Collections

The Brick House

The elegant Brick House was the Vermont home of Shelburne Museum Founder Electra Havemeyer Webb and her husband, James Watson Webb. Located about two miles from the Museum’s main campus on the shores of Lake Champlain, it is accessible only during special events and an annual Open House. Please check our event listings for more information.

Mr. and Mrs. Webb received the Brick House as a wedding gift in 1913. With the help of the New York architecture firm Cross & Cross and landscape designer Ellen Biddle Shipman, they expanded the modest 1840 farmhouse into a forty-room masterpiece of the Colonial Revival style, with beautiful gardens and captivating views. There the Webbs entertained, raised their family, and lived together until their deaths in 1960.

Mrs. Webb’s collection of art and decorative arts grew along with the Brick House. In fact, she used the house’s rooms to experiment with different ideas for displaying objects in her collection. In this way, the Brick House was a precursor to Shelburne Museum; many of the house’s objects, decorating ideas, and exhibition themes were transferred there around the time that the Museum was founded in 1947. Many collections also remain at the Brick House, where visitors today can see recreated interiors featuring inventive combinations of early American furniture, textiles, folk art and more that Mrs. Webb put in place.

The Brick House, with its beautiful gardens and sweeping views, is a one-of-a-kind site for weddings and special event rental functions. Find out more here.