Monrovia’s Anderson House Needs Your Help to Finance a Roof

By TerryMiller

The Monrovia Historical Society (Society), a separate organization from MOHPG, was formed in 1979 to assume the care and maintenance of the George H. Anderson House Museum — a fully-furnished 1886 Queen Anne Victorian home depicting family life in Monrovia at that time in history.

The Anderson House was painstakingly restored by Monrovia volunteers and passed from the Friends of the Monrovia Public Library to a newly created Historical Society. But, membership in the Society declined over the years and founding members passed away, and the Society itself became dormant. Sadly, with fewer volunteers it was no longer open to the public. The creation of the Monrovia Legacy Project (Project), made official by the City Council in September 2015, helped to correct this situation.

One goal of the Project (the primary goal of the Project itself)was to digitize the City Historians’ photos and papers, which belonged to theSociety, and make them available to the public. That effort, a three-yearundertaking, is now complete and you can access the Project’s collectionof over 6,000 items online at cityofmonrovia.pastperfectonline.com.

The other goal was to revitalize the Society so that it couldenlist new members, raise funds and work towards restoring the Anderson House andonce again open it to the public.

Since then, the Anderson House has served as an example of what aturn of the 20th century home might have looked like on the inside. Furnitureand other artifacts re-create the living environment from that time period.

Now the house is in desperate need of a new roof, and you can help. Materials for that purpose have been secured but the cost to install them will run about $10,000. The Society has set the end of February as the deadline for taking donations.

Because the Society is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation, donations are tax-deductible and can be made to “Anderson House Roof Fund” and mailed to:
Monrovia Historical Society
P.O. Box 1898
Monrovia, CA 91017

A GoFundMe account has also been set up to take donations: gofundme.com/f/historic-anderson-house-needs-a-roof.

At the present time the museum does not have regular visiting hours. However, if you wish to make arrangements to view the interior, contact Monrovia Historical Society.