Shell Grotto November 11, 2010

In 1973, George W. Headley added a shell grotto to the grounds of the Headley-Whitney Museum. The building was transformed from a three-car garage into a shell grotto with thousands of shells attached to the building's interior. Headley worked with assistants for nearly a year gluing commercially available shells and polished stones to the walls, doors and window moldings. In addition, Headley's collection of shell and fossil specimens, acquired and purchased during his travels are displayed throughout the room. From the coral slabs of the floor mined in the Florida Keys to the four mosaics on the ceiling created by artist and friend Carl Malouf, Headley created an exotic sea environment full of intriguing furnishings and fanciful objects decorated and constructed with shells. The inspiration for Headley's shell grotto came from architectural precedents of seventeenth