Gadsby's Tavern Museum

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  The Ice Well at Gadsby's Tavern – Loaded with ice for a promotional event

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  Gadsby's Tavern Ice Well: 1970s existing view of area before restoration

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  Ice Well Viewing Area: Plan – Corner of Cameron and North Royal Streets, Alexandria, Va

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  Street view of Gadsby's Tavern Ice Well after restoration and redesign

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  Inviting access to the Ice Well view-spot with graphics

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  View into the new glass-domed ice well

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  Details of architecture, craft, and graphic design at the ice well

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  The inviting architecture of the ice-well viewing platform is always open to visitors

Built in 1792, Gadsby's Tavern served the most fashionable iced refreshments to George Washington, and other Alexandria residents. Along with year-round cool-drinks, popular ice cream flavors included oyster and parmesan. The tavern's ice well made this possible in the 18th century.

Gadsby's Tavern is a National Historic Landmark with history museum and a colonial-themed restaurant. While ice is no longer harvested from nearby rivers and stored under the corner of Royal and Cameron streets, it has the only exisiting commercial urban ice well in the city.

The restored brick and bluestone street-corner subtly welcomes the public to explore the ice well under their feet. Carved-in-stone interpretative graphics monumentalize the site, while improved visibilty and accessibility is achieved with minimal impact on historic character of the neighborhood. 

The integration of art, architecture and craft, along with the collaboration between museum curator, Bell Architects, Paris Design, stone carver & masons, metal & glass fabricators was critical to the project. This public exhibit space balances blending in and standing out, within the context of the 18th century surroundings.

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