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2021 Historic Shepherdstown Preservation Award winner to be featured in 65th Annual House and Garden Tour

By Tabitha Johnston - Chronicle Staff | Mar 31, 2023

The Christian Clise House, located at 100 West New Street, will be featured on the 65th Annual House and Garden Tour of Historic Berkeley and Jefferson Counties, West Virginia on April 29-30. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — The winner of the 2021 Historic Shepherdstown Preservation Award, the Christian Clise House, will be one of the seven homes open for public viewing on April 29 and 30, during the 65th Annual House and Garden Tour of Historic Berkeley and Jefferson Counties, West Virginia.

Sponsored by the Shenandoah-Potomac Garden Counsel (SPGC), the tour will be returning this year for the first time, since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic. According to SPGC member Sue Ann Palmer, the return of the tour has been long anticipated by the eight garden clubs that comprise the SPGC, along with a number of local residents.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Palmer said in an interview on Saturday afternoon. “The tour is a nice way to spend a spring day. Some people look forward to attending it every year.

“It will be a variety of styles of homes on the tour! Some of the homes are historical, while others have an interesting architecture to them,” Palmer said, mentioning the number of rooms shown in each home vary, based on the home owner’s preference. “Each club is responsible to either find a home that they can show. Or, if they don’t have one to show that year, then they help by being docents at others properties.”

According to Palmer, tickets for the tour may be purchased in advance or at the door. The tickets, which are good for both days of the tour, can be purchased to view a single home on the tour, or to view all seven of them. Complete tour ticket prices for adults are $20 in advance or $25 at the door, while the $10 complete tour ticket price for children is static. Single admission costs $8 for adults and $5 for children.

“You can’t do much of anything for under $25,” Palmer said, mentioning when she did the Middleburg, Va. garden tour last year, it cost $52 per-person to see three properties. “I think it proves that ours is super affordable. Where can you go to visit seven properties for $25? It’s a very affordable activity.”

Those who attend the tour can feel confident that the money spent on their tickets will be put to good use.

“A small percentage of the proceeds from it are distributed to the clubs. The remaining amount is given to the clubs, then, as grants for different community projects,” Palmer said. “So the funds from the tour are returned back to the community, through beautification projects. The tour has financed a lot of nice projects in Jefferson County and Berkeley County.

“People don’t realize how much garden clubs do in their communities, because a lot of time we don’t publicize it. We do a lot of things yearly,” Palmer said. “The money to do that is all generated through the house and garden tour.”

Advance tickets can be purchased by visiting https://shenandoah-potomacgardencouncil.org/id2.html or sending a check or money order (payable to the SPGC) by April 16 to: Shenandoah-Potomac Garden Council c/o Sara Douglass, Treasurer 210 N. Georgia Avenue, Martinsburg, WV 25401.