through a fund-raising campaign so that it could be converted into a Museum. Appearance and Layout I saw a charming house that appeared like a Roman temple among the trees. Admiringly, I beheld the broad steps surmounted by four huge ionic columns that towered to the roof and formed a magnificent adornment to the mansion's front, the handsome old doorway of which stood hospitably open. — Arthur Heming, artist of the Lyme Art Colony The entire first floor has been furnished to reflect its appearance in about 1910, the height of its years as an artists' boardinghouse. Visitors enter through a wide center hall, where an "informal gallery" displays paintings on grass cloth walls. The hall also contains Colonial and Empire furniture. Two bedrooms are off the hallway — Miss Florence's bedroom and a guest artist's bedroom. A parlor on the first floor has artists' brushes on the mantel and the extravagant gold harp Robert Griswold brought back for his daughter from England. In that room the artist-boarders would present various types of entertainment for each other. There is a formal dining room on the first floor, and a large covered porch marks the entrance. The second floor is exhibition space in five galleries with rotating selections from the permanent collection, as well as new acquisitions. Samuel Belcher, architect of the Old Lyme Congregational Church, designed the late Georgian-style house for William Noyes. It was built in 1817. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993. In July 2007 the building reopened after a 14-month restoration project. The Painted Panels The house's dining room, where artists would gather to debate topics of the day, became a showcase for painted wall and door panels created by the artist-boarders. The artists who painted on the house's doors and walls were probably following a tradition imported from hostelries in the French art colonies at Barbizon, Giverny, and Pont-Aven, where many of them had visited and stayed on their own travels abroad. A total of 41 painted panels are in the downstairs rooms. Artists who contributed painted panels and painted doors on the first floor of the house include Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Henry Rankin Poore, Everett Warner, Allen Butler Talcott, William Chadwick, William Henry Howe, Matilda Browne, Harry Hoffman, Arthur Heming, Chauncey Foster Ryder, Clark Voorhees, Carleton Wiggins, and Bruce Crane, among others. Matilda Browne was the only female artist invited