The Barbey Family Welcome Center at Heritage Museums & Gardens

Updates…

A Transformative Milestone

Heritage Museums & Gardens proudly opened the Barbey Family Welcome Center on Saturday, May 10, 2025, marking a transformative moment for the organization and its visitors.

Leading up to the opening, the campus underwent a major renovation that significantly improved the entry experience for our guests. During construction, traffic patterns to our parking areas were temporarily altered, with our dedicated security team assisting at every entrance, directing guests to drop-off zones and ADA-accessible parking. A new landscaped pathway was added along the left shoulder of the Flume Fountain lawn, creating a graceful and accessible connection between the Welcome Center and the heart of the grounds.

A Drone’s Eye View of the Barbey Family Welcome Center – Then & Now

Prior to the opening, visitors followed the construction journey as steel framing rose, and landscaping took shape. Aerial drone images offered breathtaking views of the emerging Welcome Center, revealing the scope and design of this exciting addition to the Heritage campus.

A New Standard of Welcome

The new Barbey Family Welcome Center now offers a gracious and inspiring gateway to the Heritage experience. Visitors are welcomed by an open-air entry courtyard that sets the tone for their visit, with amenities and services conveniently accessible in a warm and spacious environment. The site includes:

• A retail building with expanded space and open-air plant sales
• A ticketing and administrative building with four accessible ticket windows and elevator access
• The Clarissa S. Nye Visitor Center, featuring orientation materials, a visitor services desk, and a lower-level Board Room overlooking the iconic Flume Fountain
• A dedicated restroom building with modern facilities
• The newly created Flume Plaza, a serene space to gather before continuing on to the JK Lilly III Auto Gallery
• A lushly landscaped walking path bordering the Flume Lawn, edged with creeping hydrangea

The Former Location for The Shop at Heritage Demolition.

We’ve made some great memories in this building! We hope you have as well.

See Images from the Barbey Family Welcome Center Groundbreaking Ceremony – 2.7.2024

As the largest cultural attraction on Cape Cod, Heritage Museums & Gardens welcomes 130,000 visitors a year to explore its exciting museum exhibits and nearly 100 acres of gardens, outdoor discovery areas, and horticultural collections.

Visitors deserve a warm greeting consistent with the excellence of the overall Heritage experience. Yet the current entry, ticketing, and retail areas were built for annual attendance of just 25,000 people. Today, these 53-year-old facilities are deteriorating, undersized, and confusing to the needs of nearly five times as many visitors. A new welcome center solution is more urgent than ever!

Heritage’s Board of Trustees and lead donors are setting the pace in a capital campaign to support the construction of the new Welcome Center entirely through philanthropy. Please join them and explore the philanthropic opportunities that are most meaningful to you.

Your support will:

• Provide a gracious welcome to Cape Cod’s premier cultural attraction.
• Replace deteriorating facilities that were not built for Heritage’s growth and today’s visitor needs.
• More than double the square footage devoted to visitor services.
• Expand retail space, including for Heritage-propagated plants.
• Reveal exciting vistas of the stunning Flume Fountain from new vantage points.
• Model and interpret renewable energy and environmentally sustainable solutions in this facility.
• Create opportunities to make memories that will last a lifetime.
• Help us open the new Welcome Center in 2025!