A moment frozen in time

Fresno's Secrets: The Meux Home Museum allows a look into life in the 1800s

By Courtney Roque

Step through the stained glass front doors of The Meux Home Museum and enter a world where gentlemen came calling, women squeezed into corsets, families wore formal wear to dinner, electricity was a luxury and “indoor plumbing” was a chamber pot.

The intricately patterned carpets, the deeply colored wallpaper, the antique furniture, the Meux Family portraits and the costume-clad tour guides come together to give visitors an idea of what living in Fresno was like more than 115 years ago, when the city only had about 11,000 residents.

The Meux Home Museum, a landmark known nationwide, is a Victorian-style house that has attracted attention in Fresno since it was completed in 1889.

Thomas Meux decided to move his family to Fresno from Tennessee because his wife, Mary, contracted what was probably tuberculosis.

He heard that Fresno was hot and dry, the perfect climate for his wife’s health.

Fresno was a thriving city that boasted water, gas and electric services; public horse-drawn transportation; a hospital; a fire department; paved streets and two policemen.

Mary Meux picked the house out of a catalog of house plans, and it was completed in early 1889, just a few years after Fresno officially became a city.

The home had about 10 rooms and six fireplaces but no running water or central heating when it was built. The Meuxes would have had a clear view of the mountains from their bedroom window.

The three Meux children, John, 12, Mary, 8, and Anne, 4, each had his or her own room in the house, described in 1889 in the Fresno Weekly Exposition as “probably the most elaborate residence in Fresno.”

The final cost of the home was about $12,000—no small number in those days.

Anne Meux never got married and lived in the family home until she died in 1970, at the age of 85. She was once engaged, but her fiancé died of an infection.

“She never found anyone else she cared about,” Meux Home Museum docent Teresa Siebert said. “She went on to live a very busy and active life, and she lived it here.”

It is believed that the home is the longest individual residence documented in Fresno.

In 1972, Fresno citizens became aware that the city’s older homes were being eliminated by new development and remodeling.

The Meux Family Home was a residence that had a rich community history and architectural significance, so it was purchased by the City of Fresno in 1973 to be restored.

Although it was structurally sound, it needed a lot of cosmetic work to be restored to its original beauty.

The home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. In 1977, it was opened to the public thanks to the many people who lent their time, talents, money and materials to the restoration effort.

Now the Meux Home is one of the first attractions many people who relocate to Fresno, like Carolyn and Jerry Garrett, visit.

The Garretts are originally from Texas but just moved to the area from San Jose.

“We’re new to Fresno, so my husband thought this would be a great sight to see,” Carolyn Garrett said.

The people who volunteer at the museum agree that it is a must-see attraction for anyone visiting or living in Fresno.

Siebert was a volunteer on the first day of operation in May of 1977, and she is still giving tours today.

“We moved here from Santa Barbara, and I was not a happy camper,” Siebert said. She and her husband came to Fresno in the 1970s and lived in an apartment across the street from the Meux Home while they were waiting for their own house to be built.

“I didn’t know a thing about Fresno, nor did I know anyone when we moved here,” she said.

She heard an announcement on the radio that the museum was looking for docents, and she applied right away.

“I took one look and fell in love,” Siebert said of the Meux Home. “I’ve been here ever since.”

Colleen Sephre has been a docent at the Meux Home for about 14 years, and she is proud that this museum stands out from others in the world as a unique place.

“Just about a month ago we had a couple come from Northern California. They had been to Europe, and they had been all throughout the South of the United States, visiting Victorian mansions,” Sephre said.

After their tour was over, the couple commented on how personable the docents at the Meux Home were, and they said they learned things they did not learn on other tours.

“We try to tell a little bit about early Fresno, a little about Victorian history and a little about the Meuxes to try and make the house come alive,” Sephre said.

She also said that the museum’s decorations and the docents’ costumes play a big role in the overall ambiance.

The house has been made as authentic-looking as possible, especially because thousands of elementary school children tour the Meux Home every year.

“The reason we have little make-believe desserts in the kitchen is to make it look like the family just kind of got up and went to town,” Sephre said.

Sephre and Siebert agree that the Meux family would be pleased that the residence has been preserved, and they laugh when children ask if the house is haunted.

Sephre said the only “disturbance” was a night in 1980 when the home was broken into by two men.

At the time, the museum had about $45,000 worth of antique dolls on display that were on loan from private collectors.

The thieves were hiding behind the Meux Home’s piano with garbage bags full of antique dolls when they were discovered by police.

“It’s a very friendly house,” Siebert said.

She has been there several times at night and said it never has a foreboding feeling, regardless of the decades-old furniture, clothing, crafts, toys, photographs and other antiques on display.

Sephre said it is her own interest in antiques and history that keeps her involved with the Meux Home year after year.

“It’s a labor of love,” she said.