voelker1

As recently as the 1950s and 1960s, Flushing was a town of old-timey Victorian homes protected by shade trees, with a lively downtown centered on Main Street between Northern Boulevard and the Long Island Rail Road Port Washington line. After Flushing began to stagnate, a slow trickle of immigrants from eastern Asia began to arrive and revitalized the region, but at the cost of its sleepy-town atmosphere as the old Victorians were torn down and apartment buildings and attached homes replaced them.

Today, Flushing’s colonial relics, some of which are almost 400 years old, are uneasily juxtaposed with garish advertising and overcrowded streets. Commerce and history are rarely easy partners. The result of Flushing’s revival of the past decades is that it has preserved a few of its oldest buildings from the 17th century, but most from the 18th century and even many from the early 20th have been wiped out.

Sprinkled throughout Flushing, though, are several elderly dwellings that have held firm as wave over wave of change has overswept Flushing. One of those is one of Queens’ newest museums, the Voelker-Orth Museum and Victorian Garden, which opened to the public in 2003.

voelker2
Sohmer piano in the Voelker-Orth House parlor

The Voelker-Orth story  begins with its resident for over 60 years, Betty Orth, who was born in the house in 1926 and lived there until 1995, when she died from complications from an automobile accident. In her will, Ms. Orth, an English literature teacher, nature lover and birdwatcher, had left her house to the Queens Historical Society, the Queens Botanical Society and the Audubon Society with the provision that it be converted into a museum, bird sanctuary and Victorian garden, a specific type of garden employing colorful tropical plants in season, along with ornamental elements such as urns, benches, gazebos and statuary.  Betty Orth left a good part of her fortune, which amounted to millions, to the prospective museum as well.

voelker3
Upstairs bedroom

The museum is the former home of Conrad Voelker, a German immigrant newspaper publisher. Voelker moved his family to Flushing in 1899, and three generations of his family made their home here. In 1930, the property became the home of Voelker’s daughter Theresa and her husband, Dr. Rudolph Orth. Their daughter, Betty Orth, lived in the house until her 1995 death.

Several rooms have been restored to reflect the family’s life in the late 19th and early 20th century, and contain original furnishings and appointments. Where possible, period furnishings have also been placed. Modern lighting, heating and air conditioning have been installed, a result of Ms. Orth’s fortune, mush of which was designated for the home’s upkeep.

voelker4
First floor sitting room. The silver chest, as well as the silver pieces, are original to the house.

The house offers house tours, exhibits, piano concerts, workshops and even wedding receptions year-round.

voelker6

Kitchen and pantry on first floor. The telephone in the corner is an original Danish Fyns Kommunale model produced in the early 20th Century. The rotary dial was a later addition.

voelker7

Victorian-style garden in the rear of the house. The museum maintains the English-style garden frequently employed in the late 1890s to early 1900s, with specifications chosen from a number of garden designs available in gardening manuals. The most common design featured a central lawn, with flower beds arranged around the exterior; hydrangea, foxglove, hollyhocks, snapdragons and dahlias were popular. The museum grows a pink heirloom rose known as the Queen Elizabeth that can be seen by the bay window in front of the museum.

The Voelker-Orth garden maintains an herb garden, grape arbor (grape juice produced from the arbor was available the day I visited, as part of the Open House New York festivities) and a beehive (the museum had just sold its last jar of honey; more was expected to be harvested and would be available in December).

House tours are available on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. with a suggested $2.00 donation. An upcoming special treat will be Sunday, December 7th, when Voelker-Orth will participate in the 27th Annual Holiday Flushing Historic House Tour, along with the Kingsland Homestead (home of the Queens Museum), Louis Latimer House, Flushing town Hall, Friends Meeting House, John Bowne House (the parlor will open for the first time in a couple of decades), and the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona.


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment