The San Buenaventura Conservancy will host the Ventura Architecture Weekend from Friday through Sunday, Nov. 4 to 6. There will be a new event on Friday night called “Upstairs/ Downstairs,” and the 1892 Victorian Dudley House Interpretive Museum will be featured on Saturday and Sunday.

Ventura is one of California’s oldest cities, founded 223 years ago by Father Junipero Serra. Ventura and San Luis Obispo are the only nearby cities with missions in their downtown areas.

To commemorate this new urban energy, the San Buenaventura Conservancy is offering a “behind the scenes” experience of contemporary and vintage uses of the historic buildings in Old Downtown. The weekend will kick off with “Upstairs/Downstairs” from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday.

The public will go behind normally closed doors of the oldest fraternal organizations, the Masonic Center and the Odd Fellows Hall. Never publicly shared ceremonial costumes and paraphernalia will be displayed, along with historic photos. Room 17 (haunted lair of Sylvia the Ghost) will be open at the Bella Maggiore Inn. Erle Stanley Gardner’s office, where he wrote his first Perry Mason novel, will be dressed with reproduction furniture of the late 1920s, complete with a very “live” flapper in the person of Glenda Jackson.

Nickelby’s Night Club will trace the building’s history to the 1890s Great Eastern Dry Goods Store (becoming a Woolworth’s in 1948) and will reconnect its association with the Tortilla Flats Mural Project. Main Street Architects will offer a continuous showing of historic photos of Ventura in collaboration with the recently published Ventura “Then & Now” 2006 calendar from Schaf Photo Studios. A reception at the Old Livery on Palm Street will top off the evening.

The Dudley House Museum will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. This is the featured house of the 2005 tour, as it is completely restored and accurately period furnished. This interpretive house museum offers a step back in time to Victorian agricultural life in 19thcentury Ventura County.

ArtWalk will be presented from 3 to 9 p.m. Saturday. From 8 to 10 p.m. Saturday swing blues music with Kid Ramos and his Blues Band will be performed at the San Buenaventura Mission’s Serra Center.

The weekend’s event pricing ranges from $22 to $37. Admission to Artwalk is free. Call (800) 483-6214 for specific pricing and ticket purchase details.