A Three Century Party at Keeler Tavern

Ridgefield is gearing up for a 300th Anniversary party at the Keeler Tavern Museum. The party is designed to show people new parts of the museum and to show people the museum covers three centuries, not just the one focused on colonial/revolutionary America.

The Keeler Tavern Museum also covers historic Ridgefield in the 19th Century, as evidenced by the ongoing town-wide program, Ridgefield Remembers the Civil War. It is a 150th anniversary program co-sponsored with the museum, library and historic society. It includes Saturday's Soldiers Fair at Ballard Park, and the film Gettysburg on the Lounsbury House lawn at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

During the tavern's 300th birthday party, visitors will be able to enter, for the first time, the Cass Gilbert barn, one he designed when he owned the Keeler property. Among his more famous buildings, Gilbert designed New York's Woolworth Building and the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. Gilbert's ownership of the museum property and his many improvements to it may be the museum's most important 20th Century connection.

"This is probably one of the only barns he designed," Grob said, as she toured the grounds. In addition to the renovated barn, visitors will see the new driveway, entrance to the Garden house, parking, stone staircases, handicapped access ramps, and a new rear meadow, all evidence of a $500,000 investment in the property funded by the museum, local donations and grants.

"What we're showcasing is three centuries of history," Grob said. Ridgefield elementary school students are familiar with the cannonball still lodged in the museum wall, but they may be less familiar with Ridgefield's Civil War history and the museum's 20th Century connection to Cass Gilbert, who owned and improved the property. "He was a true representative of the Gilded Age."

During the June 15 party at the museum, people will be entertained by music, a cake decorating contest, a silent auction for professionally designed cakes, pony rides, face decorating, a magician, historic games, historic bike rides and much more. For more information about the day, click here.