Beyond Lincoln
A Vermont House Museum Reinvents Itself
By Kathleen James | Online Only | May 4, 2009
Photos by Lee Krohn Photography
When Seth Bongartz started a new job as executive director of Hildene seven years ago, his vision reached far beyond the 1905 Georgian Revival mansion in Manchester Village, Vt., that served as a summer home to Robert Todd Lincoln and his descendants.
Bongartz looked into Hildene's past and saw the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln, Robert's father. He looked into the future and saw a thriving year-round house museum and educational institution of national scope. He looked around and saw 412 acres of pristine southern Vermont landscape. And then he got to work.
In June, a $2.5 million dairy barn and cheese-making facility, the gift of a donor couple, will open its doors to visitors, students, and 20 Nubian goats. Farmstead and artisan cheese is a hot commodity in Vermont these days, as small family farmers struggle to find new and more profitable markets for their milk, maple syrup, produce, meat, and timber. The state-of-the art barn was built mostly with lumber cut and milled in the Hildene forest, and is heated by solar power and a wood-fired furnace. Visitors can touch the goats, watch every phase of the cheese-making process, and taste the finished cheeses, which eventually will be sold in Hildene's museum store and served in a few local restaurants.
"This is a 21st-century operation," Bongartz says. "We're making a value-added, niche-market food product on a small amount of land. That represents the future of Vermont agriculture."
To Bongartz, the dairy barn will ensure the future of Hildene. "House museums tend to be 'Do Not Touch,' but the days of 'Do Not Touch' are long gone," he says. "Instead of a mansion and 20 landscaped acres, we're going to offer visitors 400 acres of landscape. We're moving from a place where visitors pull into a parking lot, watch a video and tour a house, into a place where people can spend the day. Our goal is to extend our programs throughout the year and across the property."
The Greatest Chapter
Robert Todd Lincoln, who first visited Manchester Village in 1863, built Hildene as a retreat from his responsibilities as president of the Pullman Company. The grand estate—with its 24-room mansion, formal gardens and observatory—was owned by three Lincoln generations until 1975, when Peggy Beckwith, an eccentric recluse, died without heirs in 1975. Over the next three years, an ambitious group of locals, The Friends of Hildene, raised money to buy the property and began the laborious task of restoring it. "The greatest chapter in the story of Hildene will always be that chapter," Bongartz says. "It was a miracle they were able to save this place. They did everything right."
Still, both revenues and attendance were in steep decline when Bongartz arrived: Following a dismal national trend for house museums, Hildene's attendance peaked at 55,000 visitors in 1991 and bottomed out with 19,000 in 2005. Last year, however, it reached 27,000. Meanwhile, under Bongartz the annual fund has grown from $30,000 per year (with seven people giving $1,000 or more) to $220,000 (and 70 donors hitting the $1,000 mark). A capital campaign, launched in 2005 with an original goal of $4.2 million, is under way, with almost $10 million raised to date.
From Ski Trips to Field Trips
The original mansion, the centerpiece of the museum since it opened to the public in 1978, was in fairly good shape when Bongartz arrived, so he and the board of directors focused first on restoring the formal gardens, upgrading the entrance road, building a $180,000 warming hut, and improving an extensive trail network for winter cross-country skiers and snowshoers, and renovating the old carriage barn, which houses the museum store and administrative offices. The ski pavilion, youth education center, welcome center, and its surrounding landscaping account for almost $4 million of the capital dollars raised and spent so far. Other projects include a boardwalk and observation deck along the Hildene wetlands, upgrades to a 6,000-square-foot three-season tent for weddings and events, and the purchase of a 1903 wooden Pullman car that's being meticulously restored and will arrive on the grounds in 2010.
As the property evolves, so does the Hildene calendar. "Our central mission is education," says Bongartz. He sees this mission as twofold: to teach visitors and students about the working Vermont landscape, and to advance the values of the Lincoln family. Hildene now offers 14 programs for visiting elementary school students, including a variety of natural-history courses and a day of classes in a restored 19th-century schoolhouse. In 2002, about 200 students came to Hildene for field trips; last year, that number exceeded 3,000. The new summer camps are almost maxed out, with 12 kids per session over the eight-week season. And plans are in the works for the Hildene Institute, which Bongartz sees as a national-caliber center for Lincoln research and education. He has already launched a successful lecture series and a statewide essay-writing contest for high-school students that will expand this year to Rhode Island through a partnership with Brown University. Hildene has also published several of its own books on the Lincoln family and held several scholarly symposia.
"On one level, Hildene is about a sense of place," Bongartz says. "But it's also about ideas. There's no better role model for students than Abraham Lincoln when it comes to civic life, good governance and reasoned public policy. Our goal is to use Hildene to instill an informed reverence for Lincoln—and we will do that through education and through the family's land."
Hildene is a Partner Place of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, so our card-carrying members receive a special discount. For more information, call Hildene at (800) 578-1788.
Kathleen James is a writer based in Vermont.
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