We received an 1835 house complete with furnishings - 18th & 19th
century dec. arts plus late 20th century household items - about seven
years ago. It came with a small endowment but the board of trustees is
feeling the pinch of maintenance expenses and wants to sell the house.
(We own three historic properties in addition to this one) The donor's
will allows us to sell the house but we must keep her husband's dec arts
collection - about 250 items of furniture, ceramics, glass and metal.
She did not stipulate permanent exhibition, only that it be used for
educational purposes.
One influential trustee wants to build an addition on our existing
museum, with the profits from selling the house, and create an open
study collection, similar to the Garvan collection at Yale. Simply put,
this isn't the Garvan collection and Geneva, NY isn't New Haven, CT.
It's a nice collection but not world-class, and our focus is local
history, not decorative arts in general.
What's the current feeling about permanent open storage for study
purposes? If you have it, are people using it, either for enjoyment or
research? Have any small historical societies in rural areas done this?
(budget $250K/ year, city size 13,000, fairly good tourist traffic in
the summer) Can you recommend other museums I can contact?
As always, there are more details and politics to this story, but
there's my question in a nutshell - thanks! Happy Thanksgiving,
John Marks
Curator of Collections
Geneva Historical Society
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