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Graycliff’s Historic Landscape Receives National Recognition and Funding for Restoration
The historic landscape of Graycliff, the state landmark designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is flowering in three related and wonderful ways.
The Graycliff Conservancy, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has received national recognition for its efforts to restore the historic landscape of the Graycliff Estate from the Cultural Landscape Foundation. Additionally, it also announces that it has been awarded a grant from the State of New York Environmental Protection Fund in the amount of $477,522 toward restoration of this historic landscape. Last but not least, it announces completion of the preliminary Graycliff Cultural Landscape Report.
- The Cultural Landscape Foundation, in Washington, DC, has recognized Graycliff Conservancy leaders for their work in preserving Graycliff’s historic 8.4 acres of landscaped gardens and grounds. “Carol Bronnenkant, Patrick Mahoney and John Conlin have been selected to represent and honor the hundreds of Graycliff Conservancy volunteers and members who have been dedicated to this project” said Diane Chrisman, Board President. The Graycliff Conservancy was selected for its stewardship efforts by The Cultural Landscape Foundation with a national “It Takes One” recognition. The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), established in 1998, is the only not-for-profit foundation in America dedicated to increasing the public’s awareness of the important legacy of cultural landscapes and to help save them for future generations. For more information, please see: http://www.tclf.org/stewardship/graycliff.html
- The Graycliff Conservancy is also proud to announce a recent grant from the State of New York, which will allow for the implementation of a plan to fully restore the historic gardens and grounds of the Graycliff estate. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (one of the very few specific landscape designs by the architect’s own hand), and additional design elements by Ellen Biddle Shipman, known as the “Dean of American Women Landscape Architects,” Graycliff represents the only known collaboration between these two giants of 20th century design. The grant, which requires a one-to-one match, provides Graycliff with half of the total funds necessary for the complete restoration of the estate’s historic grounds and gardens.
- The Graycliff Cultural Landscape Report, which has been underway since 2005, is in final review. This professional document was developed by Heritage Landscapes, Preservation Landscape Architects & Planners, a nationally recognized and award winning firm http://www.heritagelandscapes.com/ that specializes in historic landscape planning and implementation. The Graycliff Cultural Landscape Report is 486 pages weighs in at 4.4 lbs. It documents the fascinating evolution of the Graycliff landscape from the 1927 Frank Lloyd Wright design, the 1929 to 1931 Ellen Biddle Shipman planting design and the Martin Family changes from 1928 to1945. This unique landscape is the work of tow master professionals, Wright and Shipman for the Martin’s. The property evolved through the Piarist Fathers ownership from 1951 to1997 to the preservation efforts of the Graycliff Conservancy from 1998 to today. This exhaustive volume includes narrative and analysis, historic photographs, and illustrative plans that seek to restore the landscape to their former glory. An important addition is an essay by noted scholar Kathryn Smith, an authority on Frank Lloyd Wright’s design of water elements with a landscape.
Under the leadership of Patricia O’Donnell, FASLA, AICP and Principal of Heritage Landscapes, the report culminates in recommendations for a treatment plan. With approval by the Graycliff Board of Directors and review by the New York State Office of Historic Preservation, the Graycliff Cultural Landscape Report will become the blueprint for the implementation of this historic landscape restoration project, which unifies Wright’s design for Graycliff as an entirely realized complex of buildings amidst and within a designed landscape, incorporating the important secondary work of Ellen Biddle Shipman.
These three announcements herald a re-flowering of Graycliff’s landscape for the first time since the early 1930s, when the Wright and Shipman designs were implemented, and which were lost from view for the public and scholars alike for nearly seventy years through neglect and overgrowth. The Graycliff Conservancy is proud of the progress it has made in the restoration of its historic buildings over the last decade; and is extremely excited about this opportunity to restore its equally important historic landscape.
June 3, 2008 |