Calvert Vaux's Hoyt House is the recipient of a $320,000 matching Save America's Treasures grant
We are pleased to announce that Calvert Vaux’s Hoyt House is the recipient of a $320,000 matching Save America’s Treasures grant, a program administered by the National Parks Service. Our congratulations go to New York State Office of Parks and Recreation, particularly the State Historic Preservation Office at Peebles Island. As you can imagine, these funds will make a difference for much needed stabilization and restoration work on the structure’s exterior. But this is only a start.
Since this is a matching grant, it is incumbent upon CVPA as Friends Group of the Hoyt House to help raise matching funds in order to put this grant money to work. For this purpose and more, we will be launching a capital fund raising campaign to appeal to the business and financial communities on a broad scale. We are currently developing a new adaptive reuse proposal to present to the owners of the House, NYS Parks, that will include use of the House as a multi-functional facility, featuring a learning center, and restoration of the grounds and dependent buildings to their nineteenth century use as a productive, sustainable farm. Your continued support is essential to this effort. While we are now benefiting from the use of social media, we still need to maintain and expand the CVPA website along with the preparation of presentation material for corporate donors. Your continued support is crucial in all of this.
We should also take a moment to acknowledge some of our activities and accomplishments over the past year:
– Central Park – CVPA joined with a coalition of other preservation organizations, primarily from NYC, to fight against NYC Parks’ plans to construct hideous white bubbles over the Park’s tennis courts. As a result of our protests, NYC Parks completely withdrew their plans. We have also been monitoring the maintenance and removal of alterations to Central Parks’ transverse roads, which were part of Vaux and Olmsted’s Greensward Plan, to facilitate crosstown traffic at a number of locations. Strides have been made but more needs to be done.
– A Day of Arcitectural History in Newburgh – We ran a summer’s day of talks by distinguished speakers, including Francis Kowsky, Kerry Dean Carso, William Krattinger and Peter Smith, at a number of historic architecture sites in Newburgh. We thank all of the speakers once again for making the day such a pleasurable success.
– Walking Tour of Hoyt House Grounds – As part of Hudson River Valley Greenway’s month-long celebration of Historic Landscape Gardens of the Hudson Valley, we conducted an afternoon tour of the grounds, including Vaux’s scenic driveway approach, for a committed group of attendees.
– Childrens’ Aid Society – 221 Sullivan Street, NYC – Nomination for listing on the National and State Registers of Historic Places in partnership with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. The Children’s Aid Society has recently announced that they will be placing this 1892 Vaux & Radford creation up for sale. Our goal is to help protect the building against NYU’s continuing expansion plans and any other threats to its existence that could arise.
CVPA Plans in the works include:
– Vauxmonth – A month-long, statewide program in 2012 to be coordinated with Vaux sites across New York State. We will keep you posted as plans solidify.
– Vaux Site Listing – A comprehensive interactive website page, newly compiled and updated by Francis Kowsky, author of Country, Park & City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux and CVPA Executuve Vice President, of Vaux designed sites throughout the United States. We hope to have this up and running by the summer.
– Hoyt House Benefit 2011 – Another tent extravaganza on the front lawn of the Hoyt House this summer featuring a performance of live classical music. It was fun in 2008 and 2009 – we think it’s time to do it again.
We have come this far in our efforts to save and restore the Hoyt House and we certainly don’t have any intention of turning back now. And, as you know, central to our mission is raising public awareness of Calvert Vaux and the importance of his architecture and landscape design work to American culture.
Your continued support is necessary to move forward with our mission. If your CVPA membership has expired, please send a check – $35 for individual membership, $50 per couple – but please feel free to give as much as you are comfortable with. Refer to the membership section of our website for membership levels. If you’ve been following our activities in the press, Facebook, Tumblr or word of mouth and haven’t yet made a contribution, now is the time to do so. Since we are a 501(c)(3) organization, your contribution is tax deductible. Please send your check to the P.O. box address listed below.
Here is the link to the Poughkeepsie Journal article on the Hoyt House’s Save America’s Treasure Grant:
Thank you again for your continued support.
Alan Strauber, President
Calvert Vaux Preservation Alliance
PO Box 1106
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
[email protected]
www.calvertvaux.org