In 1926, Helen Osborne Storrow was decorating a temporary structure to depict an early American kitchen. An active trustee of the Eastern States Exposition and chairwoman of the Home Department, she dreamed of moving the handicraft exhibit to an actual home on site – a building with its own kitchen!

Storrow discussed the possibility with friends and eventually was introduced to Arthur Gilbert, Commissioner of Agriculture for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who told her about his 18th century summer home. She purchased the farmstead for $200 and moved it from West Brookfield, Massachusetts, in 1927. After that, additional antique buildings were purchased, dismantled, and reconstructed here to create Storrowton Village.