+Friday, August 8: Sunset/Full Moon Paddle (6:30PM - 8:30PM)

The ever popular Full Moon Paddle returns! The Indigenous Eastern Woodlands Tribes called this moon the Sturgeon Moon due to the abundance of this species during August. Today our sturgeon fish population are being closely monitored. Sturgeons are the most endangered species group on earth. These gentle giants have been around since the age of the dinosaurs, but are now on the brink of extinction due to overfishing, a flourishing illegal caviar trade and habitat loss. But we can still save sturgeons and in the process, revive the rivers they live in for the benefit of people and nature. Come explore the beautiful habitat we conserve to protect this ancient species and watch the sunset over the water.

Kayak rentals include all equipment (kayak, paddle, seat, life jacket). Guided paddles are led by our Director of Education & Programs, Alice French. Join a group of kayakers and enjoy Cat Point Creek together! Learn more about kayak rentals here.

This year Menokin introduces family fun festivities celebrating Independence Day with a festival and kayak fun! Join us for food, music, scavenger hunts, & kayaking. Then follow your picnic with a firework show in Richmond County!

July Guided Paddles:

Thursday, July 3: Sunset Paddle (6:30PM - 8:30PM)

Friday, July 4: Special 1 Hr Family Paddles at 2PM and 3:30PM ($5/person)

Saturday, July 5: Morning Paddle (10AM - 12PM)

(early bird house tours at 4 pm)

Join us at the Glass House Gala at Menokin to celebrate our Glass House restoration as part of the Virginia 250th Celebration!

This summer, Menokin will embark on a $1.67 million project to build back Menokin's front door and improve access to Francis Lightfoot Lee's study thanks to a game-changing grant of $1.25M from the Virginia 250 Preservation Fund.

We invite you to join us at the ruin for a celebratory evening to recognize what we've accomplished and where we are going next. We will honor Martin Kirwan King, Menokin's founding director, and his wife, Tish. Thirty years after the creation of the Menokin Foundation, Martin's vision still drives our work.

Join us on a special guided hike on Earth Day, April 22, where you will embark on a journey through our nature trails and discover what Mother Earth has cultivated.

There are 2 time slots to choose from: 11AM & 2PM. $10/person.

Did you know that Virginia is known for its “gourmet peanuts” that create the most delectable peanut products sought all over the state?

Come see us on March 1, 12PM-2PM, and enjoy Peanut Butter Lovers Day by going on a scavenger hunt, taste some delicious peanut products and learn some fun facts about Virginia’s ever growing crop: The Peanut!

This is a FREE event, so RSVP below!

This is a beginner-level workshop meant to start you on your genealogical journey! Your instructor will guide you through accessing materials through certain databases and archives, understanding sources and how to interpret them, and creating your own family tree. Although some of the content specifically looks at African American Genealogy tips and tricks, the skills learned in these workshops can be used by anyone interested in genealogy who doesn’t know where to start.

$20/person. Refreshments will be served.

About Your Instructor

Kiana Wilkerson is the Research Associate to Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble, University Professor of Medical Humanities at George Washington University. In this position, she researches the areas of African American medical history, history of medicine and public health.

She is a graduate from the College of William and Mary as well as Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Kiana has experience in archaeology, history, and genealogy, which has developed her skills in museum research and engagement. When she is not reading comics, writing, or going to the movies, she enjoys spending time with her cat, Walt, her family, and friends.

This next Menokin Elements webinar continues our Makerspaces series with Tim Eggers of the Fredericksburg Workshop. The webinar is on July 12 from 7-8pm Eastern.

Tim Eggers brings 18 years of experience of skill and experience to the 'table' (indeed, he makes fine unique tables). He is s a high-end maker of furniture and clocks. His works are functional art, using quality wood and a mix of traditional hand tools and modern machinery to craft unique and beautiful objects.

Tim is also one of the founders of the Fredericksburg Area Woodworker's Guild - an informal monthly gathering of 80 or so local and regional woodworkers looking to supplement their skills and meet other woodworkers.

Join us for this engaging conversion about Tim’s vision for makerspaces within his community and beyond.

Work on the Glass House Project at Menokin resumes in early June 2023. This phase focuses on re-stabilization of the North Wall (front of the house) by reassembling the wall up to the water table from the ground level, as well as work inside the cellar to shore up the NE Corner. More details to come. 

Learn all about the Glass House Project's history from early days to present via the timeline. Come take a tour and see the stonemasons from Dominion Builders Group in action. 

