Thomas C. McGehee, Director of the Bellingrath Museum Home

Biography

Thomas C. McGehee has served as Museum Director for Bellingrath Gardens and Home since January of 1994.  In that capacity he oversees the 15 room Bellingrath Home and its collection of original decorative arts and antiques, as well as the Delchamps Collection of Boehm Porcelain.

He currently serves on the boards of the Friends of Magnolia Cemetery, the Mobile Historic Development Commission, the Friends of the Alabama Governor’s Mansion and the Victorian Society in America.  He is chairman of the City of Mobile’s Tree Commission and is the Clerk of Session for the Government Street Presbyterian Church.

In 1996 he was awarded the Elizabeth Gould Research Award by the City of Mobile for his research on architect George B. Rogers and Mobile’s architectural past.  He is a 1997graduate of the Newport (RI) Summer School of the Victorian Society in America and a 1999 graduate of Winterthur’s Winter Institute of Decorative Arts held in Winterthur, DE.

In the summer of 2000 he attended the Cooper-Hewitt’s French Decorative Arts Studies in Paris, France and he is a 2001 graduate of the Victorian Society (UK) Summer School based in London.  He has been a member of the American Ceramics Circle of Williamsburg, VA since 2006.

Since 1997 Mr. McGehee has been a regular lecturer for the Elder Hostel Program hosted by the University of South Alabama and has conducted walking tours of Bellingrath Gardens and Home, Magnolia Cemetery and the city’s Oakleigh Garden District.

McGehee is a regular contributor to Mobile Bay Monthly Magazine where his “Ask McGehee” column received the Reader’s Choice Award for 2005 and 2006.  He serves as editor for Magnolia Messenger, the newsletter published three times a year by the Friends of Magnolia Cemetery. 

He is a native of Bronxville, N.Y., a graduate of the Bronxville School and the University of Georgia where he earned his BA in Journalism with minors in American History and Business.