A visit to Wakefield-Scearce Galleries is a visual treat anytime, especially during the Yuletide season. This time of year, visitors find the numerous rooms that comprise the Shelbyville establishment festively decked out for Christmas. All of the 30 spaces are furnished and decorated as rooms in a home—living rooms, studies and dining rooms. But they are more than stunning spaces over which to “oooh” and “aaah.”
“Everything is for sale—the mantel décor, all the wreaths. Everything that I make is for sale,” said Wakefield-Scearce’s Christmas Coordinator and Floral Designer Lisa Curry, who conceives and creates each wreath, swag, garland and centerpiece and decorates the trees. The antique furniture and furnishings—lamps, paintings, china, silver and crystal—are available for sale year-round.
Located downtown, the original eight-room structure was built in the late 1700s. In 1825, Julia Tevis established Science Hill School, a girls’ boarding school, in the building. Founder Tevis was intent on giving the girls a well-rounded education that included much more than the etiquette that was so important for young ladies of the time.
“She wanted the name of the school to reflect that science and math were in the curriculum,” Curry said of Tevis’ decision to call it Science Hill. The building was expanded over its years as a boarding school to accommodate increased attendance.
Science Hill remained a school until the Great Depression forced its closing in 1939. Following business incarnations that included a boarding house, a large portion of the building became Wakefield-Scearce Galleries in 1947, when Mark Wakefield and Mark Scearce opened an establishment specializing in British antiques. Today, it houses one of the largest collections in the United States of antique English furniture, silver and home décor.
Wakefield-Scearce’s Christmas extravaganza includes 30 decorated trees, each one different from the next.
The style and seasonal décor of each room has a distinctive theme, including Christmas in Kentucky, Star of Bethlehem, and Christmas Around the World. These festively decked out rooms reflect those themes.
Curry and her team begin decorating for the Christmas season the last week of September, culminating the first week of November with “The Big Tree,” a majestic 20-footer that commands the main gallery. Assembling and decorating this impressive tree is no small feat. “Each branch has to be lit with its own string of lights and put into the tree,” Curry said. The festive décor remains in place until the second week of January.
If You Go:
Wakefield-Scearce Galleries
525 Washington Street, Shelbyville
502.633.4382
Open 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday