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 >[log in to unmask] Laguna Beach, CA