BATH — The doors will be thrown open to visitors to Bath this weekend, as the Historic Bath Garden Club hosts its homes tour, a once-every-three-years view into area homes.

Eleven homes, with the bonus of two of Bath’s historic homes, will be featured on the tour. The homes are spread throughout the Bath area, from Bayview to Blackbeard’s View, on the western bank of Bath Creek. The houses are new — a reproduction of a farmhouse built recently; they are old — the circa 1700s Palmer-Marsh House and the early-19^th century Bonner House; they are small—a waterfront cottage, renovated after Hurricane Irene; they are large—the Mallard house, at the point of Bath and Back creeks, renovated and enlarged to make one couple’s ideal retirement property. According to Sallie LaCava, Historic Bath Garden Club president, the homes share one quality: they are unique.

“We see a house we think would be interesting and we ask the owner if they would like to participate with us,” LaCava said.

Participation can be considered a form of community service, as this one fundraiser by the garden club is used to make Bath beautiful.

“This, we do to raise funds to support the park projects we do around Bath,” LaCava explained.

The projects are numerous: one garden welcomes people to Bath before they cross the bridge over Bath Creek; another two book-end the intersection of Main and Carteret streets as visitors drive into town. Garden club members help maintain and plant gardens for the historic properties and each year decorate the holly tree for its lighting ceremony, which launches the Christmas season in Bath. The garden club has provided benches placed around town, where visitors can take a break and enjoy the breeze off the water, and gave the new town library plants to beautify the exterior of Old Bath High School. The post office’s front flower bed is up next.

“One more project that we are going into, coming up after this: the Palmer-Marsh House — we have a map of what we think (the garden) might have looked like in the 1700s, when it was first built,” LaCava said. “It’s a circular garden. As far as we know, this garden was one of the original gardens.”

LaCava said she has received phone calls from people across the state who are interested in attending the homes tour, but won’t know until Saturday exactly how many tickets have been sold.

The homes tour will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and lunch can be purchased at the United Methodist Church. Admission is $20 per person or $15 per person for groups of 10 or more. Tickets may be picked up at the Historic Bath Visitor Center on N.C. Highway 92 East on the day of the tour. For additional information call Sallie LaCava, 252-964-3441, or June Wallace, 252-923-3541.