Hyde Hall

Hyde Hall Receives 30 Year Lease Renewal

Jonathan-Maney-Executive-Director-CEO-Hyde-Hall

A letter from Jonathan Maney
Executive Director and CEO, Hyde Hall, Inc.
from the Spring 2016 Newsletter

PARTNERING WITH THE STATE OF NEW YORK

For more than 50 years, Hyde Hall, Inc., and the State of New York have conducted what was once a unique experiment. Forming the first public/private partnership to ensure that Hyde Hall would be saved, the State and a group of leading Cooperstown-area citizens began a type of partnership that is now copied at many other historic sites. While the State retained ownership of Hyde Hall, it granted the responsibility of planning and implementing major restorations to the Friends of Hyde Hall, a group that included members of the Clarke family and others who understood the significance of Hyde Hall and the need to raise funds to restore it. As time passed, the Friends of Hyde Hall became Hyde Hall, Inc.

This extremely successful partnership with New York State has produced the vast improvements that we now see. To ensure Hyde Hall’s continued stability, and to demonstrate strong commitment to our shared goals, we are renewing our lease with the State for another 30 years.

In brief, this agreement with New York State and Parks will help us increase tourism and continue Hyde Hall’s restoration and preservation. Our goals include:

  •  developing new specialty tours;
  •  expanding the hydehall.org.mylampsite.com website;
  •  developing our research library and its rare book collection;
  •  improving access to our digital archives;
  •  building new partnerships with our area’s arts and cultural organizations;
  •  developing new ways to build Hyde Hall’s reputation as a Central New York cultural center;
  •  following the proposals set out in the Hyde Hall Cultural Landscape Report to improve interpretation and enhance the landscape;
  •  restoring outbuildings, including the Cart Hovel, Ice House, Woodshed, Barn Complex, and Lime House, with the goal of making them suitable for free exhibitions and displays that would benefit Glimmerglass Park visitors and teach them about lake culture and 19th-century agriculture;
  •  developing access to Otsego Lake from Hyde Hall; and
  •  completing the restoration of the interior of Hyde Hall.

Altogether, the large price tag for these goals will benefit local contractors, and with improved access to Hyde Hall, our local economy will be strengthened and tourism will grow.

 
 
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