kemerer museum of decorative arts

Has all decorative arts, textiles, dolls, porcelain, china and glassware. Lovely expanded larger building with a gift shop. Rooms set with Victorian furnishings and clothing items. I believe it is free if you pay to visit the Moravian museum. Set on a lovely downtown street with other Victorian buildings. Dollhouse collection that is just grand. Tour guide offers info on the museum items and life in Bethlehem PA in the 18th an 19th century.

This museum has wonderful pieces to view. Each floor of this historic building has displays of interesting items and history of the local area. The doll house collection is my favorite. We also enjoyed the highlighted artist of the month. Keep up the good work on this excellent museum.

Let me first say that I have been looking forward to visiting this museum and eagerly awaiting the reopening. I will also say I hope to get back to it and find it excellent. The Kemerer Museum reopened in September and like a new restaurant, seems to be having trouble figuring out it's menu and training it's staff. Housed in a lovely colonial revival building, nicely renovated. It is Christmas and the garden club had decorated several trees, also very nice. The reason for my disappointment was twofold: our docent, while pleasant, had very little idea the period or composition of many of the items we were being shown. Secondly, I primarily came to see the Prime dollhouse and toy collection. Only two large dollhouses with interiors and two small dollhouses were on display of the 600 plus collection! Instead we were rushed through a series of rooms filled for the most part with a mish-mosh of mid level victorian and colonial revival furniture and decorative objects. With the exception of two small rooms, the furniture and objects had no relation to one another. It seemed a waste of resources and frankly, poorly executed in several of the rooms. I will visit again, and I really really hope that us regular folks and not just researchers can see more of that dollhouse collection!

What a nice visit.....make sure you don't miss. So many lovely items and in astoundingly great condition. Very good docent, she was very knowledgeable.

This small museum that spotlights the history of Bethlehem is made up of three or four connected buildings that formerly served as comfortable homes. The transition between the buildings is seamless, and the displays are beautifully done--and very interesting. (Be sure to take the guided tour.) The dollhouse collection is a treat! The museum has a small but nice gift shop.