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NEWS RELEASE Media contact:
Colleen Schafroth, Executive Director
Maryhill Museum of Art Board of Trustees Unanimous in Decision
to Begin Construction on New Wing
Groundbreaking Ceremony February 18 at 3:30 p.m.
(GOLDENDALE, Wash., February 8, 2011) – With 95 percent of the funds in hand, the Board of Trustees of Maryhill Museum of Art has unanimously agreed to begin construction on the 25,500 square foot
Mary and Bruce Stevenson Wing.
An official groundbreaking ceremony for the first expansion in the museum’s history will be held Friday, February 18 at 3:30 p.m. The event is open to the public and media.
At the Board’s January 22, 2011 meeting, Trustee Laura Cheney, capital campaign co-chair and daughter of museum benefactors Mary and Bruce Stevenson, urged the group to move forward with construction. Cheney’s motion was unanimously approved.
While $450,000 remains to be raised to meet the project's $9.3 million construction costs, the Board and staff are confident that enough donor support and momentum exists to carry the project to completion by the target date of March 2012; the overall capital campaign goal is $10 million.
“There is a tremendous amount of community support and enthusiasm for the expansion, so we know we’ll get there,” says Maryhill’s Board of Trustees president Jim Foster. “But in order to take advantage of some existing gifts and pledges, we need to move forward now.”
Two pledged gifts in particular require the museum to begin construction sooner rather than later. A $1.5 million grant from the Washington State Building for the Arts fund requires construction to commence before July 2011. The offer of $500,000 of support from Cannon Power must be used while the company completes projects currently underway in Klickitat County.
“We are still fundraising to meet our total $10 million campaign goal. Once construction is underway, we are confident that donors will step up to help push us past the goal line,” says Foster.
Starting the project now allows the museum to lock in favorable construction bids and is good timing from a practicality standpoint – excavation will be complete and mechanical systems in place before fall weather hits.
One recent bit of good news has provided another incentive for donors to make a gift now – a matching grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. For every $2 raised, the Murdock Trust will contribute $1 to the project up to a total of $400,000.
“Murdock’s gift comes at a critical point in the campaign and presents an incredible opportunity to leverage $800,000 toward our fundraising goal,” says Colleen Schafroth, Maryhill’s executive director. The museum has launched an online portal at
www.maryhillmuseum.org/expansion/ where donors can contribute directly to the campaign and to the Murdock Trust match.
The expansion will be managed by Milt Ketchum of Sherman County, Oregon and constructed by
Schommer and Sons Construction of Portland. At the January 22 Board meeting Schommer and Sons announced that they would contribute in-kind services valued at $50,000.
Maryhill Museum of Art will remain open throughout construction; dates for the 2011 season are March 15 – November 15, 2011.
Project Highlights:
Designed by
GBD Architects of Portland, the 25,500 square foot Mary and Bruce Stevenson Wing will allow Maryhill to meet a number of strategic objectives as it serves growing audiences from throughoutOregon, Washington and around the globe.
Key features of the new wing include: a dedicated art education center to accommodate Maryhill’s wide range of public programming; a centralized collections suite for improved storage and to give curators and researchers more efficient access to the museum’s world-class collections; an outdoor plaza where visitors can better enjoy Maryhill’s extraordinary setting and growing collection of large-scale sculpture; and, a new café with terrace seating and stunning views of the Columbia River Gorge.
To date, Maryhill has raised $8.88 million of the campaign goal of $10 million in cash gifts, bequests and pledges. The campaign was jumpstarted with a $2.6 million gift from Mary Hoyt Stevenson and further enriched with a $1.5 million award from the Washington State Building for the Arts fund and a $400,000 matching grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. Additional funds come from the museum’s trustees, members and friends, as well as regional foundations and businesses.
For more information on the new wing, including schematics and contribution information, visit
www.maryhillmuseum.org/expansion.html.
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ABOUT MARYHILL MUSEUM OF ART:
Housed in a glorious Beaux Arts mansion on 5,300 acres high above the Columbia River, Maryhill Museum of Art opened to the public May 13, 1940 and today remains one of the Pacific Northwest’s most enchanting cultural destinations. The museum was founded by Northwest entrepreneur and visionary Sam Hill, who purchased the property and began building the house with dreams of establishing a Quaker farming community. When that goal proved untenable, Hill was encouraged by friends Loie Fuller, Queen Marie of Romania, and Alma de Bretteville Spreckles to establish a museum.
Maryhill Museum of Art boasts a world-class permanent collection, rotating exhibitions of the highest caliber, and dynamic educational programs that provide opportunities for further exploration by visitors of all ages. On view are more than 80 works by Auguste Rodin, European and American paintings, objects d'art from the palaces of the Queen of Romania, Orthodox icons, unique chess sets, and the renowned Théâtre de la Mode, featuring small-scale mannequins attired in designer fashions of post-World War II France. Baskets of the indigenous people of North America were a collecting interest of Hill; today the museum’s Native American collection represents nearly every tradition and style in North America, with works of art from prehistoric through contemporary.
Maryhill’s Outdoor Sculpture Garden features more than a dozen large-scale works by Northwest artists. The Maryhill Overlook is a site-specific sculpture by noted Portland architect Brad Cloepfil; nearby are Lewis and Clark interpretive panels. Four miles east of Maryhill is a life-sized replica of Stonehenge, Stonehenge Memorial, which Sam Hill built to memorialize local men who perished in World War I. Nearby, the Klickitat County War Memorial honors those who have died in the service of their country since World War I.
The museum was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. In 2001 the museum was listed as an official site of the National Historic Lewis and Clark Trail and in 2002 was accredited by the American Association of Museums.
VISITOR INFORMATION:
Maryhill Museum of Art is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., March 15 to November 15. Admission is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors, $3 for youth age 7-18 and free for children 6 and under. Admission to the Stonehenge Memorial is free; it is open from 7:00 a.m. to dusk daily.
Sandwiches, salads, espresso drinks, cold beverages, and freshly baked desserts and pastries are available at Café Maryhill from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily; the Museum Store features art and history books, jewelry, Native American crafts and other mementos.
Maryhill is located off Highway 97, 12 miles south of Goldendale, Washington. Drive times to the museum are 2 hours from Portland/Vancouver, 3.5 hours from Bend, 4 hours from Seattle, and 1.5 hours from Yakima. For further information, visit
www.maryhillmuseum.org.
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