Dedham's Historical Fairbanks House Goes Virtual

DEDHAM, MA — Dedham's historical Fairbanks House found a creative way to get people in the door while keeping residents safe from the coronavirus. The Fairbanks House rolled out its new virtual tours option this week which lets users wander through the home and interact with artifacts, all from the comfort of their couch.

The Fairbanks House, located at 511 East Street, is the oldest timber frame house in America and usually draws thousands of visitors for tours. With non-essential businesses closed under Governor Charlie Baker's stay-at-home order, the house is closed for physical tours. Justin Schlesinger, Vice President of the Fairbanks house and relative to the original Fairbanks family, came up with the idea of offering a virtual and interactive tour.

"We took it as an opportunity to bring the old house into the 21st century," Schlesinger said.

The tour is a step above the average photo slideshow or video. Using 3-D imaging, users can virtually walk through the entire home, clicking and swiping through different viewpoints and items to get a detailed history.

For $10, users can hop from dot to dot, jumping from the parlor chamber to the west wing to the hall, moving about each room with real-life photos of the layout and concise explainers adorning knick-knacks and objects along the way. The average guided tour at Fairbanks House takes 50-60 minutes. Purchasing a ticket to the virtual tour grants one user access for 48 hours from one device.

"Doll house" views of the home offer the user a chance to see the exact layout of the home as well as 360 degree views of the inside and outside of the property.

The Fairbanks House contracted Nick Papps with Synchro Films to take 3-D scans of the home and put the tour together. Papps said this was one of his first museum projects and welcomed the change of pace.

"This was a lot of fun because it incorporated putting yourself in someone's shoes and there were multiple things to engage with," Papps said.

Because the home is famed for its architecture, the board and tour designers added a measurement feature, allowing users to measure any part of the home and get an up-close view of the timber holding the structure together.

The planning of the project and deciding what should be included took the bulk of the workload, Papps said. Once there was a clear-cut template for what was included, how it would be displayed and interacted with, the filming and editing was a breeze.

While the virtual tours started as a way to make the house museum accessible during the coronavirus closures, it has proved to be a major asset and compliment to traditional tours, Schlesinger said. The museum plans to keep the virtual tours open after the economy opens up — there are even talks of adding virtual ghost tours for Halloween.

Delicate artifacts and previously off-limits parts of the home are showcased in the tour — a valuable bonus Schlesinger highlighted. Perhaps the most valuable asset from the virtual tours is access to people with disabilities and people overseas.

Just two days after the virtual tour went live, the website has already had nearly 5,700 virtual visitors.

"The feedback we've gotten has been really positive," Papps said.

While many businesses struggle with the closures, Schlesinger said he counts the Fairbanks House lucky to have found a way to not only supplement the usual tour season but compliment it for the future and hopes more small house museums do the same.

"This virtual tour brings a new life to the old house, along with a new way of learning, and it is something everyone should see," Schlesinger said.