Beyond Wellesley: Peabody Essex Museum’s Carolyn & Peter Lynch exhibit

June 25, 2019 by Deborah Brown 2 Comments

Carolyn and Peter Lynch — Marblehead residents, travelers, philanthropists, and powerhouse American art collectors — lived among historic and beautiful objects every day, antiques they went on the hunt for together, brought home, then used and enjoyed. The couple, their three daughters (Mary, Annie, and Elizabeth), and family and friends ate meals around the vast Sam Maloof dining room table, glanced at their reflections in the Girandole mirror, and moved among paintings by Winslow Homer and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Welcome to the Peabody Essex Museum. For many years Carolyn Lynch served as PEM Trustee and Overseer. She also helped fund the museum’s American Decorative Arts Committee.

The furniture, paintings, ceramics, and textiles the Lynches’ collected are outward expressions of a life well lived, and that life is currently on display at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) through December 1, 2019. The exhibit, titled “A Passion for American Art: Selections from the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Collection,” is so much more than just its 120 works of decorative art; 76 pieces of furniture; 35 paintings and sculptures; and 10 Native American artworks. The show is an intimate look at how the Lynches visually mixed and lived with three centuries of creative works. The mediums they collected vary, but the message is the same: American art matters and has an important place in the world.

The Lynches’ had their separate interests, to be sure. He ran a little mutual fund at Fidelity called Magellan (just the best performing mutual fund in the world), she won a couple of bridge tournaments here and there (the Grand Life Master bridge player was a five-time national gold medal world champion). Carolyn died in October 2015 at age 69 from acute myeloid leukemia, leaving Peter, their daughters, and six grandchildren. This exhibit is something of a labor of love as Peter not only helped the PEM put it together, but donated three major artworks to the museum, all on display now, in his late wife’s name.

If you want to know how to collect and decorate like a financial genius and a bridge maven, here’s how it’s done, folks.

[Read more…]

The hardest working butterflies in Wellesley

June 17, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

This spring the Wellesley Historical Society‘s Denton butterfly collection made its way to all 7 elementary schools’ third-grade classes. The rotating set of 24 butterflies are part of a collaboration with the schools, now in its fourth year, to conclude a unit focused on the defense strategies of the butterflies. The students previously raised painted ladies and released them. The traveling exhibit gives students an up-close look at the Denton butterflies, most of which are in their patented glass cases and were collected back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Prior to the elementary school visits, the Cub Scouts visited the Historical Society’s Dadmun-McNamara House and had a preview of the collection, which includes between 2-3,000 butterflies (plus other insects) from across the globe.

In addition to the student immersion in butterflies, adults had an opportunity to see the collection at the Wellesley Council on Aging. Spearheaded by Society archivist and collections manager Taylor Kalloch, the butterflies on June 4 were the center of the first of what will be a series of “show-and-tell” presentations.

wellesley butterflies — Wellesley 3rd graders and budding lepidopterologists

Kids and adults asked a lot of the same questions, including: “Why did the collectors need to kill the butterflies?” The answer: Among other things, studying insects from around the world decades ago wasn’t as simple as jetting off to another country and snapping high quality digital photographs.

If you are interested in supporting the collection through Society membership or scheduling an appointment to view the butterflies or other items, please contact Amanda Fisher at [email protected]wellesleyhistoricalsociety.org or 781-235-6690.

An abundance of bargains expected at Wellesley Village Church rummage sale

October 27, 2018 by admin Leave a Comment

The Wellesley Village Church at 2 Central Street in Church Square will host its 77th annual Rummage Sale on Saturday, November 3, 9am – 1pm. Each year savvy shoppers flock to this bargain haul to search the “pop-up” shops for women’s clothing and accessories, jewelry, furniture, menswear, kitchenware, antiques and treasures, children’s, toys, and more.

The Chic Boutique is a big favorite, specializing in higher-end women’s designer clothing, purses and shoes. Last year featured Prada, Armani, D & G, Michael Kors, Burberry, Jimmy Choo, Stuart Weitzman, Vera Bradley, Bottega Venita, Tory Burch, Ann Taylor, and many more.

The treasures, furniture and antiques are also popular. “I normally don’t go to rummage sales, but this one is totally worth it. Last year I got a very cool vintage mirror and a gorgeous wooden serving bowl,” said Kathy Hastings of Natick.

