The integration of the Fruitlands Museum with the state’s largest land trust began this week, well before the 2017 deadline set by the two organizations.
On Monday, Marie LeBlanc, president of the Fruitlands board of trustees, announced to employees that the transfer of ownership to the Trustees of Reservations became effective Monday, April 25. Executive Director Wyona Lynch-McWhite has resigned, and the transfer of Fruitlands staff to the new organization is underway, LeBlanc said Tuesday in a brief phone conversation. She and the nine other members of the museum’s board of trustees have resigned as have the 18 members of the Fruitlands Corporation. Joanna Ballantine, manager of the Trustees’ western region, has been appointed interim manager.
Fruitlands Museum began in 1914, when Clara Endicott Sears, a wealthy Bostonian who had built a summer home at the summit of Prospect Hill in Harvard, opened the renovated farmhouse where transcendentalist and educator Bronson Alcott had brought his family in 1843.
Over three decades, Sears created Fruitlands Museum, which grew to include a museum of Native American art and artifacts, a Shaker collection, and an art museum of 250 American vernacular portraits and over 100 Hudson River School landscapes. The museum complex became a National Register Historic District in 1997. Last year, it celebrated its 100th anniversary, drawing 20,000 visitors.
The decision of the Fruitlands board of trustees to integrate the museum with the 115 other properties managed by the Trustees of Reservations was driven by a desire to preserve the museum’s land and buildings for future generations, said LeBlanc. The Fruitlands board wanted to find a partner that “shared our love of the land” and that had the resources to help the institution achieve its ambitious vision for the future.
“We are all about preserving the Sears legacy,”
LeBlanc said, noting that the Trustees has 120,000 members compared to Fruitlands’ 620. Fruitlands was financially sound and vibrant, she said, and “[we] wanted to [negotiate a change] from a position of strength.”
The agreement was approved unanimously by the two parties in February. Up to nine months were allowed for completion of the merger, “but it was never our intention to take that long,” said LeBlanc. “There were [Sears] Trust issues to be worked out,” but once those were settled, the decision was made to “move forward,” she said.
In a brief phone interview, outgoing director Lynch-McWhite, who is also chairwoman of Harvard’s Parks and Recreation Commission, said it had been “a privilege” to have led Fruitlands for the past four years. “I have … fallen in love with the Harvard community,” she said. “I am certainly very committed to Harvard. I don’t know what the future will hold, but I will be fulfilling my obligations,” including serving out her term on Parks and Rec.
“It’s hard to think about the last four years and not point out the Fruitlands Centennial as a highlight,” Lynch-McWhite said, though many residents will also think first of summer concerts and fireworks on the westward-facing grounds of the museum.
“You can’t do the work alone,” she said. “I am very privileged to have led Fruitlands, but I didn’t do the work alone.” Her success, she said, was due to “the amazing staff and the community members who reached out to embrace me when I came to Harvard and have been so supportive every step along the way.”
A changing organization
As the current staff prepares for new leadership, LeBlanc said, she expects that the Trustees will immediately begin a search for a new executive director and a new curator to replace longtime curator Mike Volmar, who resigned earlier this year. One of the attractions of partnering with the Trustees is “that there is always a local manager,” said LeBlanc. In addition, the agreement calls for creation of a nine-member advisory committee, five of whom will be drawn from the outgoing Fruitlands board and community. “Joanna [Ballantine] is terrific,” she added, and the Trustees will want to take time “to make sure the people they pick are really solid.”
Reached by phone Tuesday, interim director Ballantine said the Trustees were “honored” to welcome Fruitlands to the Trustees’ reservations. “We joke that we’re part of a ‘literary landscape’” that extends from the Old Manse in Concord to the William Cullen Bryant house in Cummington, she said.
Visitors to Fruitlands this spring won’t notice anything different, she said. The 2016 season has begun, the café is open, and plans for the annual “Farm to Fork” benefit event are nearly complete, she added.
