Oliver Wight House
Near Worcester, Massachusetts
The Oliver Wight House in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, sits within Old Sturbridge Village, the living history museum that recreates rural New England life from roughly seventeen ninety to eighteen forty. The house itself dates to about seventeen eighty-nine and is a fine example of Georgian vernacular architecture, built by Oliver Wight, a Sturbridge cabinetmaker. Its five-bay facade and center-chimney plan represent the standard vocabulary of prosperous New England farm and village houses at the end of the eighteenth century.
Old Sturbridge Village acquired the house as a contributing structure to its interpretation of early American rural life. The surrounding museum grew from a private collection assembled by the Wells family of Southbridge beginning in the nineteen twenties and opened to the public in nineteen forty-six. Today the Oliver Wight House functions as the museum's inn, offering overnight stays inside a genuine period structure, which means visitors can sleep in a building that was standing when George Washington was still alive.
