From a traveling arts organization to a home for creativity.
1977
It started with a community.
The Morgan Arts Council was established at a public meeting in May 1977 with a simple purpose: Getting Art Out There.
For nearly two decades, MAC was essentially a traveling arts organization—bringing concerts, workshops, exhibitions, performances, and other arts experiences to wherever there was space.
Art didn’t wait for a building. Neither did MAC.
1993
MAC brings the arts community together.
MAC hosted the first West Virginia Arts Assembly, bringing arts leaders and advocates together in Morgan County.
It was another example of MAC’s role extending beyond individual programs and into the larger arts community of West Virginia.
1996
MAC finds a home.
In June 1996, U.S. Borax gifted MAC a 40,000-square-foot former storage building in the center of Berkeley Springs.
The building had been constructed around 1910/1911 to store produce and had served other purposes over the years.
Now, it was about to become something entirely different.
The Ice House.
1997
A new chapter begins.
With the Ice House now becoming MAC’s home, the possibilities expanded.
A year-long visual arts festival in 1997 helped establish the building as an important place for visual art, and gallery development became a priority.
The Ice House was becoming more than a building.
It was becoming a home for the arts.
2000
Artists make the Ice House their own.
The Ice House Artist Co-Op opened in April 2000.
More than 20 years later, the Co-Op continues to give local and regional artists a place to exhibit and sell their work inside the Ice House.
2005
Berkeley Springs becomes West Virginia’s first Certified Arts Community.
The West Virginia Commission on the Arts named Berkeley Springs the state’s first Certified Arts Community, recognizing the community’s collaboration among arts organizations, businesses, government, education, and residents.
MAC’s decades of work helped build the creative environment that made that recognition possible
AND THEN CAME THE YEARS OF GROWTH
The Ice House kept changing.
- Gallery spaces grew.
- Arts education expanded.
- Theater found a home.
- Music filled the building, the patio, and the park.
- Classes brought people together around tables covered in paint, clay, fabric, paper, and whatever else the day’s creative adventure required.
- Young people discovered new ways to express themselves.
- Artists found audiences.
- Volunteers became part of the machinery that keeps everything moving.
- And the building itself continued to evolve.
The Ice House has been an ongoing project of renovation and adaptation, with accessibility and usable community space becoming important parts of its development.
TODAY
The Ice House is still becoming.
Walk through the doors today, and you might find:
- An artist hanging an exhibition.
- A theater cast rehearsing upstairs.
- A child making something for the first time.
- A group of students learning from a visiting artist.
- A class gathered around a table.
- Musicians getting ready to perform.
- Volunteers setting up for an event.
- Neighbors meeting for the first time.
- Or someone simply wandering through the galleries, wondering what they’ll discover next.
That’s the Ice House.
It’s a building with a long history—but it is also a place where new history is being made every day.
NEARLY 50 YEARS OF GETTING ART OUT THERE
MAC’s history isn’t really a list of dates. It’s the thousands of people who have walked through our doors. The artists who have shared their work. The teachers who have brought creativity into their classrooms. The performers who have taken the stage. The students who have discovered something new. The volunteers who have given their time. The donors and members who have kept the work going. The audiences who keep showing up.
And the community members who have believed, for nearly five decades, that the arts belong here.
OUR STORY ISN’T FINISHED.
You’re part of what comes next.
The Morgan Arts Council began with people who believed that the arts could make a difference in their community. Nearly 50 years later, that belief is still at the heart of what we do. We’re still making. Still learning. Still performing. Still experimenting. Still welcoming new people through the doors. Still finding new ways to get art out there.
And there is always room for another story.
Come be part of it.
TELL US YOUR MAC STORY
Did you perform here?
Take a class?
Volunteer at a concert?
See your first play?
Sell your artwork?
Bring your students?
Meet someone who changed your life?
Have a favorite memory of the Ice House?
We want to hear it – email us at art@macicehouse.org