page_title: Ivy Green
section_title: Description and history
hierarchical_section_title: Ivy Green / Description and history
context_page_description: Ivy Green is a historic house museum at 300 West North Commons in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Built in 1820, it was the birthplace and childhood home of Helen Keller, the famous deaf-blind author and speaker. A National Historic Landmark honoring Keller's life, it is now a museum open to the public.
context_section_description: Ivy Green is located in a residential area north of downtown Tuscumbia, on the north side of West North Commons at Keller Lane.  The property's principal features are the main house, the birthplace cottage, and the well.  The main house is a 1-1/2 story frame structure with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior.  It has a five-bay facade, with sash windows around a roughly centered entrance.  The entrance is sheltered by a gabled portico, and is framed by sidelight and transom windows.  Nearby stands the birthplace cottage, a modest structure originally built as a plantation office, that was refurbished as a bridal suite for Arthur Henley Keller's second wife, who bore him Helen Keller in 1880.  In between the two buildings stand the well and pump that played a key role in Helen Keller's development.
  The main house at Ivy Green was built in 1820 by David Keller, Helen Keller's grandfather.  The well pump is where Helen Keller first achieved a communicated breakthrough with her teacher and companion, Anne Sullivan.
  The property became a museum dedicated to Helen Keller in 1954.  A fire in 1972 caused minor damage and resulted in the donation of additional materials by the Keller family.
caption: Helen Keller, age 7
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