Today, I'm excited to checkout something that I haven't had the opportunityto be at just yet.

But we are on the Ruthmerecampus here in Elkhart, and I have with usBill, the executive director.

Thank you so much for joining metoday.

Welcome, Courtney.

I'm excited.This is your first time.

Here it is.

And you know, I have to say,as soon as I walked up, the first thing that caughtmy eye was the architecture that is a big partof what we're about.

Our tagline is the experience and history,art and architecture.

So good job.

Perfect, perfect.

Give us a little bitof the background about what the Ruthmereis for the town of Elkhart.

Sure, actually.

Well, we hope it's for morethan just Elkhart, but it is, the jewel of Indianais another moniker that we use because it is a highlight pieceof architecture that you won't findanywhere else, in the Midwest,if not the country.

It's one of the finest examplesof Beaux-Arts design for a residencein the United States.

So this was originallya residence?

Absolutely it was.

And that confusesa lot of people.

It looks kind of like it belongson a university campus.

Or maybe it's a commerciallibrary or something like that.

That's because that'show Beaux-Arts design was used for many public buildings.

So this is one of those rareresidences that that, captured the use of this design.And it was the architect, E. Hill Turnock, who designed so many homesand public buildings in Elkhart.

this was kind of his, his the peak of his office.

And you can see over thereit says erected 1908.

That's when it started.

Okay.

Completed until 1910.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.Which is pretty impressive.

Yeah.For those for that time period.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was amazing for peoplefrom all over the region were amazedat seeing all the craftsmanship and how many peopleand how much energy was going into this three, 13,000 square foothouse for two people.

Really?

Really?

Yeah.

I like a lot of cleaning.

And they did.

They did it.

They had, a full staffat that point.

and so it was a different era.

If you're a big fan of,like, Downton Abbey.

Yeah.

Shows like that.

This is a glimpse into that era.

That's fantastic.

And so why do we have somethinglike this?

It is open to the public here.Absolutely.

You know, now,yes, in this day and age.

And why is it importantfor people to come and visit, not just open now?

We are celebrating our 50thyear, this year, open to the public as,historic house museum.

And so I think it's importantfor a variety of reasons.

Number one, this is areal community identity marker.

It it helps define,a period of time in Elkhart history whenit was, you know, a leading, city in, the pharmaceuticalindustry with Miles medical.

And these are the types of homesthat you expect to find in the huge cities around the country,in Chicago, in New York.

And, and, here we have a grandone right here in Elkhart.

Now, you guyshave a lot of opportunity for people to come and visitthe campus.

That's right.

I am so excitedto talk about these.

You have a few things coming up.

one of them is a ceramics.

So we have the Ceramics showcaseshowcase.

This is the fourth year for forthis pottery fair style event.

It's now taking on the new monikerof the annual Ceramics Showcase because we havea new partnership, the Northern IndianaClay Alliance.

And they havethey have really helped us out in the coordination of,bringing high level quality pottersto this, this, event.

We're going to erect, four giant tents on our quiltgarden lot on the other side of the wall.

Okay.We have to pause you.

We have a quilt garden here toogarden.

Okay.

We don't want we don't wantto take that for granted.

We are proudto be one of the first, quilt gardenand continuously operated gardens since they started.

Okay, okay.

We digress.

So we did digress, but that's okay because that'san important thing.

And so we'll have 22 pottersand four tents.

we'll have foodvendors, we'll have music here.

We'll have all kinds of different thingshappening, activating the space.

And of course we'll have tours that day too,but it'll be a fun festival type of environment.

Absolutely.

And another way that people can experienceis something that's happening just in the summertimeon Saturdays.

Coffeeon piazza, coffee on the piazza.

We're standing hereright at the piazza.

And so, what we doevery week is we have, acoustic music talent.

We, we don't get into,like, big, heavy amplification.

Okay.

All right.

You don't need to bring any,earplugs or anything.

I think you'll be just fine,but, yeah.

And it could be somethinglike last week, we had Sentimental Journeys,a 19 piece brass band.

Or it could be a duo.

It could be a solo artist.

It could be somebodyreally pretty interesting and important and famous.

That might just be travelingthrough town that we were able to snagand get into our series.

And so kind of like local,regional.

Yes.

Nationally,it's a completely free program.

It's, sponsored, locally.

