It is my belief that you will have a near impossible chance of
justifying having the city spend $1 million to restore an old house on
the basis of it paying for itself.  You could well find that just the
day to day upkeep, utilities, insurance and guarding will use up all
of any fees you might charge, even including meetings and receptions.


Unless the house has a truly historic past "Abe Lincoln lived here" or
some unusual situation of view or architecture, it  must be justified
on broader grounds and for general community benefit.  

What might do the trick is to organize a multi-faceted plan to gain
community support, community contributions, historical society
backing, grants from local businesses and even support from the school
system.  In fact it might be helpful if you proposed forming a
non-profit,  public benefit organization to operate the facility so
that the city would not have to face the cost of operation and
staffing with city employees with all the costs and benefits entailed.
The non-profit organization could recruit volunteers, docents and all
the other things needed to make the house a useful and meaningful
civic asset.  One area to look for support  is the array of local
clubs and civic organizations that might like an attractive and
historic  place for their weekly or monthly meetings. This of course
assumes they don't already have ideal places for meetings.  A historic
house, centrally located  and with parking can have a lot of appeal.

The key point is that without broad community support,, or a major
megabucks donor,  you have a major major problem.

I wish you  support.

John Bing
On Tue, 10 Mar 1998 11:38:23 -0500, you wrote:

>We are planning to restore our 1874 Victorian house museum and are looking for
>ammunition to convince the city which owns it and potential donors that it's a
>good investment of $1 million.  Any ideas for appropriate uses of a historic
>house museum that generate income or attendance would be helpful.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Ann Kiewel
>The Holland Museum and
>the Cappon House Museum
>31 W 10th St
>Holland MI  49423
>616-394-1362
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Laguna Beach, CA