Dear Friend,
I’m very excited that the East Hampton Historical Society will soon break ground on our new Collections Storage Center, which will be located on Mulford Farm. The new facility will mimic the design of the current storage barn and provide an additional 4,500 square feet of space in fully-climatized conditions. In advance of the construction, Anna Muller, Curator of Collections, has busily packed and prepared thousands of objects so they can be transported offsite. There were so many artifacts stockpiled in the storage barn, it almost looked like the steerage section of a passenger ship. In the photograph, you can witness the amazing work that Anna has completed in a very short time.
Several people have asked me if our current storage building is historic. While it appears very old, the building was erected in 1976 almost three decades after the Historical Society acquired Mulford Farm. The effort to build it was led by the Osborne family in memory of their parents, Nelson and Eleanor Osborne. Nelson was a former president of the Historical Society and Eleanor had been president of the Ladies Village Improvement Society (LVIS).
Nearly fifty years ago, the American Bicentennial appears to have served as the catalyst for the construction of the storage barn. Prior to its completion, the historic Mulford Barn, which was built c. 1720, housed booths for the LVIS’s annual Fair plus parts of the Historical Society’s artifact collection. By clearing out the Mulford Barn, the Historical Society could begin using it as exhibit space for the public.
Today, as we approach the American Semiquincentennial, aka America’s 250th, the Historical Society is once again upgrading its collections storage so we can now preserve our community’s cultural heritage in state-of-the-art conditions. If you’re interested in learning more about this campaign, please email or call me at 631.324.6850 x3.
Sincerely,
Steve Long, Executive Director