DANVERS — The Danvers Historical Society will host a fundraiser later this month to fix up a beloved spot at Glen Magna Farms.
The gazebo at the edge of the property’s main garden is a replica of one built in the 1840s by the Endicott family.
Its curved white roof and green latticework have made it a unique feature of the historical site and popular wedding venue, but the structure needs to be replaced more than three decades after it was built.
The Historical Society replaced the gazebo’s floor last winter. That’s when they saw the beams supporting the structure had rotted and that the entire structure needed to be replaced, society President Dave McKenna said.
DeGeorge Home Improvement has agreed to build the new gazebo for free, but the society still needs to buy the supplies for the project.
McKenna projects the society needs to raise about $20,000 for the materials. He’s hoping to meet some of that goal during a fundraiser at Glen Magna Farms on Oct. 20 from 2-5 p.m.
The “Gathering for the Gazebo” event will be hosted under the property’s large tent rain or shine. Tickets cost $45 per person and are available through 5 p.m. on Oct. 15.
“Hopefully it’ll raise some badly needed money for putting the gazebo back on its feet and getting the building back to its condition of how the Endicotts designed it,” McKenna said.
The original gazebo was removed from Glen Magna in 1958, shortly after its last resident, Louise Thoron Endicott, died. Her husband’s family had lived on the property for over a century, and she wrote it in her will that her nephew Benjamin Ward Thoron on Martha’s Vineyard should receive the gazebo upon her death.
Known as the Peabody Gazebo and designed by Francis Peabody, the son of Glen Magna’s original owner, Joseph Peabody, both ancestors of the Endicotts, the original gazebo now stands in the gardens of the 1840s-era Daniel Fisher House on Martha Vineyard.
To purchase tickets for the historical society’s “Gathering for the Gazebo,” visit www.danvershistory.org/ or call 978-777-1666.
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com.