Wentworth-Gardner House

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A light blue, black, and white striped header image with the words Wentworth-Gardner House

As the final main stop on my three-day trip of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire area, I visited Wentworth-Gardner House, a stunning yellow Georgian house listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This non-profit museum managed by the Wentworth-Gardner Historic House Association recently deaccessioned and renovated the nearby Tobias Lear House, also listed on the Register and now available to rent for $675 per night at time of publication. The remaining house is open for guided tours that leave on a first-come, first-served basis. The house was owned by several families, including the Wentworth and Gardner families, before being restored by historian Wallace Nutting and turned into a museum.

A metal plaque on the side of a yellow building with a white trimmed window. The plaque reads in part WENTWORTH-GARDNER HOUSE HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A REGISTERED NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK 1968 A two-and-a-half story Georgian style house with yellow-painted clapboard siding, white corners, white-trimmed windows, and a white door. Three gables jut from the roof of the house. A white sign reading The WENTWORTH-GARDNER HOUSE with an illustrated representation of the house appearing in the previous image. A small model of the Wentworth-Gardner House, about a foot across A pair of signs. The top sign illustrates the Wentworth Family Tree, while the lower sign illustrates the house timeline.

Wentworth Family

Mark Hunking & Elizabeth Ridge Wentworth gave this house for their son and new daughter-in-law, Thomas & Anne Wentworth, as a wedding gift in 1760. The Wentworths were a rich and powerful Loyalist family in colonial New Hampshire. Another son, Sir John Wentworth, 1st Baronet, became the final royal governor of New Hampshire, a lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, and a friend of second US president John Adams from their time at Harvard. The large house where the royal governor once lived is on the National Register of Historic Places as the Governor John Wentworth House and used as a senior living facility. Because of their loyalty to the crown, the Wentworth family lost the house during the American Revolution. The property was owned by a Nichols family for about 14 years during the Revolution and Confederation periods of the United States.

Portsmouth style brown wooden balusters at the top of the stairs in Wentworth-Gardner House Wentworth-Gardner House fireplace with ornate whitewashed mantal and white-and-plum delft tiles around the red brick. Wentworth-Gardner House fireplace with a forest green wall and white-and-blue delft tiles around the red brick. Wentworth-Gardner House fireplace with wooden neoclassical moulding in the pale blue wall and white-and-plum tiles around the red brick fireplace

Gardner Family

Major William Gardner, described as “a sincere liberal Patriot” on his cenotaph at the Saint John’s Churchyard Cemetery, and his second wife Elizabeth Hewes Gardner, became the new occupants of the house in 1793. He outlived his second wife and married a third wife Sarah Purcell Gardner, in 1819. William died in 1834, leaving the house to Sarah, who died in 1841 according to her headstone in Saint John’s Churchyard Cemetery, or in 1854 according to the Wentworth-Gardner House website.

In either case, records about the house become unclear around this time. The Peirce family owned the house from 1854 to 1885, which is during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. The Drowne family owned the house from 1885 to 1915, or from Reconstruction to World War I.

Photograph showing a pair of late Victorian era women dressed in romantisized Colonial era dresses standing behind the wooden dining table and chair set in the Wentworth-Gardner House dining room. The neoclassical wallpaper shows people crowding around a lion-pulled chariot underneath Mediterranean trees. The photo is black-and-white. However, one woman wears a pale blue dress, while the other holds a bouquet of pink roses. This lovely fireplace at Wentworth-Gardner House has wooden carvings on the light blue wall and white-and-plum tiles with windmills set around the red brick opening. A matching pair of wooden chairs with embroidered backs flank the fireplace. This fireplace at Wentworth-Gardner House is set in a robin's egg blue wall with neoclassical carvings similar to Doric pillars on either side of the opening. White-and-plum delft tile with windmills surrounding the red brick fireplace. Lush neoclassical carvings in the cream colored wall on either side of a twelve foot tall floor to ceiling window set into an eight inch thick wall. The top of the window is a semicircle with a spider web like design. Detail of a Liverpool brand tall clock. The round, white face of the clock is surrounded by four portraits of young women in peasent clothing. Above the clock face is a dial painted with a church tour and a rising moon, indicating the time of day. The clockface is flanked by a pair of wooden Doric columns on either side. The pediment is painted with golden grapes on the vine and the seal of the United States across a black painted background. On the top of the clock are three brass finials. An eagle takes flight from the middle finial. A robin's egg blue door with a metal latch. The wallpaper is dark cream with a blue and white realistic flower pattern.