Visit the Glass House Project Timeline here - bit.ly/3lN5cuT

This next Menokin Elements webinar continues our Makerspaces series with Janice Jones of the Montross Art Center in Montross, Va. The webinar is on May 17 from 7-8PM Eastern.

An excerpt from the story of Janice’s journey culminating in the Arts Center of Montross reads:

“The Arts Center of Montross opened on June 1.  We have six studio/resident artists and feature the work of 20 other artists.  I am extremely gratified that I have been given this opportunity.  We want to make the Center a destination rather than a random experience.  We are also making inroads in the Community as we just featured the first annual art show for the County Art Teachers and will celebrate National Youth Art Month annually by having a show for the County art students.  This is only a small sampling of our plans – stay tuned!”

Join us for this sure to be amazing conversation with Janice about her own personal journey and vision for the Arts Center moving forward.

Historic Garden Week in the Northern Neck is coming up on April 19, 2023 from 10am-4pm. Be sure to also stop by Menokin while you are in Warsaw touring the Chinn House, the Jones House, Sabine Hall, and Belle Ville.

While at Menokin, you'll be able to tour the historic ruin of the former home of Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and his wife Rebecca Tayloe Lee. You can also explore the indigenous flora of the Menokin landscape in full bloom and hear a preview of historic preservation plans for original terraced gardens adjacent to the ruin

Shuttle service will be provided or you may drive over with free parking. The shuttle will leave on the hour from 11am to 3pm from the Verizon Building at 79 Main Street in Warsaw to Menokin, and double-back to the same location. Menokin staff and volunteers will be at the Visitors Center and the historic ruin to give tours, answer questions, and share the beauty of the landscape.

We look forward to seeing you here at Menokin! Download the flyer here.

Our first webinar is on March 15 at Noon Eastern with Will Holman, Executive Director of Open Works. Educated as an architect at Virginia Tech and Auburn University's Rural Studio, Will Holman is the founding Executive Director of Open Works, a makerspace in Baltimore City. Open Works is one of the largest nonprofit makerspaces in the United States, with 7 workshops, two classrooms, a computer lab, a mobile makerspace, 115 studio spaces, and a coffee shop.

Will's work is interested in expanding access to the means of production through writing, community development, and open-source design. Join us for what is sure to be a fascinating and informative discussion!

Join us November 16, 7PM - 8PM Eastern time for the next of our Menokin Elements webinars, “The American Indian Heritage Trail” with Dr. Lauren McMillan, University of Mary Washington professor of historic preservation, Nicholas Minor, Director of King George County Economic Development & Tourism, and special guests.

The American Indian Heritage Trail project examines how preservation of historical landscapes benefits tourism and empowers communities. It also considers how trips interpret cultural landscapes without boundaries while driving enthusiasts to learn more about the region and seek out new places.

Menokin is pleased to present Interpreting Architectural Ruins with Elizabeth Judd and Josh Stutz

This Elements webinar looks at sites where ruins are conserved in different ways. We will look at the reasons to preserve a ruin, the ways it is interpreted, its relationship to its landscape, and why we value ruins in today’s culture.  

Elizabeth Judd is going into her fourth year as the Executive Director at the Rosewell Foundation and will be overseeing the much anticipated conservation project of the ruins beginning later this spring. Receiving her masters at Hofstra University with a focus on architectural history, she was a curator in Manhattan, Brooklyn and East Hampton before moving back to her native Virginia.

Josh Stutz is the Executive Director for Friends of the James River Park. He has a background in nonprofit management and museum education. He received his MA in Nonprofit Management from Antioch University Los Angeles in September of 2017 before moving to Richmond to be closer to family. Previously he has worked with the USS Missouri Memorial Association in Pearl Harbor, the Pacific Battleship Center in Los Angeles, and several great local nonprofit organizations including HomeAgain and Feed More. Josh enjoys spending time on the river with his family and is proud to be serving the Richmond community by working to protect, expand, and enhance the James River Park System.

On February 16, author, playwright, poet, educator and artist, Larry D. Giles will discuss the book he is writing about his childhood memories of growing up in rural Essex County and the Northern Neck. Larry’s poetry and creative nonfiction often center on family, on reinvention and preservation of culture and community, rural Virginia life along the Rappahannock, and on personal resilience and strength, with sometimes mystical multicultural inter-weavings.

Registration is now closed. A recording will be available after the program.

Elements is a series centered on architectural preservation. These discussions look at how preservation of the building trades assures historic skills and craftsmanship continue to be taught, valued, understood and integrated into modern building design in the 21st century. Some webinars will also consider examples from new developments in building resources and materials. This will feature Tim Winther (Senior project manager and craftsman, Dominion Traditional Building Group) and Michael Spencer (Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington) discussing stone.

