|
Inside the Marston House: Restoring a San Diego Legacy
By Alana Coons and Robin Lakin
January/February 2026
 Photo by Sandé Lollis |
We are delighted to share exciting developments at the Marston House Museum. With the exterior beautifully restored, our focus has now turned inward, where transformative work is bringing the house's rooms to life.
This is the first in a series of Our Heritage eNews articles describing SOHO's interpretation of the domestic, socially conscious lives the Marston family led within this special home.
In 2009, SOHO assumed operation of the Marston House for the City of San Diego after the previous operator, the San Diego History Center, concluded that managing the site no longer aligned with their goals. When SDHC departed, they removed artwork and various furnishings and left an assortment of pieces that SOHO agreed to keep in place temporarily.
Before SOHO could open for operations, urgently needed cleaning and repairs took precedence over interpretive work. The physical transformation began at once, thanks to the hands-on support of SOHO’s dedicated members, who for 22 days commenced in-depth cleaning and hand waxing yards and yards of redwood and oak paneling, stairway, trim, and windowsills, which had not seen care in years.
Next, we revitalized the east wing of the second floor, which had been closed to the public while being used for offices and storage. Quickly bringing these long-hidden spaces back into play required repainting the walls and restoring the oak floors.
This early Marston House Museum documentation portfolio pairs images taken on the first day SOHO assumed management of the historic property in June 2009 with photos of the same spaces five years later, revealing the impact of careful stewardship over that time.
During this period, we mounted several remarkable exhibitions, most notably a sweeping centennial celebration of the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition that filled nearly every room of the house. Collectors from San Diego and beyond entrusted us with more than 800 rare Exposition artifacts and Balboa Park landscape paintings and other artworks—an extraordinary assemblage never before, or since, brought together. See highlights of the exhibition here. We also published two expansive companion books for the exhibition: Balboa Park Exposition Designers 1915-1935, and Art of the Park, 100 Years of Art in Balboa Park (1915-2015).
We then designed, produced, and installed a permanent second floor exhibit showcasing original artifacts from the Marston family and the Marston Store, complemented by graphic storyboards that tell their story. The response has been incredibly positive: Visitors often leave saying they had never realized just how deeply influential and fascinating George Marston and his family were, with their unparallelled philanthropy and legacy in shaping San Diego for the greater good.
By 2021, after twelve years of safeguarding SDHC's possessions, we knew it was time to take a fresh look, managing another organization's collections were draining staff resources and slowing our interpretation efforts. Partnering with SDHC’s curatorial staff, we began a thorough review to update the museum inventory.
Finally, after three years of close collaboration with SDHC staff, the furnishings transition is complete. Now that all SDHC pieces have been returned, we have the exciting opportunity to reimagine the rest of the house with expert-informed interpretation, new exhibits, and expanded ways for the public to engage with the house and its family.
SOHO is implementing its long-planned interpretive approach, furnishing the Marston home to reflect as closely as possible how the family lived within its elegant redwood and plaster walls for more than eight decades. Guided by family memoirs and historic photographs, our goal is to create a welcoming, educational, and immersive experience that meaningfully introduces visitors to the family. For the first time since the house became a museum, the entire Marston family, including George and Anna's four daughters and one son, is represented. SOHO is offering a richer, more complete understanding of George Marston and family, and the full life they built here.
When the house became a museum in 1987, during the height of the Arts and Crafts revival, the SDHC carried out significant restoration, including removing the 1950s black paint from the oak woodwork and brick fireplace in the dining room. Although the public rooms were beautifully curated to showcase Arts and Crafts era pieces and aesthetics, the result was a stylized interpretation rather than how the Marstons actually lived.
SOHO takes a different approach to furnishing historic house museums. We tailor each interior to reflect the home’s unique story, presenting historic homes as authentic, lived-in residences. Whether a modest bungalow, a Victorian townhouse, a ranch house, or a grand estate, our goal is to inspire visitors and homeowners alike to appreciate and embrace real life in historic homes.
By celebrating historic homes as the functional, livable spaces they were meant to be, we not only raise public awareness but also demonstrate their enduring value. SOHO encourages stewardship of San Diego's historic places through contemporary, everyday living.
In anticipation of these changes, we have spent several years gathering period-appropriate furnishings through generous donations and long-term loans from SOHO staff, board members, members, and the Marston family.
Several furniture pieces that were originally used in the house have come home. Our research includes careful study of surviving decorative details—wallpapers, drapery samples, and other elements archived at SDHC—that reveal a preference for botanicals and floral patterns. Early photographs of the rooms show a fondness for velvet upholstery. These resources, combined with written records, family oral histories, and historic trends, are essential in interpreting a house museum accurately. Thanks to this conscientious work, SOHO is well on its way to presenting a more authentic reflection of the Marston family’s decades-long residency.
We hope you'll visit the refreshed, re-interpreted Marston House Museum often, and we invite you to follow this series through 2026, as we document the changes. Future articles in this year-long series will present a photo gallery for each room, highlighting its newly completed interpretation within the past year. From the library and living room to the kitchen, the sleeping porch, and more, each space now tells a more complete story of the remarkable family who called this house home.
BACK to table of contents
|
2026
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
|
