It’s time to celebrate the season — Victorian style.
This Friday, Dec. 9, the Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson house — a 2-story Victorian home in downtown Eugene — is hosting a fundraiser for education outreach, with a little help from students at North Eugene High School.
Between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., the students will provide entertainment, hors d’oeuvres, and guided tours of the house. Tickets are $25 a person, but they are tax deductible.
The next day, Dec. 10, the Third Annual Victorian Holiday Festival will begin at the house. Activities will include making gingerbread houses, learning how to decorate “shabby chic” and peeking in on a teddy-bear collection.
There’ll even be a room full of miniatures, ranging from teacup gardens to an entire Victorian home, complete with tiny furnishings, cats and fireplaces.
“It’s kind of over the top, but so wonderful ” said Betty Murrell, interim director for Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson Associates.
Holiday cheer won’t stop after these two events. The house is open for tours throughout December every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m..
Mary Ellen West, a volunteer docent who has led tours of the home since it opened to the public in the early 1990s, said her favorite part of the house is the sitting area because it is set up as would have been when it was first built.
“The families that lived here represent our earliest history,” she said.
A doctor named T.W. Shelton initiated construction of the house in 1888. When the building was about two-thirds complete, however, a mysterious fire burned it to the ground.
The house was rebuilt, and years later, Dr. Eva Johnson, a psychiatrist and University graduate, bought it.
During the 1960s, while Johnson was still alive, she rented the house to students.
“Eva had a real soft spot for University students,” said Hahn Neimand, one of the co-chairs of the Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson Associates board.
After Johnson’s death in 1986, the house went to Lane County, which later gave the property to the city of Eugene.
The Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson house is located at 303 Willamette St. Murrell said it may sound easy to find, but doing so is actually quite complicated. The house is across the railroad tracks from the train depot and can be accessed by Pearl Street. There is a main parking lot between Third and Fourth streets.