Appalachian Gallery
Introduction
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The Appalachian Gallery is located in a beautiful house designed by Elmer Jacobs, who designed buildings like the Seneca Glass Factory and the additional wings on Woodburn Hall.
The historic house is a perfect setting for the variety of art in the Appalachian Gallery. Photo courtesy of gallery website.
Backstory and Context
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The Appalachian Gallery was founded in 1987 by Laurie Nugent and Penelyn Van Orange, who pulled together their experiences in professional framing and art. Their gallery includes two floors of arts and crafts created by West Virginia artists. The breadth of work featured in the gallery includes paintings, drawings, glass, pottery, woodwork, metalwork, jewelry, textiles, and toys. A number of these works feature West Virginia scenes or symbols. Other items like books and puzzles are also for sale. The gallery offers custom framing for pictures, paintings, diplomas, and other heirlooms.
The art in the Appalachian Gallery is not all that visitors will see. The gallery is located in the historic Price House, built circa 1902 by Morgantown furniture store owner W.E. Price. It is the prototype or "sister" of the Garlow House on Spruce Street, today the home of the Aull Center for Local History and Genealogy Research. Both the Price House and Garlow House were designed by local architect Elmer Forrest Jacobs. A graduate of West Virginia University and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), Jacobs designed a variety of structures in northern West Virginia and Pennsylvania ranging from factories to government buildings to schools. In Morgantown, he is best known for adding the side wings on Woodburn Hall, part of the Seneca Glass Factory, and the Beaumont Glass Factory (now demolished).
The Price House was designed in the popular Queen Anne style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The house's recognizable stone tower was added after Price saw the tower Jacobs incorporated in the Garlow House. The tower is often why the house is referred to as the "Sandcastle house." The building originally featured custom-made Tiffany windows, one of which is still extant and depicts a woman playing a harp. The Price House later served as the Sigma Nu fraternity and as a branch of the Fraternal Order of the Eagles. The Appalachian Gallery moved into the house in 2011.
Sources
"About us." Appalachian Gallery. Accessed August 2018. http://www.wvcraft.com/index.php/about/
Fleming, Dolores. "Elmer Forrest Jacobs." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. December 7, 2015. Accessed August 2018. https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/954
"W.E. Price Home." Main Street Morgantown. Accessed August 2018. https://mainstreetmorgantown.wordpress.com/w-e-price-home/