Christmas at Stark House

Public invited for free tour during annual holiday event

Tommy Mann, Jr.

Another casualty of Hurricane Ike, the W.H. Stark House returns with its annual holiday tradition.

The Stark House will hold its annual Holiday Open House from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday. As always, admission for the “Open House” event is free to visitors of all ages and includes tours for the first floor of the Stark House, which will be filled with the sights and sounds of the holiday season.

According to Patsy Herrington, the Stark House “Holiday Open House” is a great event for the whole family and must been seen to be truly appreciated.

“This event was started about 10 years ago, and it has become a tradition for us at the Stark House,” Herrington said. “People really enjoy it each year, and it is because it shows how the Starks celebrated Christmas. It’s a lot of fun.”

Guests will walk up an illuminated pathway which is lighted by tall electric candles. Once entering the historic house, guests will be treated to numerous enjoyable sights and sounds.

A large Christmas tree can be found in the foyer of the home, which is decorated by one-of-a-kind vintage lace and silk flower ornaments, and each fireplace of the house is decorated with greenery.

“Those ornaments are one-of-a-kind,” Herrington added. “The lace is a minimum of 70 years old, and the ornaments were made by house guides in 1982. You won’t see another tree like that one.”

The large and elegant dining room tables are set for beautiful holiday meal using the Stark family crystal, silver and china place settings. Although much smaller, the breakfast room is no less beautiful with its settings.

“We always set the table a little different each year,” Herrington continued. “So, there are always subtle changes or additions. A lot of people really enjoy the dining room and breakfast room. And this year every room in the house has something Christmas in it.”

No Christmas event is complete without holiday music, and the Stark House will be filled with the sounds of holiday music as Ed Wilson of Beaumont will perform on the family’s 1910 Steinway grand piano, while be accompanied by fellow Beaumont resident Ellen Rienstra, who will perform on H.J. Lutcher Stark’s childhood violin, and Jennifer Howland, a flutist from Port Neches.

Guests attending the open house event on Tuesday or Thursday night will also receive a free memento, as well as have the opportunity to win special door prizes throughout the evening.

A beautifully designed keepsake brass ornament, which features an exterior of the Stark House, will also be on sale for $15.

“This is the last year we will have this particular Christmas ornament,” Herrington said. “We only have a few left, and, once they are gone, then that’s it.”

Guests will also be treated to a reception in the lobby of the Stark Museum of Art, 712 Green Ave., with punch and cookies. In conjunction with the Stark House Holiday Open House, the Stark Museum of Art will highlight its gallery exhibit “Entwined across the Ages,” which features the Museum’s collection of medieval illuminated manuscripts, known as the Books of Hours, along with a collection of tapestries by artist Lorentz Kleiser.

Located at 609 W. Green Ave. in downtown Orange, 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 W.H. 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 W.H. 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.

Full tours of all three floors of the W.H. Stark House are available from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday, with regular admission and special group tour pricing is available for tours scheduled in advance.

Three full flights of stair steps are an essential part of the regular tours. Full tour visitors must be 10 years of age or older, with the exception of the Holiday Open House event.

Until the Carriage House reopens in early 2010, regular tours for the Stark House will begin in the lobby of the Stark Museum of Art located at 712 Green Avenue.

For more information on full tours during operating house, call 409-883-0871 or visit the web site at www.whstarkhouse.org.

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