Preservation group wants fellows under one roof

HOUSE MONEY: The Preservation Society of Newport County plans to restore the Elms Carriage House, erected in 1911, to serve as a Scholars Center in conjunction with an endowed Fund for Fellows to support original research and scholarship in history, design and preservation. / COURTESY PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF NEWPORT COUNTY
HOUSE MONEY: The Preservation Society of Newport County plans to restore the Elms Carriage House, erected in 1911, to serve as a Scholars Center in conjunction with an endowed Fund for Fellows to support original research and scholarship in history, design and preservation. / COURTESY PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF NEWPORT COUNTY

Kaity Ryan, who conducted research as a fellow last year for the Preservation Society of Newport County, liked living and working at the Issac Bell House with another fellow – but it wasn’t always easy.
With house tours on the first and second floors occurring regularly, and the same access to the Newport building for two fellows and the public, disruptions on the third floor were not uncommon.
“There’s a certain level of privacy and access you need,” Ryan said.
Now that she’s the nonprofit’s manager of preservation policy and living on her own in Newport, Ryan supports her employer’s plans to renovate the Elms mansion’s Carriage House for future use as a Scholar’s Center.
“The program solidifies the need for these scholars to be here,” Ryan said. “Much of the work I do now is an extension of the work I did as a fellow.”
Trudy Coxe, CEO and executive director of the Preservation Society, says those restoration plans depend on fundraising, but a new boost in money to endow the fellows is helping justify the estimated $2.2 million expense.
Restoring the carriage house for use by as many as five fellows for living quarters and communal space where they can work undisturbed is an idea Coxe said emerged as she and her staff began to evaluate where to put the fellows program. That need comes in conjunction with the need to restore the Carriage House, she said.
“The Elms was underutilized and needs to be restored no matter what,” Coxe said, so the vision of using the Carriage House as a center for scholars “just all began to come together: [creating] a place to live and work. It’s the only [building] where people could realistically live as a unit.”
In early December, this vision moved closer to reality when the van Beuren Charitable Foundation awarded the Preservation Society a $625,000 grant toward the creation of an endowed “Fund for Fellows” to support original research and scholarship in history, design and preservation. The foundation is a Rhode Island-based, grant-making organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the unique characteristics of Newport County.
Combined with a $500,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and gifts from private donors, including a prior gift from the foundation, the Preservation Society has raised a total of $1.5 million for this program, bringing it near the halfway mark of its $3.3 million goal for the Fund for Fellows.
Four fellows will be hired this summer, though they will live in different places because fundraising for the Carriage House restoration has yet to begin in earnest, Coxe said.
“Bringing them in as a group enables us to create a sense of collegiality and community,” said Laurie Ossman, the Preservation Society’s director of museum affairs. “That is just as valuable as their work experience.”
Referring to fellows who will one day be able to live and hang out together more comfortably than is possible today, Coxe added: “Being in Newport – not only studying the art and culture but actually being immersed in it and living it – makes it particularly attractive. These are the people who are going to be the leaders in 10 or 20 years. The more they know each other, the better the field is going to be.”
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Preservation Society owns, maintains and operates 11 historic properties, seven of them national historic landmarks. The nonprofit is dedicated to preserving and interpreting these buildings’ and the region’s historic architecture, landscapes, decorative arts and social history. As the Preservation Society got up to speed on deferred maintenance totaling more than $13 million and has all but closed that gap, senior management and trustees decided that investing in the Carriage House restoration made sense, Coxe added. The Scholar Center is part of the nonprofit’s Comprehensive Campaign Initiative, dubbed the ‘American story,’ and as such is meant to support the enterprise of telling stories girded by research the fellows provide.
Ryan’s research has taken her all over Newport County.
She is particularly fond of research she did last year to elevate public awareness about Sachuest, a locale painted as a landscape by Hudson River School artists and an inspiration for philosopher George Barkley. The scenic Sachuest contains a national wildlife area, a private nature sanctuary, town beaches and sweeping vistas, she said. Ryan’s work also involved ongoing efforts to beautify the area by relocating utilities underground, she said.
In exchange for living arrangements and a $25,000 annual stipend, endowed fellows work on research full time for a year. Ryan received less than that stipend, though her housing expense was covered, she said.
As for the carriage house, construction drawings were finished five months ago but the bulk of the funding for restoration has yet to be raised, Coxe explained. Once the money is in hand, work will take between nine months to a year to complete, she said.
The restoration work involves knocking down old plaster, rewiring, re-plumbing, reconstructing and cleaning – all while preserving the essence of the building. Adding a kitchen and upgrading bathrooms and making rooms livable will be part of the plan, Coxe said.
“Our fellows, if they do their research well, they’re going to have a ball,” she said. •

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