This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 74001871.

Summary

Object location	34° 41′ 01″ N, 82° 57′ 25″ W	View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap	34.683611; -82.956944

The Lunney Museum is located at 211 West South First Street in Seneca, South Carolina. The museum was originally the home of Dr. and Mrs. William J. Lunney. The home was built in 1909, and contains a fine collection of antiques and Oconee County memorabilia. When Dr. & Mrs. Lunney decided to build their new home, they had no way of knowing that only sixty years later, their house would become the Oconee County Museum. In May 1970, the home was transferred to Oconee County for preservation and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Dr. Lunney, a successful pharmacist in Seneca, and his wife, the former Lillian Mason of Westminster, SC, chose to build their new home on West South First Street, an area then known as "Silk Stocking Hill" because of the stately Victorian mansions which other successful business men had already built along the tree-shaded avenue. However, in choosing a style for their new home, the Lunney’s were looking forward into the new century, and settled on a new style, called "bungalow", which was just coming into vogue all across the country.

Bungalows were designed to be less formal than the earlier Victorians, and most often feature a long, low silhouette, emphasized by wide, overhanging porches. The use of dark, earthy tones was intended to unite the building with its surroundings, while a row of dormer windows placed above the front door interrupts the steep roof line.

In the Lunney house craftsmanship is evident everywhere, from the hand-cut crown molding that rims the eleven-foot ceiling in the Music Room to the gleaming, knot-free sugar pine floors throughout the house, to the elegant, hand-beveled glass panes, almost a half inch thick which grace the front windows.

Visitors today are struck by the apparent contradiction between the informal exterior and the much more formal Victorian interior. The explanation is simple: like most people moving into a new home, the Lunney’s brought things with them, and what they had were mostly Victorian pieces. The furniture the visitor sees today is a composite of pieces which are original to the house, some pieces that are replacements for original pieces and some that have been purchased for the Museum.

In addition to its fine collection of antiques covering a period from the late seventeenth through to the early twentieth century, the Lunney Museum contains a fascinating collection of Oconee County memorabilia which help to tell the history of the area.

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