Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

The House

Overview

Collector R. Lee Taylor (1924-2000) (pictured above) in front of his miniature of the Glen Burnie Historic House, on display in the Visitors' Center of the Glen Burnie Historic House. The collector made the miniature house, and then commissioned most of its tiny furnishings to present an exact replica of its historic model.
 

Pictured in text

This portrait of George Washington was painted by Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860) around the 1840s. It is one of the works from the historic house that will be on view in the MSV galleries in the late spring of 2012.

 

QuickFact

At 254 acres, the museum property is the largest green space and only working farm in Winchester City limits.

The Glen Burnie Historic House sits on land that Winchester founder James Wood surveyed, claimed, and then settled in 1735. The oldest portions of the house that greet visitors today were built by Wood’s son Robert in 1794 and 1797. By the 1950’s the 254-acre Glen Burnie property came to be wholly owned by Wood descendant Julian Wood Glass Jr. (1910–1992). Glass preserved and renovated his ancestral home from 1958 to 1959. Then, over the rest of his life, he transformed the house into an opulent country retreat surrounded by six acres of formal gardens and furnished with one of the most remarkable private collections of decorative arts ever assembled in the Shenandoah Valley. After his death and as a condition of his will, the house and gardens were opened to the public on a seasonal basis in 1997. The house and gardens became an important part of the year-round regional history museum complex that was formed with the opening of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in 2005.

On October 30, 2011, the historic house closed for a preservation project. The house will be closed until 2014. Some objects removed from the house are destined for conservation and others for climate-controlled storage in the MSV. The most informative, unique, and refined objects from the collection will be placed on display in the Museum’s Julian Wood Glass Jr. Gallery.

The site's gardens will be open throughout the preservation project. A miniature of the Glen Burnie Historic House is the focal point of the Garden Visitor Center. This amazing replica shows the historic house exactly as it was furnished by Julian Wood Glass Jr.The gardens will be open from March 1 through October 31 in 2012 and from April through October in 2013 and beyond.

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