Charles Demuth (1883–1935) lived and worked in this house and studio at 120 East King Street, now the Demuth Museum in front of you. This compact museum is operated by the Demuth Foundation, which also runs the Lancaster Museum of Art, and it offers a rotating view of a permanent collection that includes about 60 Charles Demuth originals and some 800 historical objects — letters, documents, photographs and family ephemera that map a life lived here. The house itself dates to around 1820 and is a contributing property to the Lancaster Historic District; it is also a member of Historic Artists' Homes & Studios, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Visitors come — roughly 10,000 a year — and scholars and students use the archives and library for research and educational programming from primary through postsecondary levels. The Museum grounds hold more stories: the family tobacco shop and snuff mill stand nearby, and a portion of the garden once maintained by Demuth’s mother, Augusta, remains. Picture the studio light Demuth painted by, then notice the circa-1820 façade, the tobacco shop and snuff mill next door, and the garden Augusta once tended.