Friends of the Physick Estate Host Trip to the 1885 Ballantine House at Newark Museum Sept. 28

The 1885 Ballantine House, courtesy of The Newark Museum.

CAPE MAY – Join the Friends of the Physick Estate on Thursday, Sept. 28 for a trip to the Newark Museum for a day with Chief Curator and Curator of Decorative Arts Ulysses Grant Dietz.

Dietz has extended a special invitation for a Gilded Age “insiders tour” of the 1885 Ballantine House, Newark, N.J., one of the few intact urban mansions from the Gilded Age in the United States — one of only two fully interpreted as a house on the East Coast.

This National Historic Landmark home was built for Jeannette and John Holme Ballantine, of the Ballantine beer dynasty. The brewery was founded in 1840, making Ballantine one of the oldest brands of beer in the United States. At its peak, it was the third largest brewer in the United States and is one of New Jersey’s most important beer dynasties. The tour will include a Gilded Age perspective on the decorative arts in the Seeing America Painting and Sculpture Galleries with stops in the Jewelry Gallery, the New Jersey Ceramics Gallery and the new American Silver Gallery.

Tour-goers will enjoy lunch in the Ballantine House trustees room, followed by free time to revisit the mansion and decorative arts galleries, as well as see as much as possible of the museum’s renowned permanent collections of American painting and sculpture, Native American art, Asian art, African art and Classical art.

The trip is limited to 55 guests. A few seats are still left. Admission is $75 and includes roundtrip transportation, museum admission, the personally guided tour of the Ballantine House and a catered lunch. Motor coach departs North Cape May Shopping Center promptly at 8 a.m. and departs Newark Museum at 2:30 p.m.

For more information about the Ballantine House visit www.newarkmuseum.org/ballantine-house.

A portion of the proceeds benefits the collection and conservation projects of the Friends of the Physick Estate.

For more information, call (609) 884-5404 or (800) 275-4278, or visit www.capemaymac.org.