Heritage Museums & Gardens in Final Phase of Foundation for the Future
Published on Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Sandwich, Cape Cod, MA (May 25, 2010) - Heritage Museums & Gardens is completing the projects it began in March of 2009 with the final phase of the Foundation for the Future campaign. Following the ground breaking of the J. K. Lilly III Automobile Museum in October, 2008, the Board of Trustees voted in February of 2009 to continue the building projects scheduled to be completed in 2010. By June 30 the renovations to the Automobile Museum will be complete; the new Flume Fountain is already awing visitors and the first phase of Hidden Hollow: A Nature Discovery Center will open this summer. The campaign is scheduled to reach its goal of $6.5 million by the end of this year.
The Board of Trustees identified the need for its first ever capital fundraising campaign Foundation for the Future: A Major Gifts Initiative, a campaign to sustain the institution’s nationally significant gardens, to renovate its buildings, to maximize the public impact of the collections, and to increase the institution’s capacity to serve its community through additional education programs and public events. The Board determined after months of research and planning to establish priorities for addressing the most crucial institutional needs, and was able to raise $5.2 million. The museum is now in its public phase of the campaign and needs to raise $1.3 million to the ultimate goal of $6.5 million. The great news is that Heritage has received a once in a lifetime challenge gift of $650,000 to help meet this goal. The museum will match, dollar for dollar, every donation up to $650,000. So, if the community, friends and the public rally and donate new money, the Foundation for the Future campaign will declare victory.
The campaign was begun in the worst of economic climates, but has been able to offer its own stimulus package to a variety of Upper Cape Cod and off-Cape businesses. For Foundation of the Future projects, Heritage engaged approximately 40 contractors and subcontractors, most of whom are Cape Cod businesses. The projects created the full time equivalent of 32 construction jobs, and generated an economic impact of $12 million for the local economy. The Flume Fountain was designed by Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects, Falmouth, and is a spectacular steel flume conveying a wide ribbon of water from the Heritage entrance to the Daylily Garden, where the flume terminates into a dramatic 26-foot waterfall into an oval basin. The $3.4 million renovation project of the Shaker round barn was designed by Wise Surma Jones – Architects, New Bedford and is being constructed by C.H.Newton Builders of Falmouth and Osterville. Renovations are transforming the existing building by creating a new entrance, bringing the building up to modern fire and public safety standards, providing greater ease of access and mobility, enlarging meeting space, and adding automobile storage, which in turn will permit the change and rotation of the automobile collection. The third project Hidden Hollow was designed by Horsley Witten Group, Sandwich, Ted Adams Dierker, Falmouth, (Dierker also designed the patio at the round barn and the Police Gazette Garden at the Art Museum) Julie Messervy Design Studio of Saxtons River, VT and the staff of Heritage. The new interactive, multi-sensory family garden will be completed this summer thanks to the help of the Upper Cape Technical School Carpentry and Horticulture Department students and faculty.
Other companies that have benefited from Foundation for the Future are as follows: Excavation, Botehlo Excavation, Falmouth; Foundation, Bay Colony Concrete, Osterville; Framing, E. W. Watson, Framing, Wareham; Steel, Westwood Systems, Canton; Concrete Floors, CJ Bessco, Sandwich; Masonry, Architectural Masonry, Sagamore; Pluming, RMA Plumbing, Falmouth; Electrical, Mederios Electric, Falmouth; HVAC, Robies Refrigeration, Hyannis; Insulation, Hyannis; Plaster, New England Plastering, Stoneham; Paving, Lawrence Lynch Corp., Falmouth and Hyannis; Masonry, Tavares Landscape, Falmouth; Landscape, Hoxie Landscape, Sandwich, and Burgess Botanical, Falmouth.