The dining room at Severnby will be the center of attention when its magnificent table is laden with gourmet foods and champagne and cranberry punches on Tuesday. It will be the 22nd Annual Christmas Open House sponsored by the Ware River Circle of The King’s Daughters.

With a ticket to this elegant affair, one becomes a gourmet and will have the pleasure of touring Severnby, a Victorian house built in 1892 and open to the public for the first time.

As you enter the front hall at Severnby on your way to the dining room, where the Duncan Phyfe table is spread with homemade delectables flanked by an Empire sideboard once owned by Joseph Bonaparte, older brother of Napoleon, your eyes will immediately catch sight of the English settee from Rosewell. It is most likely that Thomas Jefferson, a lifelong friend of John Page and a many-time visitor, sat upon it.

From the living room with its German baroque secretary made between 1690 and 1710, to the library where between the win...