What folks, who favor the proposed Montpelier action seem to miss is the
difference between the words "preservation" and "destruction." There also
appears to be a lack of understanding of the difference between the words
"real" and "imaginary."

Currently the site under discussion is the real Madison residence as
modified by the duPonts.  The building, and I assume the site, are real and
historical-though not original. Mrs. Smith's bequest will destroy the real
artifact. In its place we will have a replica that will attempt to recreate
Madison's house as the architect imagined it (and as one who has never seen
an architect's plan ever become real, exactly as the architect imagined it,
we may even not accurately recreate what Madison lived in). In short we will
have, at best, an excellent replica of Madison's house on the original site.

The historical house will be destroyed, and no amount of good documentation
and preservation of materials will remedy that situation. To propose such,
is as silly as saying that a biography and photo of a person is the same as
the person.

We may have an excellent imagined artifact, but little of it will be truly
historic in the sense that it will contain original parts combined with
functional modifications over time. To me, this type of action is in no
sense historic preservation but it is a destruction of historic structure in
quest of an illusion. Worst part, is that future site interpreters will try
to convince kids that this artifice is real history and will become incensed
when many kids begin to consider history a bunch of boring lies.  So it
goes.
nburlakoff

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Randall Hees
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 12:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Montpelier

I don t have any knowledge other than that found on this list and on the
web site but based on that, I would support this effort. If the goal of the
site is to interpret the Madison s and their residence at this site, then
this is probably the best course.  I noticed that they do intend to include
significant interpretive space, separate from the house to allow them to
tell the stories of the DuPont residency and the preservation of the site.
I do understand why others don t, since museum professionals are taught to
preserve, prevent changes to artifacts

Buildings (and railroad cars and ships, and other large complex items) are
different than other museum artifacts.  Once built, they are constantly
evolving.  Owners change them to adapt them to new uses and needs.  Even
after they are preserved, they need to be painted, roofed and repaired with
great regularity, each changing the house in small incremental steps.  It
is virtually impossible to preserve a house in the sense that you can a
small artifact which can be placed inside in a controlled environment.
Since the artifact is not pure, the caretakers curators and interpreters do
need to be prepared to make decisions as to how to present the building,
and if it is appropriate, to reverse some of the historic modifications.
Being unwilling to consider changes means giving the same value to the late
19th century additions that are given to the original colonial home.

In this case it appears that they have sufficient information to honestly
and accurately present the site as it appeared when the Madison s occupied
it.  Not all efforts to back date a site have this information, and if this
information is missing, then any restoration is by definition dishonest,
usually based on a romantic notion of history.

There are something like 5,000 historic house museums in this country
(probably too many.)  A significant number of those are the mansions of
various 19th century wealthy families, such as the DuPonts.  One only has
to visit Provenience Rhode Island to see a great variety of such homes.
Its difficult to argue that we need any more 19th century mansions, or that
there is some aspect of their story that is untold.

On the other hand, there are a limited number of sites which can interpret
early Presidents such as Madison and his wife.

Randy Hees
Patterson House at Ardenwood Farm
Fremont, CA

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