At one point the Ursinus College varsity football team lived at 151 W. Main Street in Trappe and used the house as its dormitory. Later it became a women's dorm. After World War II the college sold it, and it went back to being a private house before it was cut up into apartments. That account comes from Lisa Minardi, executive director of Historic Trappe, speaking to CBS News Philadelphia.
Starting November 20, the same house will be decorated for an 18th-century Christmas. Historic Trappe says this is the first time the Speaker's House has ever opened for the holidays. That changes the season on this stretch of Main Street. Dewees Tavern and the Muhlenberg House have long been holiday stops. With the Speaker's House added, all three Historic Trappe sites are now open at Christmas, a few minutes' walk apart, and together they tell one family's story across a single stretch of road.
Two centuries of other owners
Frederick Muhlenberg bought the house in 1781. In his lifetime he worked as a farmer and as a Lutheran pastor. "He works his way up from the Continental Congress to Montgomery County to the state constitutional convention to the first speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives," Minardi told CBS News Philadelphia. Historic Trappe says he and his family lived there until 1803.
Then the house changed hands many times. The Muhlenbergs sold it to a piano maker from Philadelphia, and over the 1800s it passed to a doctor, a senator and various farmers before Ursinus acquired it. Every owner left changes behind. Saving the house from demolition, raising money for it and doing the restoration took about 25 years.
The restoration turned up something useful. "As we stripped away all the later renovations and changes," Minardi told CBS, "what we found, thankfully, was that previous builders were very thrifty and they saved pieces of original doorframe, chair rail and floorboard." She compared rebuilding the house to a jigsaw puzzle. The kitchen has been fully restored. Minardi has worked on the project since she was a junior at Ursinus, the same college whose football players once slept in the house.
Historic Trappe dedicated the house this year with a free open house, and Montco Today described the dedication as the first time the public would be welcomed inside. Minardi put the timing in national terms: "This is 2026, the semiquincentennial. There's not too many historic houses, especially of this importance and this age, that are being restored new and opened for the first time to the public in 2026."
Three houses, one family's Christmas
Each of the three sites tells a different part of the season, so the order you visit them in matters a little. Historic Trappe describes them this way.
Dewees Tavern
The tavern holds the decorative side of a Pennsylvania German Christmas. There are intricate German Erzgebirge woodcarvings, a towering Moravian Christmas pyramid and antique Noah's arks. The museum store is the place for gifts with local roots, including springerle cookies, redware pottery, fraktur, feather trees, Moravian stars and handcrafted ornaments.
The Muhlenberg House
This house covers the wartime story, showing what Christmas was like for families on the home front during the Revolution. On the December candlelight tours, interpreters in period clothing play Pastor Muhlenberg in his office and talk about the hardships his family faced in the winter of 1776.
The Speaker's House
The new stop picks up the family's story once it had become prominent. Historic Trappe says the house will be "decorated in splendid style," with a hearth cook working over the fire in the restored kitchen during evening programs. Outside, work continues on a kitchen garden. Its herbs and vegetables are meant to supply future community cooking classes in that kitchen.
Visited in that order, the three houses move from tradition to hardship to the household of the first Speaker. Until this year, that last chapter was not part of the Christmas visit.
The season, date by date
This post goes up on October 29, so the first holiday weekend is about three weeks away. Here is the calendar from Historic Trappe's events page and Montgomery County's listings, in order.
- Friday, November 20. Christmas at Historic Trappe opens. Tours and holiday shopping run Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m.
- Tuesday, November 24. Holiday Tours start at Pennypacker Mills, the county-run historic site, and continue through January 3, 2027.
- November 27 to 29. The first Weihnachtsmarkt weekend. This German Christmas market sits in the Education Center behind the Muhlenberg House at 201 W. Main St. Artisans sell redware, feather trees, ornaments and springerle cookies, with apple cider and cookies while you shop. Kids' crafts are in the Visitor Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 28, and from noon to 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 29.
- Wednesday, December 2, 6:30 p.m. The Trappe Tree Lighting at the Speaker's House. It includes a community sing-along, Santa courtesy of Trappe Fire Company No. 1, candy canes donated by the Trappe Dairy Queen, and cookies and hot cocoa served by local Scouts. The hearth cook will be working in the restored kitchen that night too.
- December 4 to 6. The second Weihnachtsmarkt weekend.
- Saturday, December 5, 3 to 9 p.m. Candlelight Tours at all three sites. The market stays open until 9 p.m., and kids' crafts run from 3 to 6 p.m.
- Sunday, December 6, noon to 4 p.m. Candlelight Tours continue, with kids' crafts from noon to 2 p.m.
- Saturday, December 12, 2 to 8 p.m. A free Victorian Christmas Open House at Pennypacker Mills.
The Weihnachtsmarkt keeps the same hours as the tours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays, except on the candlelight Saturday.
The tree lighting has a giving element. Historic Trappe asks guests to bring non-perishable food or toiletries for the Daily Bread Community Food Pantry.
Free evenings and ticketed afternoons
Two of the season's biggest events cost nothing. The Trappe Tree Lighting and the Candlelight Tours are both free, and both are sponsored by Phoenixville Federal Bank and Trust. Since the Candlelight Tours cover all three houses, December 5 and 6 are the free way to see the restored Speaker's House at Christmas.
The regular weekend Christmas tours charge Historic Trappe's standard admission, which can be bought at any of the three sites.
| Visitor | One site | All three sites |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | $10 | $20 |
| Senior, 65 and up | $8 | $18 |
| Student | $8 | $10 |
| Youth, 11 to 17 | $5 for all sites | $5 |
| Child, 10 and under | Free | Free |
| Member | Free | Free |
The youth ticket covers all the museums. On a quiet afternoon in late November, a family of two adults and two children under 11 can see all three houses for $40. For adults, the $20 all-sites ticket costs the same as two $10 single-site tickets, so the third house comes at no extra cost.
Historic Trappe lists two end dates. The events page runs the Christmas season through January 10, while the visitor page lists Christmas hours through January 3. If you're planning a visit after New Year's, check with Historic Trappe before you go.
Getting there along W. Main Street
All three sites sit close together on W. Main Street in Trappe, just up the road from Collegeville. For the tree lighting, Historic Trappe points visitors to parking across the street at the Trappe Shopping Center. For the spring dedication it also offered parking at St. Luke's Fellowship Church, 200 W. Main Street.
If you come from the Perkiomen Township side, one road may affect your route. Township Line Road has been closed since August 17 for replacement of the Lodal Creek bridge. Perkiomen Township's October 17 update expects it to reopen on Friday, November 6, a date already pushed back once from an earlier projection of October 25. Treat that date as a target, not a promise, until the township confirms it.
The Speaker's House also isn't the last project on Historic Trappe's list. Minardi told CBS News Philadelphia that the goal over the next few years is to add Muhlenberg's general store. This year's Christmas is the first with three houses open, and Historic Trappe hopes it won't be the last expansion.
If you're hosting family in Collegeville or Trappe this season and want a nearby suggestion for an afternoon out, or if you'd like to talk about anything home-related once the holidays settle down, Luke Miller Team is glad to help. Contact Us any time. We'll answer your questions as patiently as we do about anything else, and maybe see you at the tree lighting on December 2.
