Watch: Harriet Beecher Stowe House reopens to the public after 8-year preservation project

The historic home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the American author and abolitionist, was reintroduced to the Greater Cincinnati community Friday following an eight-year restoration project.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House, a grand yellow house at the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Gilbert Avenue in Walnut Hills, is hosting a three-day housewarming event this weekend, July 19-21. Festivities began with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday morning.

The house at 2950 Gilbert Ave. has been preserved as a museum to Stowe, whose family lived there from 1833 to 1852. Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the influential anti-slavery novel inspired by her observations while living in Cincinnati.

The restoration and preservation project began in 2016 and cost an estimated $3.5 million, according to Christina Hartlieb, executive director of the Stowe House.

Here's a look back at the home's 192-year legacy.

The history of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House

The house was built in 1832-1833 as a home for Stowe’s father, Lyman Beecher, the president of the Lane Theological Seminary nearby. During their time living there, the Beecher family met abolitionists, witnessed the student-led Lane Seminary debates on slavery and heard stories of the Underground Railroad, all of which inspired Stowe's “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Her 1852 novel helped change minds and attitudes about enslaving Black Americans and strengthened the cause of abolition.

In the 1930s and '40s, the building was used as a Black boarding house and tavern called the Edgemont Inn that was listed in "The Negro Motorist Green Book," a guidebook for places that accommodated Black patrons.

The Ohio History Society (now Ohio History Connection), which owns the house, opened it as a museum in 1949.

Restored to two different time periods

The original home was L-shaped, with a dining room and kitchen wing off the parlor, as well as bedrooms on the second floor. During the 20th century, it was remade into a solid rectangle.

Rather than removing additions from 1908 to restore the original house structure, the museum officials also opted to preserve sections that had been the boarding house.

Since the restoration project began in 2016, nearly every surface of the house, inside and out, has been carefully restored. However, not all of the building was returned to its 19th-century appearance.

The yellow side of the house was restored to reflect 1840, when the Beechers lived there, and the white sections have been converted to the 1940s era. All areas of the historic home have period-accurate details, down to the wallpaper patterns.

Hartlieb said it is not typical for historic restorations to preserve two separate time periods. But it was important that the building’s later history was not lost.

Some rooms of the museum are dedicated to Stowe, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the Underground Railroad, while another section showcases the boarding house room of proprietor Irene Bacon and the Black experience.

“The house itself is a place of communication and dialogue,” Hartlieb said.

Other interior repairs and changes to the 5,000-square-foot home include rebuilding fireplaces and mantles, fixing floors, removing parts of the second-floor ceilings, adding a new heating and cooling system and rebuilding a stairway in the foyer.

Exterior renovations included removing the front porch, a two-story bay window, a fire escape and 17 layers of paint to restore the house's original yellow color. They also installed 44 windows, 20 pairs of shutters and doorways that replicated the originals.

How to visit the Harriet Beecher Stowe House

Following Friday's ribbon-cutting ceremony, the celebration continues Saturday with a free, family-friendly concert at 11 a.m. There will also be other various activities throughout the day.

Then Sunday, the historic home will open its doors again from noon to 4 p.m. for local visual, musical and spoken word artists to gather, create and share art inspired by the completed restoration.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House will then resume normal operating hours, opening Thursday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. The last tour of the day will start at 3 p.m.

Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors and college students, and $5 for children aged 6 to 17. Children under 5 get in free.

For more information, visit stowehousecincy.org.

Enterprise and watchdog reporter Patricia Gallagher Newberry contributed to this report.