Tag Archives: London Tea Room

Monday Update (a day late) » 7.24.12

It’s hot­ter than blazes in St. Louis, but the heat has­n’t slowed us down a bit at Camp­bell House! (Except for maybe our blog­ging schedule.)

Hel­looooooo Kevin! The west wall will not be paint­ed, but the brick will receive a clear weath­er­proof coating.

Exte­ri­or Ren­o­va­tion Begins
Con­trac­tors have begun to prep the house for the big paint job. Kevin has been patient­ly tuck­point­ing some of the high­est points of the house (up to 60 feet in some areas!) with a lift for over a week now, and when he’s done, the crew will come in to start paint­ing. The shut­ters have already been removed, and the painters have begun repair­ing and repaint­ing them in the shop.

Upcom­ing Tours
We got togeth­er with our friends down the street at Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis a few weeks ago to plot a few events for the fall. We are ten­ta­tive­ly plan­ning an out­door movie night for Sep­tem­ber, a Locust Street archi­tec­tur­al walk­ing tour (that ends at the Schlafly Tap Room for drinks and cama­raderie), and a Camp­bell House restora­tion tour where you can see the inner work­ings of our place in either Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary.  As soon as we final­ize every­thing, we will post all of the details for you. Stay tuned.

The new and improved cook’s bedroom.

New Cook’s Bedroom
Since the Camp­bells did not pho­to­graph many of the rooms in the ser­vants’ wing of the house  (includ­ing the kitchen and ser­vants’ liv­ing quar­ters),  we were able to inter­pret these rooms the best we could, based on the orig­i­nal floor­plan of the house. The house­keep­er’s bed­room has always been staged as a bed­room, but the cook’s bed­room — which had pre­vi­ous­ly housed an exhib­it on the ser­vants — has now been pre­sent­ed as a bed­room. Thanks to a bequest from one of our mem­bers, we received a beau­ti­ful set of fur­ni­ture of the style, peri­od and qual­i­ty that would have been in a ser­van­t’s bed­room in a house like this. Come down to the Muse­um to see it in person.

Stu­dents try­ing to inter­pret Hugh Camp­bel­l’s hand­writ­ing in a let­ter to his wife, Mary. (This Hugh is Robert’s broth­er, not his son.)

Black Rep Sum­mer Camp
We had the plea­sure of wel­com­ing about 20 stu­dents from The Black Rep Sum­mer Camp last week for our doc­u­ment work­shop. After tak­ing a brief tour of the first floor to hear the Camp­bell sto­ry, they came up to the third floor Aviary to play his­to­ry detec­tive. We gave them copies of Camp­bell doc­u­ments to inter­pret and to share their find­ings with the rest of the group. These were some of the most enthu­si­as­tic kids we’ve had come through the house, and we look for­ward to see­ing them again! Do you need a spe­cial edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ty or work­shop for your group of chil­dren or adults? Give us a call! We’re hap­py to design a half- or full day of fun and learn­ing. Con­tact Andy or Shel­ley at 314/421‑0325 to let us start plan­ning your day at Camp­bell House!

Our Interns
Did you meet intern Han­nah? Read all about her here!

Robert’s Irish Break­fast Tea

Camp­bell House Tea
Look­ing for a small gift for the per­son who has every­thing? Robert has you cov­ered. Come by to pick up a 1‑oz pack­age of Robert’s Irish Break­fast tea, a blend we buy from our tea-lov­ing neigh­bors at the Lon­don Tea Room. A favorite with cof­fee drinkers, it’s strong and bold, just like our Robert. We’re sell­ing it for $5 a pack­age, and that includes a coupon for a free cup of tea or cof­fee at the Lon­don Tea Room. It’s avail­able now in the Muse­um Store and at the front door of the Muse­um. Pick up a pack­age to get a taste of Camp­bell House!

Urban Explor­ing: Trin­i­ty Luther­an Church
Today we took a field trip to Soulard to vis­it Trin­i­ty Luther­an Church. Docent Coor­di­na­tor Den­nis has been a mem­ber of this his­toric church all his life, and he invit­ed Camp­bell House staff, interns and docents out to get a behind-the-scenes look at every­thing in the church, includ­ing the bell tow­er. As a teas­er, here’s a shot of one of the gor­geous art glass win­dows in a space behind the choir loft. A full blog post with the church’s his­to­ry and all of the images will fol­low lat­er this week.

One of Trin­i­ty Luther­an’s art glass win­dows in a non-pub­lic area behind the choir loft.

Stay cool this week, and check back to meet Syd­ney — one of our won­der­ful interns — and the full pho­to essay of our vis­it to Trin­i­ty Lutheran!

Monday Update » 4.23.12

A draft of one of Lind­sey’s pan­els. Come by in two weeks to see the whole exhib­it in per­son. (Believe me, she’ll be REALLY hap­py if you do.)

