Two special events planned for Weekend in Norfolk will open the doors of Whitehouse, one of Norfolk’s most imposing mansions, to the public. On Saturday, Robin Jaffee Frank of the Wadsworth Atheneum will speak at Whitehouse on Nurture and Nature: 19th-Century American art. Tickets, available through the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival box office, include refreshments, a picnic supper and admission to that evening’s concert by the Emerson String Quartet. On Sunday afternoon, Whitehouse will be the scene of a free public open house.

The mansion is the former home of Carl and Ellen Battell Stoeckel. In 1939, Mrs. Stoeckel left the estate, with its acoustically renowned Music Shed, for the use of the Yale Summer School of Music and its Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. It still houses the Stoeckel art collection and is used as the summer residence of the music festival director.

Weekend in Norfolk, August 5, 6 and 7, is a three-day, town-wide art, music and nature festival. Events run the gamut from art exhibits to nature walks, world-class music to a watermelon-eating contest, a quilt show and boat-building demonstrations to the opportunity to get married on the Village Green, and new events are being added all the time. Visit weekendinnorfolk.org for details.

Photo: Whitehouse’s music room walls are covered with works collected by the Stoeckels. They will be the subject of a lecture by Robin Jaffee Frank of the Wadsworth Atheneum on Saturday, August 6, during Weekend in Norfolk (August 5, 6 and 7). For more information and a link to order tickets, see weekendinnorfolk.org. Photo by James Nelson, courtesy Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.