Tucked into Norfolk's Historic Freemason District, the Hunter House Victorian Museum awaits you. The house was built in 1894 for the merchant and banker James Wilson Hunter, together with his wife Lizzie Ayer Barnes Hunter and their three children. It was designed and built by the Boston architect W.P. Wentworth in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.
The family home opened as a museum in 1988 and displays Victorian furnishings and decorative arts belonging to the Hunter family. James Wilson Hunter was born December 19, 1850 and in 1877 he married Lizzie Ayer Barnes at St. Luke’s Church in Norfolk. Eloise Hunter left this house as a museum and left instructions in her will about how she wanted the property cared for, as former museum director Jackie Spainhour was quoted.
In 2019 a hurricane felled a limb from a 200-year-old oak on the property, causing damage to the building’s roof. Admission is free to tour during the open season, April through December, since the museum is a registered nonprofit. Your eye can rest on the Romanesque façade and the oak that stands on the lawn.