Wel­come to the down­hill slope of Mon­day, every­one. It’s been a marathon around here the last few weeks, and this is what we have to show for it:

New Civ­il War Exhib­it
Out with the old and in with the new.….Weekend Man­ag­er Lind­sey is putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on her new exhib­it, A Fam­i­ly Apart: The Camp­bells Dur­ing the Civ­il War Years. She’s pulling some of Vir­gini­a’s dress­es and jew­el­ry out of stor­age, along with some excep­tion­al old let­ters. Come by after May 8th to see the sto­ry of the Camp­bells dur­ing this tur­bu­lent peri­od in Amer­i­can history.

Mag­i­cal Spring Thing
Sam Clark’s big show — the Mag­i­cal Spring Thing — on April 14th was a huge suc­cess. We’re still recov­er­ing from it, but we raised a few dol­lars for new envi­ron­men­tal pro­gram­ming and spe­cial projects around the house. Big thanks to Sam and all the vol­un­teers and board mem­bers who helped pull off anoth­er spec­tac­u­lar show with Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis Bal­let, stu­dents from Web­ster Uni­ver­si­ty’s Leigh Ger­dine Col­lege of Fine Arts, St. Louis Rag­timers and the Ball­room Dance Acad­e­my of St. Louis.

Web­ster Groves High School stu­dents work­ing on an over­grown area at our fence. The yard looks won­der­ful thanks to their hard work.

Web­ster High School Lends a Hand
Our gar­den vol­un­teers (read: Moms and Dads of the CHM staff) are espe­cial­ly grate­ful for the group of ten Web­ster Groves High School stu­dents and par­ents who came by on April 10th to do some heavy lift­ing in the gar­den. The enthu­si­as­tic teens knocked out an impres­sive amount of weed­ing, trim­ming, mulching and plant­i­ng, and it was a plea­sure to have them at the house.  The gar­den looks FABULOUS because of all their help. <please come back!>

The Mys­te­ri­ous Gus Meyer
Between dig­ging up scoop on Lucas Place and the Camp­bell Fam­i­ly, there isn’t much Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  can’t find. Last week, he start­ed the quest to uncov­er more infor­ma­tion about Gus Mey­er, a devot­ed ser­vant who began work­ing at Camp­bell House as a gar­den­er in 1901, and he even­tu­al­ly worked his way up to be Hugh Camp­bel­l’s per­son­al assis­tant. After Hugh died in 1931, Gus stayed in the house and took care of Hugh’s broth­er Hazlett until he died in 1938. Gus con­tin­ued to live in and man­age the house until it final­ly opened as a muse­um five years lat­er. He signed the Muse­um’s guest book on its open­ing day, and we lost track of him after that. Intre­pid Researcher Tom™ has found infor­ma­tion on his fam­i­ly and what hap­pened to him after he left his job of over 40 years at Camp­bell House. We’ll make a blog post with all of his find­ings shortly.

Bring Mom to Camp­bell House for Moth­er’s Day
Stumped for what to get your dar­ling mom on Moth­er’s Day? Easy, bring her to our house for Arias in the After­noon, a gar­den par­ty we’re co-host­ing with Union Avenue Opera. Spend the after­noon relax­ing in our gar­den and lis­ten­ing to a spe­cial one-hour con­cert while enjoy­ing tea and nib­bles from our neigh­bors, the Lon­don Tea Room. It’s going to be a great event and if you bring your mom, you’ll be her favorite son or daugh­ter. We promise. Click here for tick­ets.

Urban Explor­ing 2.0: Muse­um Build­ing at the Mis­souri Botan­i­cal Garden
After the over­whelm­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of the post on our recent trek through the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Elec­tri­cal Sub­sta­tion, we’re going to try mak­ing Urban Explor­ing a reg­u­lar fea­ture. This week­end we had the chance to get inside the Muse­um Build­ing at the Botan­i­cal Gar­den, a struc­ture that’s closed to the pub­lic. A blog post fea­tur­ing pic­tures of the Muse­um Build­ing and Tow­er Grove House is com­ing this week.

That’s just some of what is hap­pen­ing at Camp­bell House. Check back with us for some excit­ing news on house paint­ing (!), the 2012 Free­dom’s Gate­way Sig­na­ture Event, and our Spring Mem­bers Par­ty. From the Camp­bell fam­i­ly to yours, have a stel­lar week!

Monday Update » 3.26.12

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn with his unusu­al­ly shy Leo before our urban explor­ing field trip to the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Sub­sta­tion on Locust this morning.

Hap­py Mon­day, everyone!

We had a busy week­end, due in part to the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight mad­ness hap­pen­ing at the Dome. While our week­end man­ag­er takes a well-deserved break, here are some newsy bits and a few things we’ve got cook­ing over the next two weeks:

Camp­bell House Archi­tects Featured
Camp­bell House research vol­un­teer Tom Gron­ski’s arti­cle on the Camp­bell House archi­tects (Joseph C. Edgar and Thomas Waryng Walsh) earned top-billing in the Mis­souri Val­ley Chap­ter of Archi­tec­tur­al His­to­ri­an’s newslet­ter. Read all about it (and some oth­er beau­ti­ful local build­ings) here.  Way to go, Tom!