Wallace Nutting

Thorough documentation picks up again around 1915, when minister-turned-restorationist Wallace Nutting purchased the property. The Massachusetts native had the best education available at the time, from high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH; an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA; and graduate work at Hartford Theological Seminary in Hartford, CT, Union Theological Seminary affiliated with Columbia University in New York, NY, and Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA.

After his ordination, Wallace served as a Congregationalist minister but burned out by age 43 because of a chronic illness. He turned instead to his love of photography, history, and architectural preservation. His photographs are highly collectable, and the Wallace Nutting Collectors Club was founded in his honor. Besides improving the Wentworth-Gardner House, Wallace rediscovered the Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site in Saugus, MA, along with several other colonial era houses. Wallace preferred a romanticized version of history, so his restorations were not always accurate. However, these efforts saved properties from demolition, so future historians could study the construction and correct errors.

Wallace wanted to sell the house to an organization that would offer public access. While he secured a deal with the MET in 1918, nothing more was done to the house through the 1920s and the Great Depression. This saved the house from being ripped off its foundation and moved to New York City. Instead, the precursor to Historic New England took temporary custody of the house. By 1940, local historian Josie Prescott, her attorney Charles Dale, and other members of the community formed the current operating organization, Wentworth-Gardner Historic House Association, and purchased the property.

Tall rectangular second floor window over a round wooden table with a pewter tea set. The table looks onto a sliver of Portsmouth Harbor. Canopy bed with no canopy. A white, embroidered or tatted coverlet covers the bed. A colorful, embroidered tapestry of plants and butterflies makes the headboard. The wallpaper is light gray with a pair of repeated scenes depicting a boy and girl playing in the woods. A small wooden treadle loom with a partially woven fabric in the middle of a room with a rough, wooden floor and a pale green wall. Signage describing Wallace Nutting's restoration of the house and photography, with a photograph depicting a romantisized portrait of two women sitting in the kitchen near the large hearth Portsmouth style wooden balusters going up the stairs to the second story Kitchen hearth at Wentworth-Gardner House, with a plain mantel holding a decorative rifle. An iron roasting oven sits on the flagstones in front of the hearth. Detail of the wallpaper in the dining room at Wentworth-Gardner House. A pair of lionesses pull a chariot driven by a young man, possibly the god Dionysus or Bacchus. Young men and women surround the chariot blowing horns, carrying baskets of fruit, and drinking lots of wine from amphorae. In the background is a rock, vegetated rural area.

Conclusion

The Wentworth-Gardner House is open Thursday through Monday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with tours lasting about 30 to 45 minutes. Admission is $8 for adults; $3 for children ages 7 to 17; $5 for National Trust for Historic Preservation members; and free for children under 7, frontline staff with ID, and NEMA members (like me!), The house currently does not have a gift shop. Limited streetside parking is available in front of the house, and the house is an easy walking distance from the center of town. This tour does not have as much information as given on similar house tours, but signage with the Wentworth family tree and house timeline clear up many questions. Like most historic houses, the building is entered by a steep flight of stone steps, making it inaccessible to those with limited mobility or using a wheelchair. Some historical information and images are available on the website.


Abby Epplett’s Rating System

Experience: 7/10

Accessibility: 5/10



Location: 50 Mechanic St, Portsmouth, NH 03801, USA