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Beat the Heat with Behind the Scenes Tours at Reynolda House Museum of American Art

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.- As we simmer on hot summer days with temperatures in the nineties, do you ever wonder how people survived the summer heat before air-conditioning as we know it? Visit Reynolda House Museum of American Art and learn about the “air-washing system” of the early 1920s and the later system that used 100-pound blocks of ice to cool the vast interior of the 64-room home in the 1930s.

The museum’s “Beat the Heat Tours” on Sundays, July 25 and again August 8 will reveal those secrets and more. The tours start promptly at 2 p.m. and conclude at 4 p.m.

Admission is $15, members/students $10.

During these behind-the-scenes tours, visitors will see areas of the historic house normally closed to the general public and hear the history behind each location in the 1917 Reynolds home. Visitors will explore the kitchens, laundry and mechanical rooms, the squash court, and work areas below the swimming pool. The tour will conclude with a visit to the former roof garden to enjoy a spectacular view across the estate.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art is one of the nation’s premier American art museums, with masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe and Gilbert Stuart among its permanent collection. Affiliated with Wake Forest University, Reynolda House features traveling and original exhibitions, concerts, lectures, classes, film screenings and other events. The museum is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the historic 1917 estate of Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Reynolda House and adjacent Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village feature a spectacular public garden, dining, shopping and walking trails. For more information, please call 336.758.5150.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art | 2250 Reynolda Road, Winston Salem, NC 27106

reynoldahouse.org

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