LOVELL – The Lovell Historical Society will open its new museum at the Kimball-Stanford House on Route 5 with an exhibit on “Summers in Lovell,” according to Catherine Stone, society president.

The exhibit will begin with an ice cream social on Saturday, July 3, and it will run through Labor Day. It will be open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 5 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

The Kimball-Stanford House, built by Moses Hutchins in 1839, has had the first floor of the main house refurbished and painted on the interior, thanks to the support of the Betterment Fund and the Libra Foundation. A Lovell painter, Allen Dotson, has replicated historical colors on the floors, walls and ceilings of the two-story federal-style home with its attached barn.

The “Summers in Lovell” exhibit features a number of artifacts, artworks and photographs related to life on and around Kezar Lake – from the arrival of the first summer visitors in the 1880s to the present.

Among the objects are a painting by the artist Douglas Volk, artworks by and about the “Kezar Lake Pirate,” Don Dickerman, photographs and artifacts of Camp Mudjekeewis, photographs of Rudy Valle, his guests and his boat “Banjo Eyes,” and one of the smallest outboard motors used on the lake in the 1920s.

A separate exhibit in the barn will emphasize boat building, including an 1890s canoe, historical boat building tools and materials related to canoe restorer Lawrence Stone.

“This unusual exhibit,” said curator Robert C. Williams, a retired professor of history, “reflects the traditional close relationship between the town of Lovell and the summer people’ who flock to the town every summer because of the extraordinary beauty of Kezar Lake and the surrounding White Mountains.”

The Lovell Historical Society, founded in 1973, is dedicated to preserving and portraying the history of Lovell through its archives, research center, exhibits and educational activities.