And, and so the public iswelcome to come.

We actually want the public,if they're willing to bring like one blanketsin their own lawn chairs, because we'll set upthe first 50 chairs.

But after that you'rekind of on your own.

And we're happy to have people,you know, just spread out.

We put out some kids games, like they can do chalk art on the side.So it is family friendly, absolutely familyfriendly event.

And so we start serving, free coffee from the refineryin Goshen, at 10 a.m.. And by 1030 the music startsand it lasts through noon every Saturday, June, Julyand August here at Redeemer.

We've been doing it for years,I love it.

Where can peopleget the line up for that?

So go to our our websiteRuthmere.org and then the programs tab and justyou'll see coffee on the piazza.

And you can previewall the artists there too.

And you guys have lotsof other stuff going on.

And I know we're kind of spread out on the campusto check it out.

We are we you've only seenthe Ruthmere side.

We have another site to go.

Okay.

Let'sgo and do that.

All right.

Okay.

So now we are over at the Havilah Beardsley House,the second new house, my second.

And of coursethis one is the floors creak.

So this is this is my sweet spot for me toactually I love this house.

So Ruthmere is so opulent andso wonderful and ostentatious.

It's grand and great, but I could see myselfliving in this house.

Okay, perfect.

Yep.But little creaks.

I'm sure I have to ask.Is there any ghosts?

Oh, we don't talk about.

Okay, okay.

We don't talk about.

Oh, no, I did.

We did.

Another thing I didabout all of the ghosts in Elkhart County is that was aI only speak from experience.

I have never had any personalexperience.

Perfect.

Well,one of the things that we are that we do have hereis a, a beautiful hat display.

That's right.

The global language of headweartraveling exhibit.

we are thrilled.

Absolutely.

To have this here and and hostit on its tour across America.

And so we have 89, artistic pieces of headwearfrom different cultures around the world.

And this goes back to our promisethat we made to the community, several years ago when we saidthat we were going to up our game and started doing,annual blockbuster exhibits and providingexceptional programing.

And so this is our give backto the community.

We're bringing the worldto Elkhart.

And I'm getting kind of asneak peek right now.

You are.

This is not open to the publicuntil July 5th.

But by that time this yearwe will be there.

Okay.

July 5th.And how long does that run?

Until it runs until September27th.

Okay, perfect.

So you guys have a few monthsto get out and enjoy it.

And there are a numberof countries represented here.

Oh, absolutely.

42 countries, I do believe, from all across the world,all across the world.

And so and we're going to do some funprogram events too with it.

Like we want to encourage folks, you know, if you want to show up in your favorite hat,you know, well, well, maybe I should have broughtmy favorite.

Maybe maybewe'll take a picture of you and you get onour social media page and we'll do stuff like that.

Also, we have a few free daysincorporated.

We're goingto specifically ask people to come with hats and and we'lldo fun things with that too.

So just don't touch the exhibit.No no no no.

Because some of these are,are quite old.

Absolutely.

Yes.

And some are oldand some aren't old.

That's what's really interestingabout it.

Right.

Okay.

Because people are alwaysdeveloping and changing, you know what they're usingand making headwear.

When you think about headwear,it it sort of defines us.

Right?

What we put on our headis very important to us.

It changes our mood, it changes our attitudeand how we're going to act.

And and maybe we're going through a particular ceremonyor a particular event in a life.

And so you wear a differentheadwear or hat.

We say hat.

I feel like I've seena number of headwear pieces.

Yes.

The globallanguage of headwear is meant to be expanded beyondjust the concept of simple hats.

But hey, we're going to have funwith it.

It's Elkhart, Indiana I love it,and you guys will have special programsthat people can come and kind of get more in depth lectures.

Maybe the biggest one to circleis, July 11th.

We will have the curatorof this exhibition, the national curator, who put itall together will be here to give a lecture.

There is a small admissionfee for that.

do people need to get ticketsahead of time?

Yes, they need to register.

And so just go to Ruthmere.organd you'll get, you know, funneledright into it.

Well, there's so much to do hereon the Ruth Mia campus.

Thanks for showing us arounda little bit.

I'm going to go check outsome more of the headdresses.

Yes, please.Maybe find my favorite one.

Absolutely.

And I hopeyou find your favorite one too.

We'll see you outhere at the Ruthmere Campus.