What the House of Refuge Reopening Means Near Sewall's Point
August 13, 2026
August 13, 2026
In April, roughly three dozen plein air painters set up easels along the shoreline at Gilbert's Bar, canvases aimed at a building that had spent most of the past year wrapped in scaffolding. The Coastal Colors Paint Out was back for its second year, and for the first time since the House of Refuge closed for restoration, the artists had an unobstructed subject: a porch rebuilt board by board, a fresh coat of historically accurate paint, and the last visible signs of a project that was, by then, weeks from finished.
If you've lived near the point for a while, the reopening might register as a return to normal. The little museum on Hutchinson Island closes for repairs, the museum reopens, life resumes. That reading undercounts what actually happened while the doors were shut. The building didn't just get fixed. It got bigger, in the way that matters for whether you ever go back a second time.
The House of Refuge at Gilbert's Bar is the last of ten such stations built along Florida's Atlantic coast in the 1870s, and it's the oldest structure in Martin County, constructed in 1876 by the U.S. Life-Saving Service under Sumner Kimball. It closed to the public in mid-2025 for a restoration project that the Historical Society of Martin County initially expected to take six to eight months. It ran longer. Crews reinforced the structural pillars with cement, sanded the interior for a historically appropriate paint finish, and rebuilt nearly the entire original porch system, according to project updates from the Historical Society.
By March 2026, CBS12 reported the restoration was nearing completion after nine months of work, with construction expected to wrap by April 1 and a public reopening four to six weeks after that. Catherine Larsen, who keeps the House for the Historical Society, told the station the building has survived 75 storms since 1876. The timing lined up with the House's 150th anniversary on March 10, 2026, and by early May, Stuart Magazine was describing it as newly reopened following the nearly $1.8 million renovation.
That's the part that made local news. It's not the part that changes how you'll use the building.
Here's the detail that gets lost in "museum reopens after repairs" coverage: the project didn't return the House of Refuge to its old floor plan. It added an Overlook Gallery for rotating art exhibits and community workshops, plus an immersive exhibit called The Tempest, both timed to debut with the anniversary celebration, according to a Martin County Library System event listing previewing the milestone.
There's also a new permanent piece on the building itself. Artist Caroline Nolan painted an exterior mural titled "Nesting Shore," a tribute to the years the House of Refuge served as a working sea turtle refuge under Ross Witham, who ran Florida's Marine Turtle Program from the site from 1963 to 1987. The mural ties the building's least-known chapter, its turtle rehabilitation history, to something visible from the water side every time you walk the grounds.
None of that existed the last time you might have visited. A building that used to be a single, static walkthrough (the kind of stop a Tripadvisor reviewer once called "a great way to kill an hour") now has rotating gallery content and workshop programming layered onto the same maritime history exhibits. That's a different kind of destination. One you check on, rather than one you cross off.
The work those plein air painters made in April didn't stay at the House of Refuge. It went on exhibit a mile away at the Elliott Museum, running May 8 through August 31, 2026, as part of the wider anniversary celebration, according to a report from Treasure Coast Newspapers. If you want to see the collection, that window closes at the end of this month. It's a small thing, but it's the kind of small thing that's easy to miss if you assume the restoration story wrapped up back in the spring.
The House of Refuge isn't the only spot on the peninsula that quietly expanded its footprint this year. The Martin Artisans Guild has hosted monthly exhibitions at the Palm Room in Harbour Bay Plaza since 2019, but the group recently opened its own permanent gallery space near the east end of the same plaza, according to the Guild's own site. That's new. For years the Palm Room was a rotating exhibit space that came and went with each month's show. Now there's a fixed boutique and gallery presence, alongside the monthly first-Wednesday opening receptions, which typically run from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. with live music and food.
Put the two together and you get the same pattern twice in one year, on opposite ends of the same short stretch of road. A cultural stop that used to be one-and-done becomes a place with something new on the wall every few weeks.
Sewall's Point has been a designated Tree City since 1990, and the town maintains a Heritage Tree Program to recognize its older live oaks. That's the backdrop for Riverside Drive, the road most residents already use for a morning ride or an evening walk along the water. It happens to run the length of the peninsula between the two ends of this story: Harbour Bay Plaza near the top, and the bridge crossing to Hutchinson Island at the bottom, which gets you to Gilbert's Bar.
None of that infrastructure changed this year. What changed is that there's now a reason to ride the whole stretch instead of half of it. A first-Wednesday reception at the Palm Room and an afternoon at the House of Refuge used to be two separate errands on two separate days. They're close enough, and the road between them familiar enough, that they now read as one loop rather than two destinations.
The House of Refuge sits at 301 SE MacArthur Boulevard, which carries a Stuart mailing address, and it's physically located on Hutchinson Island, not on the Sewall's Point peninsula itself. The two share the same 34996 ZIP code, and the drive across the bridge takes a few minutes, but it isn't a walk from most Sewall's Point streets the way Harbour Bay Plaza is. Worth knowing before you plan an afternoon around walking the whole loop rather than driving one leg of it.
A building reopening after a restoration is a nice piece of local news and, on its own, not much of a reason to change how you spend a Saturday. What's different here is that both ends of this small loop, the House of Refuge and the Palm Room, added permanent new space this year, not just a fresh coat of paint. That's the part worth knowing if the last time you visited either one, you filed it under "seen it."
Sewall's Point doesn't get a lot of new things. When two of its long-standing landmarks both expand in the same year, on the same short stretch of road, it's worth a second look, even if you've lived here for a decade.
If you're weighing a move within the neighborhood, or you're curious what a home near this stretch of Riverside Drive is worth in today's market, Linda Fritts can walk you through it. Get a Free Home Valuation to start the conversation.
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