by Celeste Hardester, CHCA Community Manager

The Chestnut Hill Community Association created a very memorable Holiday House Tour on Saturday. This event happens every year, thanks to an amazing number of passionate, talented and steadfast volunteers, and thanks to the homeowners who generously open their houses so hundreds of guests can come inside to see the homes decked out for the holidays.

If you went on the tour, you know that it included a diverse range of properties. Thanks to the participation of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, four homes on the market were on the tour. These included a condominium at Anglecot, Edgecumbe, a modern home on West Gravers, the Design Home on East Gravers, and a remarkable home on Norwood Avenue that is listed as a significant property on the Chestnut Hill Historical Society registry.

Just having the opportunity to go inside this home was a gift – to have it on the tour was a privilege, and the designers who decorated it did right by the opportunity. If you didn’t come on the tour, you really missed a special experience. We thank Berkshire Hathaway for making this possible.

As a very fun addition to the tour, the Chestnut Hill Hotel opened three of its rooms, which were decorated very playfully for the holidays. The hotel also served as a convenient hub for the tour, and it was gracious in accommodating the needs of a steady flow of tour-goers. We have had lots of positive feedback about the hotel being on the tour and thank the hotel management for being such great hosts.

Woodmere Art Museum served as our registration site. It welcomed tour-goers into the heart of the museum, with registration set up in the rotunda. We loved that. And the the museum provided refreshments and its own special holiday display. It did its best to provide an easy home-base for tour-goers who took the trolley, despite buckets of rain. We thank everyone at Woodmere who graciously managed a challenging and wet environment.

The tour is a true community event and would not be possible without the financial support and participation of many local businesses. Thanks in particular to our loyal sponsor, Chestnut Hill Hospital. And thank you to all the businesses that helped decorate, placed ads in our program book, offered discounts to tour-goers, and in general sustained us in this, the CHCA’s most important fund-raising event of the year.

The Holiday House Tour came to life this year within a very cramped schedule, and it is with great respect and gratitude that we thank the volunteers who kept the can-do attitude and made it all happen. Special thanks also go to the dozens of day-of-the-tour volunteers who greeted people in the homes, to Weavers Way for helping to provide volunteers, to the CHCA board of directors and staff who helped drive the event and some who had the challenging duty of assisting tour-goers and trolleys through a persistent downpour.

And, most of all, thank you to all the loyal tour-goers who came, undaunted by the rain, to see this outstanding tour.