Hand Fan Museum of Healdsburg

What a cute little space! It's perhaps the smallest museum I've ever seen, but it has a delightful collection of fans from different ages and I found that it ended up changing my perspective on the art of making high-end hand fans more than I expected. Nice quick and easy museum to see while you're in the square -- recommended.

Great little museum, very informative and interesting. Fun to visit and experience. The man who owned it has a large collection of hand fans and will share a lot of information on them. He also sells hand fans and I bought a Japanese style one.

One of the places my sister and I really wanted to visit in Healdsburg. We always carry a hand fan in our purses and handbags. It's a small museum and you can browse through to see some vintage and ornate hand fans and learn a little of its history. We both enjoyed our time there.

Had a lovely time!

The displays are awesome and so are the docents. Our questions were answered enthusiastically and thoroughly.

The wife was really looking forward to visiting but it was closed. Be sure to check ahead if you plan to visit

Poorly displayed

I'm a fan of fans, and if you are too, then this museum is for you. Albeit, this is a very very small museum, but if you happen to be in Healdsburg, it's a fun stop. I spent just under 15 minutes inside. However, the museum is located on the main thoroughfare in Healdsburg, so there's plenty of browsing available nearby. The dress made of fans on the mannequin by the window was what captured my interest. How did they ensemble that? At an Atelier des Fans? Inside you'll find a wide variation of fans for viewing, and a few for sale as well. Several of the fans were beautifully handpainted with putti from the Baroque period. No admissions charge, but donations encouraged.

We passed by it yesterday with the intention of stopping in today, but it was closed unfortuntaely. Even though there aren't so many displays, this museum gives off a fascinating vibe.

If you love fans, you should visit. If they're sort of interesting and you like tiny museums about someone else's passion, why not. Yes, you can probably visit in 15-30 minutes and the hours are very limited. It's a free museum; what do you want? The owner has a collection of 7000 fans, and it's a tiny two room shop. So you're only going to see a few at any given time. Fans from the permanent collection (some with beautiful mother of pearl sticks; many with tiny sequins) are on the walls, mostly in fan-shaped glass display frames (some for sale - warning, they're pricey!). The current exhibit was 2-3 cases of animal-themed fans: there were fans with mice painted on them; fans with a kitten or puppy head on the front (and the back of its head on the back); some lovely butterfly fans; and one case that didn't really fit (a very colorful Chinese fan with a crowd of people with tiny painted ivory faces and glued-on clothes; a gorgeous large gilt-sticked fan with gold cupids). On a narrow table are a variety of modern fans for sale, ranging from plastic spangled Chinese ones for $5 to nicer printed Japanese silk ones ($20) or solid-colored fabric ones from Barcelona for $35. For a quarter, you can buy a copy of "the language of fans" and learn how to hold/point the fan to say "meet me later" or "hey, you're cute". There are postcards /notecards from previous exhibits, and a few thin catalogs. Fan Museum printed shopping bags are $10. The back room includes a large display of American advertising fans (the cardboard giveaway kind on a stick), some of which were surprisingly recent (1980s). Also in the back is a box of vintage fans for sale, in various stages of repair. Many aren't priced. Ask. I was quoted prices that were much less than I expected and was offered the chance to name my own price for a few. These ranged from tiny paper or plastic/celluloid fans to souvenir printed paper fans (Atlanta Olympics!) and some larger ones with bone or wooden sticks and painted leaves. Even a few small feather ones. Some were obviously deaccessioned from the museum and had information noted on a tag. I rented a car and drove an hour to visit. Not sure if I'd do that again; it's a very small museum and there's not much else in Healdsburg. But boy, if I'm ever in the neighborhood again, I'm so there.

Enjoyable! Whenever we visit Healdsburg, we look to see that the free hand fan museum is still there. We try to take friends new to the city there as we head on to bakery , dining & little shops. ** If you visit Spain you will see fans displayed almost everywhere you go. Very rare to see fan displays here in the USA!

Pretty cool TINY museum but a fun thing to check out between wineries. Absolutely beautiful fans on display that make you realize how much of an under rated art form and peice of history fans represent. The location was really hard to find but it was because they had moved recently about a block down the street from it's old address. Still very easy to walk by and never notice but well worth a peek. Free admission and changing displays. The building is accessible, however it would take some patience to navigate the small space in a wheel chair.

There's a restaurant next door, which we'd ordered from and we're waiting for our order which ETA's gonna take a while, so with time to burn, this little "museum" is next door. First of all, a "FAN" museum? Whaaat?? Seriously??? I'd never heard of such a thing. I mean it honestly has never occurred to me, ever never ... to be interested in or curious about fans--hand fans to be clear. There's something rather poignant and moving about humanity that not only would someone be interested in this as an art form, which it is (in addition to being functional and historically a thing of beauty), but that someone would plunk down money to pay a lease and start a business in the middle of Healdsburg, where the real estate prices are astronomical ... so here's this tiny little place which pays homage to the hand fan! They have a selection of fans in the window and this is honestly not all that inspiring or inviting ... I mean just to see some random collection of fans in a window. The inclination is to walk right on by. But the real treat, if you're at all inclined to wander inside--is the collection of mannequins wearing vintage type garb and posing with said hand fans--these are just divine, as if stepping into another era. They Bill themselves as being the only hand fan museum in the USA, and ummm, yeah, I gotta believe that :-) Btw, they also, unlike most museums, offer some of their fans for sale. It's such a tiny shop that instead of having s separate gift shop, as do many typical museums--this little place doubles as sort of 'two-fer.'

There's really very few reasons for us to come to healdsburg anymore, since it's changed so much for the worst in the last 5 years. We've been here several times before, over the years, but it was always closed. Not only did we want to see all the fans, but we wanted to buy some too! Now how can we be a member of their fanclub, when they're never ever open for us?

I would argue that a sleepy town like Healdsburg needs a lot of things first before you even think about a fan museum. But here it is and there's lots of stuff to look at, 200+ year old fancy French fans, Japanese fans, souvenir fans from airlines in cases stretching way up the walls of a single tiny room that is much higher than it is wide. Admission is free plus you can buy fans from $1 to about $25 to shoo away the Sonoma afternoon heat for yourself. You can kill a good 10-15 minutes here, any more than that and you probably need help. The room is air conditioned.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan. Sonoma County has plenty of museums (like the California Missions Museum at Cline Cellars, Home of Happy Walls at Jack London State Park) and museum-like places (Sonoma's Cornerstone Gardens, http://www.fortross.org ) and this one... is rather dull. It lasts only 5 to maybe 15 minutes, because there's not that much. A good museum invites you to contemplate, to learn, to be inspired by beauty. There are only other 3 other hand fan museums in the world.... hopefully they're more interesting. This place left me with *crickets*

What a fun place! The museum's docent was witty and chatty, informing us that their museum is one of four in the world. It's a great stop on your wine circuit, it takes just 5-10 minutes to peruse the fans and learn a little bit of the flirtatious history of fans.

The Healdsburg Hand Fan Museum is a really fun and different place to visit! The museum, while a random addition, is really quite cool. There are many different fans there from all over the world and from many different time periods. The museum highlights the intricacies of fan culture, including the language of the fan and how they are made. It is worth a visit!