The Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum

Last Saturday — June 15, 2024 — I went on an adventure in New Bedford, MA. My second major stop on the trip was the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum (RJD). This property was designated a National Historic Landmark as William Rotch, Jr. House in 2005. The self-guided tour allowed visitors to explore two floors of the house plus an extensive rose garden while learning the histories of the three families who lived there.

The tour began with a brief video giving an overview of the three families. In 1834, the Rotch family built the Greek Revival style house. They were Quakers who made their money as whaling merchants based in New Bedford during the Golden Age of Whaling. (We love golden ages on this blog.) The Jones family bought the house in 1851. The father, Edward Coffin Jones, was born on Nantucket like many members of the Coffin family, which I first learned about during my tour of Historic New England’s Coffin House back in 2022. His wife Emma Nye Jones and oldest daughter Sarah both died that year, leaving Edward to raise his three older daughters — Emma, Amelia, and younger Sarah — as a single father. After the death of Amelia in 1935, the Duff family bought the house. Mark M. Duff was an influential businessman in New Bedford and Massachusetts, while Beatrice Duff redecorated the property. New Bedford historic preservation organization Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE (WHALE) bought the property in 1981 and have operated it as a museum ever since.

The first floor of the house contains a back hall with a portrait of William Rotch, Jr., the first owner of the house. This painting is a copy of an original made by Rembrandt Peale, member of the talented Peale artist family from eastern Massachusetts, who I first learned about when visiting Harvard Art Museums back in August 2023. A nearby gallery showcased the life of the Rotch family, including their business ventures and religious views.

The extended family was more ostentatious than most Quakers, as niece Sarah Rodman allegedly wore a bright red shawl instead of the typical white, gray, or drab. The front and rear parlor were decorated in the style of the Jones, especially of daughter Amelia Jones. The religiously inspired painting The Carpenter’s Son hangs over a piano, while the letter from artist Edward E. Simmons to Amelia Jones stands on the mantel. Simmons last appeared on this blog during my virtual tour of the Massachusetts State House, which features two of his historical paintings.

Other neat features in the parlors included a mantel clock topped with a small statue of a depressed-looking woman, a piece of the original wallpaper framed against the reproduction wallpaper, and a table with a fold-down top inlaid with a Chinese-inspired scene of pagodas and islands. The adjoining dining room combines colonial revival and Italianate decorating styles to make the space feel grand, and the pantry is appropriately large for a mansion.

Up on the second floor, a bedroom is decorated in the style of Beatrice Duff with her portrait hanging on the wall. The closet is filled with her hats. In the hallway is a tiny model of the house that you are allowed to touch. The window in the green bathroom renovated by the Duff family in 1936 is somewhat off-center, as it is a different size than the original window. My favorite feature in this room were the pair of skiing penguins on the green toilet lid.

The children’s bedroom was filled with toys like charming metal trucks and creepy dolls. Across the hall was the bedroom kept by Edward C. Jones. In the room were maritime artifacts like a wooden medicine cabinet from a ship, a wooden staff carved with names of ships agented by Jones, and a book of signal flags. In the hallway between the two rooms was a sewing area, as the Jones family hired a seamstress to make and mend their clothes. The back stairwell and attic were not accessible to the public, although the tour included a funny story about children playing their version of field hockey in the attic during holidays.

The home boasted a wrap-around porch, metal pergola, more than three hundred rose bushes, and almost seven hundred boxwoods in the rose garden. Restored in 2018 in a collaboration between RJD, Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth, Massachusetts; Certified Roses in East Texas; Weeks Roses in Ontario, California; Star Roses in West Grove, Pennsylvania; and Altman Plants in Vista, California; the space now hosts weddings, concerts, and other fun local events. The roses have fun names, including Julie Andrews, Take It Easy, Pinkerbelle, Bubble Double, Julia Child, and Top Gun.

The Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum is a fun and relaxing way to tour a historic home and enjoy beautiful flowers. The staff was cheerful and friendly. I appreciated that different rooms in the house were specific to the three families who live their, allow me to understand three separate time periods in New Bedford history. Additionally, this rose garden was likely the best I have visited, topping the Kelleher Rose Garden in Boston’s Emerald Necklace, the Victorian Rose Garden at Roger Williams Park, and the little rose garden at Borderland State Park.

The rose garden has wide paths and is accessible to those with limited mobility or using a wheelchair. The historic house, like many, is accessible only by stairs, and some of the rooms are dimly lit. The self-guided tour came in both a print and audio version. The museum is open on Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Tickets to the museum are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and AAA members, $3 for children ages 7 to 17, and $0 for NEMA and AAM members, along with EBT, WIC and ConnectorCare Cardholders, and active-duty military. This is a great stop for anyone in the New Bedford area who has visited its many other historical sites and wants to know even more.

Abby Epplett’s Rating System

Experience: 9/10

Accessibility: 7/10