emmerton's original mission to support programs which serve Salem's immigrant population.

The Gables' museum is the first of its kind in the country dedicated to social service work, and this year we are proud to have the Salem Prep Program in operation at The Settlement House. After a year of funding several offsite youth programs around the North Shore last year, we are thrilled to have almost thirty students back onsite!

Salem Prep Program is part of the Salem Public School system. They offer classes to students (up to 21 years of age) who don't do well in traditional classrooms - perhaps they aren't proficient in English, or have learning disabilities. For every two students in any given classroom, there is one teacher, so the students get extra attention and care. We are very glad to have them with us.

Something else we're very excited for you to see are the fascinating changes we have in the Nathaniel Hawthorne's Birthplace House! We have a trove of actual objects from Hawthorne's personal effects that will be displayed. These exhibits will be changed on a regular basis, so you may see his childhood chair, his snuff-box or even the desk where he penned The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables! Come back again and again to enjoy these irreplaceable pieces of history.

This year we will also produce self-guided tours of the other fantastic historic buildings we have onsite, as well as a detailed tour of our spectacular gardens.

Watch for our new website, new brochures and information on our new volunteer/docent program! If you would like to volunteer at the Gables, we'd love to talk to you. Please email us here at sevengablesblogger@gmail.com and our volunteer coordinator can help you.

Check back soon for more updates!

Thanks for reading and be sure to plan a visit!