Field Trip to the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Substation
A long-vacant build­ing up Locust was built to house a big, giant bat­tery sys­tem for street­cars. It was con­struct­ed right before the 1904 World’s Fair because the city antic­i­pat­ed sub­stan­tial­ly more street­car traf­fic due to the influx of vis­i­tors. We’ll have a post about our vis­it to the old build­ing com­plete with pic­tures for you next week.

New Civ­il War Exhibit
Lind­sey’s plug­ging away on research, writ­ing, and find­ing objects for her new exhib­it on the Camp­bells dur­ing the Civ­il War. Shar­ing new research on Robert’s polit­i­cal lean­ings, slav­ery, and the impact of the war on the fam­i­ly and their friends, the exhib­it will open in the third floor gal­leries in ear­ly April. You won’t want to miss it!

A Few Good Interns
We have more intern inter­views booked, but we’d love to hear from you or some­one you know needs a sum­mer intern­ship. We’re not picky about your course of study because it takes all kinds to oper­ate a muse­um. Non­prof­it Man­age­ment? Muse­um Stud­ies? PR/Marketing? His­to­ry? Art? Come talk to us. Camp­bell House is a small place, so every­one — staff, vol­un­teers and interns — wear many hats. You’ll get to see all sides of how we run the busi­ness, and we promise you’ll have an awe­some expe­ri­ence here. Con­tact Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] camp­bell­house­mu­se­um [dot] org if you want to talk; we’d love to hear from you!

Upcom­ing Events
We’re work­ing on putting togeth­er two spec­tac­u­lar events that you won’t want to miss. In just a cou­ple of weeks, we’ll again be host­ing the Mag­i­cal Spring Thing at the Mahler Ball­room, which will fea­ture St. Louis Bal­let, Union Avenue Opera, the St. Louis Rag­timers, the Ball­room Acad­e­my of St. Louis. It’s going to be an unfor­get­table evening, so click here for more infor­ma­tion. On Moth­er’s Day (May 13th), we’re pleased to part­ner with Union Avenue Opera to bring you (and your mom!) Arias in the After­noon: A Vic­to­ri­an Gar­den Par­ty. While you enjoy scones, tarts and tea from the Lon­don Tea Room, Union Avenue Opera artists will ser­e­nade you with a spe­cial Moth­er’s Day pro­gram. For details, read all about it here.

50-cent piece appear­ances last week: 0

Arias in the Afternoon: A Mother’s Day Victorian Garden Party

Moth­er’s Day is right around the cor­ner, and we have the per­fect way to say thanks to your mom for being so wonderful. 

We bet she would enjoy her spe­cial day loung­ing in the sun in our pris­tine, fra­grant Vic­to­ri­an gar­den while being ser­e­nad­ed by singers from Union Avenue Opera. Did we men­tion the Lon­don Tea Room is pro­vid­ing scones, tarts and oth­er delec­table nib­bles along with their spec­tac­u­lar teas?

As the first of what we hope to be many joint events, this will be a fundrais­er to sup­port Camp­bell House Muse­um and Union Avenue Opera.  You should come. And bring your mom. You’ll be her favorite son or daughter.

Pen­cil us in on Sun­day, May 13, 2012 from 2:00 to 5:00 PM. The per­for­mance of pop­u­lar songs — includ­ing tunes by Gersh­win and Gilbert & Sul­li­van — begins at 3:00, and will last for about an hour. The Muse­um will be open for self-guid­ed tours with docents sta­tioned through­out the house. Tick­ets are $50 each, chil­dren 12 and under are $30 each, and they may be pur­chased by call­ing Union Avenue Opera at 314/361‑2881, or by click­ing here:
Adult tick­et: $50

Child’s tick­et: $30

We hope to see you there.…and trust us — Mom will love it.

If the weath­er does­n’t coop­er­ate, have no fear! The show will go on at Union Avenue Opera: 733 North Union Boule­vard, St. Louis, MO 63108.

Remember Remember the 14th of February!

Wait, I think we may have that quote wrong.

Either way, don’t wait until the last minute to find some­thing fun to do with your hon­ey on Tues­day. We’re host­ing a tra­di­tion­al Eng­lish high tea in our house with the lovelies from the Lon­don Tea Room. (These peo­ple are orig­i­nal­ly from Eng­land, so they know what they’re doing.) You’ll be greet­ed at the door with a glass of Roman punch that you can enjoy while you browse the house. As you relax at a table in the Din­ing Room, Par­lor, Morn­ing Room or Kitchen, we’ll serve you a scrump­tious high tea, includ­ing your own pot of tea, fin­ger sand­wich­es, cur­rant scone with Devon­shire cream, petit fours and a choco­late-cov­ered strawberry.

We’ll have some spe­cial lovey-themed Camp­bell pieces on dis­play, and you’ll get a lit­tle good­ie bag. Tick­ets are $45 each and a por­tion of your tick­et price is a dona­tion to Camp­bell House.

Sound good? Call Camp­bell House at 314/421‑0325 to make your reservation.

And now we’ll dou­ble check that whole “Remem­ber Remem­ber” quote with our Eng­lish friends.….