More than 100 volunteers work tirelessly to make this sale phenomenal, said Rummage Sale co-chair Cherie Hoffman. “After 77 years, we’ve raised more than $350,000 for charity and have helped a lot of people.” The 2017 proceeds of $22,000 were donated to local charities such as Family Promise MetroWest, Wellesley ABC house, H.O.M.E, The Walker School, Women’s Lunch Place and more.

The entry fee is $2.00. Doors open at 9am on Saturday, but the early-birds get there at 8am to be the first in line.

Wellesley Village Church Rummage Sale
Saturday, November 3; 9am – 1pm
2 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02482

Gorgeous Wellesley homes recognized for historically sensitive renovations

July 10, 2018 by Deborah Brown 1 Comment

The Wellesley Historic Commission (WHC) last week awarded plaques to homeowners who completed historically sensitive renovations of two of Wellesley’s proud older structures. The homes themselves, 51 Glen Rd., built in 1721 and 309 Walnut St., built in 1900, seemed to glow right along with the delighted families at the praise heaped upon them by the WHC. The plaques read: “The Wellesley Historic Commission commends you on your outstanding home renovation and expresses its appreciation of your efforts to preserve our town’s historic character.” The plaque was signed by Grant Brown, Chairman (no relation to The Swellesley Report Browns) and Lawrence McNally, Vice Chairman.

51 Glen Road, in pictures

51 Glen Rd., Wellesley — Gary Vanasse and Angela Sousa share 51 Glen Rd. with Vanasse’s sons Nicholas, 17 and Andrew, 13. The boys attend Buckingham Browne & Nichols school and have a very sweet 3rd floor set-up that includes their bedrooms and a teen hangout room for video gaming. Vanasse and Sousa are expecting a baby in October to help fill the 7 bedroom, 4 bathroom 5,000 square foot house. Sousa led me on a tour that touched on four centuries without ever leaving the house. “As we worked on the house, we had to remember at this point the walls are horsehair plaster, then over here they’re not.” she said

“When we were first looking at it my stepson said, ‘Angela this place is so old it could be haunted. We can’t move in to a haunted house.’ So we saged the house before we moved in.” Problem solved. That’s how Sousa rolls.

For the record, there’s never been any suggestion of paranormal activity detected at the house. The sage ceremony, a ritualistic way to cleanse a place of negative energies or influences, was more of a family bonding activity than an actual spirit shoo-ing.

The for-real part has been the trials and tribulation of a major renovation. At one moment Sousa concedes, “We bit off more than we were expecting. We didn’t fully understand the level of renovation and the amount of time this would take.” But at the next moment Brown, Sousa, and I are all swooning over the original fireplace tile and the rich look of the hardwood and original moldings, and the gracious flow of the house and the size of the rooms. For a moment, all the work and construction challenges are forgotten as we revel in the beauty of the results.

You’d have to be nuts to tear down 309 Walnut St.

Next I stopped in at 309 Walnut St. to check in with Luke and Zemira DelVecchio and their 5 kids, Agnese, 11; Isaiah, 9; and Miriam, 6; who attend Schofield Elementary School. There’s also Mark, 3; and John Paul, 8 months — you’ve still got time to prepare yourselves for them, Schofield.

Luke’s got serious Wellesley chops having grown up in town on Apple St. He’s done the Triple Wellesley: Hunnewell Elementary, Wellesley Middle School, and Wellesley High. Then for good measure he went for the quadruple and did his undergraduate at Babson. Luke and Zemira are our former neighbors, and they swear they didn’t move out of the neighborhood because The Swellelsey Report was just getting too loud. And even if the’re telling a little white lie, as you can see we just follow them wherever they go. There’s no escaping The Swellesley Report.

I walked into the kind of party atmosphere that’s always happening in a house with five kids. “Hi!” said one as I walked in, waving so exuberantly he fell off the sofa. No tears though, because what good would that do when in two seconds another “crisis” will surely crop up, eclipsing his own? I barreled right in and inserted myself into just another day in paradise with an active family living life in a house that was built to take it in 1900, then renovated in 2017 to take it some more. The six bedroom, 4.5 bath 4,500 square-foot house graciously absorbed me into the controlled chaos.

We’ve posted about this house before, back when contractor Jim Mealey first bought the place in an online bidding process. As he got going on the restoration he was treated as a mini-celebrity. People stopped and thanked him for what he was doing as he worked to bring the house back from years of neglect.

Here are a few pictures: