Elephant House, also known as the Edward Gorey House, is the home on Cape Cod that Edward Gorey, author, illustrator, puppeteer and playwright, lived and worked in when he left New York City.
Located at 8 Strawberry Lane, Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, USA 41°42′19″N 70°14′33″W / 41.70528°N 70.2425°W / 41.70528; -70.2425, the home currently serves as a museum celebrating the life and work of Edward Gorey.
Gorey had a healthy respect and passion for animals, was an advocate for them, and contributed to animal welfare organizations. He loved cats in particular, thus the activities of the House, from art education to interactive exhibits, have a special focus on animal welfare.
Gorey enjoyed collecting things of all sorts; some of them discarded objects found at the side of the road. These he loved to arrange and display on his porch and in the rooms of Elephant House. He also had a large collection of books and an overflowing library.
A photo essay on these collections, the house itself, and Gorey’s life there, can be found in the book: Elephant House: Or, The Home of Edward Gorey by Kevin McDermott (Photographer).
A schedule of exhibits at the house can be found at its website.
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The front of the house
Famous quotes containing the words elephant and/or house:
“So slowly the hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The night in prison was novel and interesting enough.... I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)