1. Kimberly Finzel Anthropology 577 Ball State University April 26, 2010

2. Donna Ann Harris Altamira Press, 2007 260 pages NEW SOLUTIONS FOR HOUSE MUSEUMS: ENSURING THE LONG-TERM PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HISTORIC HOUSES

4. Designed for board and staff members of nonprofit-owned historic house museums that are struggling with insufficient funds or people power to sustain their site to the level that their historic building needs and deserves. Provides new solutions for house museums that cannot be sustained long-term. Outlines eight techniques currently in use by nonprofit and government owners of historic houses to sustain the sites long-term.

5. Part I Assessment and Decision Making Current Trends in Historic House Museums Is This Your House Museum? Legal and Ethical Issues The Decision-Making Process Making the Transition

7. House Museums must be heavily subsidized in order to pay for house maintenance and the staff to run them.

9. Some House Museum Statistics Twenty years ago there were 5,000 house museums in the United States. Ten years ago there were more than 8,000. 59% began operating prior to the 1960s. 70% are in rural locations or places with populations under 50,000 people. 54% receive fewer than 5,000 visitors a year. 65% have no full-time staff. 80% have annual budgets of less than $50,000. A new house museum is created every 3.5 days.

10. House museums appeal to both preservationists and the public because of their familiarity. However, without active interpretation a house is a dead artifact. Want to honor and romanticize local forefathers. Interpretations are often generic.

11. Some problems with house museums. Aging boards. Few endowments and little planned giving. Deferred maintenance obligations. Visitor services.

13. Deferred Maintenance

14. An Aging Board of Directors

15. No Endowment or Organizational Reserves

16. Dwindling Attendance, Increased Competition

18. Attorney General’s Office.

19. Responsibilities and Solutions for the five fictional challenges.

20. Container or Real Estate Investment?

21. Future Maintenance and Restoration

24. An Educational Component.

25. A Permanent Reminder.

28. Find a use that fits the house, rather than fitting the use into the house.

29. Minimizes destruction of historic fabric.

30. Small size of domestic buildings means fewer reuse options.

31. Sites with more acreage or outbuildings will have more choices.

32. Condition of the building, setting, and zoning laws must be considered.

33. Two possible choices:

34. Retain ownership of the site

36. Reuse Options Based on the Condition of the Historic House Museum Building

37. Retain ownership of the historic building Five options: Continue to manage the site but reprogram it as a study house with limited visitation. Continue to manage the site but reprogram it for another mission-based use. Give up daily management, and enter into a formal co-stewardship or cooperative relationship with another house museum organization to operate and manage the house museum. Dissolve the corporation and merge with another nonprofit to manage the property as a house museum. Give up daily management, and enter into a long-term management or lease agreement with another nonprofit or for-profit that manages the property for a house museum or another adaptive use.

38. Sale or donation of the property, with protective easements Three options: Sell the house to a private owner with easements Sell to a nonprofit stewardship organization with easements Donate the site to a government or other nonprofit entity.

40. Solutions for museums having operational issues, preservation concerns, or financial problems.

41. Many of the responsibilities of house museum boards are also our responsibilities as the creators of the current museum exhibition.