Kelley House Museum: Building a Home

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Mendocino Historical Research Institute, now known as the Kelley House Museum. Building a Home pays tribute to the people who had the vision and determination to turn a dilapidated old house into a research center and museum.

Meet founders Dorothy Bear and Beth Stebbins, who moved to Mendocino, fell in love with local history, then galvanized a community to establish a research center in order to preserve the town’s many stories and artifacts.

On display in the exhibit will be some of the earliest donations made to the Research Institute: census records from the 1860s, clothing from the Kelley family, the Ford family’s Bible, materials from Bear & Stebbins’ first exhibit, Mendocino Homes, Anne Kendall Foote’s bespoke wallpaper reproductions, and photographs of the activists whose labor restored the house and whose contributions have supported the Kelley House over the years.

Runs through February 26th, 2024.