Asa Packer Mansion Museum in Jim Thorpe will be open to visitors for the first time this weekend in over a year.

The museum, located on Packer Hill Avenue, closed for the season in the second week of December in 2019 and never opened last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Museum Director and Curator Ava Bretzik said it will be exciting to have guests back inside the mansion, even if the tours will look a bit different.

“It’s been a bit sad and eerie to walk in the house over the last year and have it so quiet and everything covered with sheets,” she said. “While we can’t do the normal hour long tours, we are going to do a glorified walk through with up to 10 people in a room at the time.”

The mansion will be open weekends only from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. until further notice. The cost for the walk through tours is $6 and are being sold on a first come, first served basis.

Guides will be stationed throughout the home to assist visitors.

Masks will be required for all guests over 4 years old.

The Museum has been professionally cleaned and sanitized following U.S. Center for Disease Control guidelines before reopening and reduced hours will allow for museum staff to disinfect between visiting days. A Plexiglas barrier has been mounted at the museum’s front desk.

The Mansion was the home of philanthropist, railroad magnate, and founder of Lehigh University, Asa Packer. It was built in 1861 by Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan over a span of two years and cost a total of $14,000 dollars.

It consists of three stories, 18 rooms and approximately 11,000 square feet of living space.

Asa’s daughter’s, Mary Packer Cummings, home and all its contents belong to the Borough of Mauch Chunk.

The Bear Mountain Lions, now the Jim Thorpe Lions Club, opened to the public on Memorial Day 1956.

“Last year,” Bretzik said, “is actually the first time the building had been closed since 1956.”