Registration is now closed. For a recording of the program, please contact Alice French at afrench@menokin.org or 804-333-1776.

 September 24 to December 19, 2021

South African artist Dineo Seshee Bopape’s upcoming art exhibition calls to the elements: earth, wind, fire, and water…summoned in various languages from West and Southern Africa, and features new works spanning video, sculpture, installation, and animation.  The exhibition, opening on September 24th at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, pays homage to those who were taken, those who struggled, those who fled, and those who still seek sanctuary in the liminal spaces between captivity and an illegal freedom. By transforming soil samples from Virginia, Louisiana, Senegal, Ghana, and South Africa into material for sculpture and video, Bopape highlights the connectedness of the disparate places—historically and materially. She forges harmonic conversations with ancestral pasts, presences, and futures.

For inspiration and exhibition materials, Dineo travels to Menokin to meet with Menokin’s Descendant Collective who represent those that were descended from enslaved laborers at the Warsaw, VA plantation. Menokin’s history, the legacies of the enslaved community, and modern descendants will be featured in the new exhibition.

Read the full description of the exhibition here.

To RSVP to the exhibition opening celebration on September 24, visit the ICA website.

Elements is a series centered on architectural preservation. These discussions look at how preservation of the building trades assures historic skills and craftsmanship continue to be taught, valued, understood and integrated into modern building design in the 21st century. Some webinars will also feature new developments in building resources and materials.

This webinar will focus on metal, featuring Hank Handler, craftsman and co-founder of Oak Grove Restoration Company, and Ken Schwarz, master blacksmith at Colonial Williamsburg. In what ways can the building trades assure the historic skills of metal craftsmanship continue to be valued and integrated into the future?

Registration is now closed. A recording will be available to all registrants.

This program has been made possible thanks to individual donors who support our educational programming. We appreciate your support and hope you continue to follow our new online programming. If you enjoy this program, please consider making a gift to the Annual Campaign to support future Menokin programming.

Look for our next programming with Research & Relevance in August, featuring historic interpretations of the trans-Atlantic slave trade with artist Dineo Bopape and the Institute of Contemporary Art/VCU in Richmond.

Research & Relevance is a series of webinars centered on the research we continue to collect about Menokin's cultural landscape and its people, and its relevance in our modern lives.

On Thursday, June 17, join us for B(l)ack on a Plantation, a Research & Relevance webinar focused on the Black person’s experience of plantation sites. From 1769 to 1865, Menokin was residence to over 200 enslaved people. From the Lees to the Hardwoods, each family that owned Menokin was dependent on the forced labor of these enslaved men, women, and children to ensure that Menokin remained successful and profitable while also having their personal needs attended to. Menokin honors the lives and legacies of the people that were so essential to not only its creation but its daily operation.

Featuring panelists Wisteria Perry, an educator and historical interpreter from the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, VA; Reginald Pearman, a Menokin Board Trustee, educator and photographer; Frank Johnson, a descendant of enslaved people who lived at Menokin and current Chair of the local Richmond County History Museum; and Justin Reid, Director of Community Initiatives at Virginia Humanities, as moderator.

Registration is now closed. A recording will be available at a later date.

This webinar is free thanks to generosity of our donors. Consider making a gift to the Annual Campaign to support future Menokin programming.

Elements is a series centered on architectural preservation. These discussions look at how preservation of the building trades, assure historic skills and craftsmanship continue to be taught, valued, understood and integrated into modern building design in the 21st century. Some webinars will also consider examples from new developments in building resources and materials.

This discussion will focus on the material of brick, featuring panelists Calder Loth and Matt Webster. Loth and Webster will discuss the history of brick design and techniques in preservation. “When we look at a historic building, we’re rightly struck by it’s age and character, yet we pay too little attention to the individual components that create the whole. The effort spent crafting and assembling brick walls can tell us much about 18th century life” (Matt Webster, Stories In The Walls). And finally, in what ways can the building trades assure the historic skills of brick craftsmanship continue to be valued and integrated into the future?

Registration is now closed. Thank you!

The Elements is a bi-monthly webinar series that focuses on the intersection of architectural preservation and the five elements through wood, brick, stone, metal, and glass. The first element featured will be wood. Architect Reid Freeman of REID architecture PLLC and master craftsman Craig Jacobs of Salvagewrights will discuss wood design in historic materials; techniques in preservation; past and contemporary uses; and why we preserve architecture. Registration is now closed. The webinar will be recorded.

This webinar is free thanks to generosity of our donors. Consider making a gift to the Annual Campaign to support future Menokin programming.