WOODCHESTER PRESENTED CHALLENGES FOR THE ROOKIE DO-GOODER

The problem with funding Woodchester Villa and Museum, in Bracebridge, was an unrelenting issue. It was the reason we couldn’t advance in normal museum cataloguing and program development. We couldn’t get enough money annually, from grants etc., to benefit from a curator. We could muster staff for touring and general maintenance of the property, but what we really needed was a full time curator. It wasn’t financially viable during my time serving with the museum in the 1980's.

Every year we were forced to spend hours and hours filling out the paperwork to apply for an Operational Grant. Our deficit situation was that we couldn’t meet the governing agency’s demands......in large part because we didn’t have the leadership of a curator. I became the first “president / manager / curator.” I was part volunteer, part paid staff at the end but in no way a worthy substitute for an experienced, well educated curator. But it was what we had to work with unfortunately. Not having full time staff killed us every time we applied for a grant.

From the beginning we had to deal with moisture problems. As we had drainage issues around the building, and a concrete structure, there was a percolation of moisture from the ground up the wall, gradually turning the cement into a mush. At one point I could gouge out portions of the cement with my bare hands. Measures were taken but a lot of the damage was done already. We couldn’t stop the high moisture readings in the house, there was no money to do anything more than patch and watch, and the operational grants, because of these nagging shortfalls, couldn’t be successfully completed with these deficiencies.

The day to day stuff at the museum was mostly positive. There was an occasion when staff or volunteers, had taken one of the Victorian wedding gowns, from a cupboard, and placed it on the bedstead of the master bedroom. I remember getting a frantic call, one night, about something I wasn’t familiar. “We’ve had a blow-back Ted......a blow back.....we’re in big trouble.” The caller had my attention. “What’s a blow-back.” I asked. “A soot blow-back......from the furnace.....there’s soot everywhere through the house.” I’m trying to appreciate this new and troubling reality, from an obvious malfunction of the oil furnace. “Ted, it’s awful. There’s a covering of soot on everything.” “Everything,” I asked again. “Everything,” was the answer. Then, at that precise moment, the caller and I uttered the same words; “wedding dress!” It was a black dress now.

It took a long, long time to repair that dress. I had to send it to a national heritage restoration operation, in Ottawa, where it remained for years. Think about the intricate lace on such a dress, and how minuscule particles can get between the fibres, and multiply that by the trillions. I think we got it back within the years of my management but I’m not sure of this. I am sure that a soot blow-back is a nasty event. Even after years of cleaning, I was still finding black blotches around the house that hadn’t been previously detected.

With a tight budget, even in a good year, we lived in absolute fear something or other was going to happen, that would require an expenditure. We purchased everything on the cheap. Even the toilet paper. Discount lightbulbs. Paper towels. I often had to bring my own lawnmower to do the lawns in the early years, after the museum’s mower broke down. We eventually did get the town to assist with funding lawn cutting. But this constant chase for financial stability, and having to live with so many shortfalls, for so long, meant that directors were in a perpetual mission to fundraise. This became a drag on us all. It sucked the fun out of being involved in a museum. There was so much we couldn’t do that would have enhanced the place. By far, the biggest problem we had, and it did limit our visitations, was that Woodchester Villa was on a peak of land......that while wonderfully scenic, was somewhat more difficult to get to......(especially on hot summer days), than most other community museums in Ontario. While we got car loads of visitors, the fact we didn’t have a front entrance, and that guests had to come in off side-streets, and through a residential neighborhood, definitely confused tourists. It was a mistake at the beginning, that we didn’t have a proper front parking lot, and a more gradual walkway up to the museum. We got very little walk-in business. It hurt us. Even though we were in close proximity to the cataract of the Bracebridge Falls, visited by thousands of tourists each year, Woodchester’s out of the way position, always worked against us. And as we needed every dime of revenue, and fifty percent more, it was like running in the three legged race, blindfolded, with arms bound as well as feet, and expected to hit the finish line first. When we tried to explain this to town councillors, we got nods and grins, a few shaking heads and that’s about it. It’s a thirty odd year problem with museum design and strategy.

What we found out over the years, was that despite our convictions, (which really didn’t mean too much more than pig-headedness), there wasn’t a great need, or more than a thin desire, to visit a no-frills Victorian era museum. We were faced with this same problem, when I was director of the Muskoka Lakes Museum, in Port Carling, which has an even better, more convenient location. There was a huge need to recognize the interests of the public....not just the interests of the historical purists.......with the crusty, tired mantra “if we build it, they’d better come.” It just doesn’t fly. The advantage in Port Carling is that they have been able to employ a long-term curator, which does guarantee stability and compliance with funding agencies. They have become a far more vibrant operation than they were during my period of participation.

If I had to do it all again, and I hate to admit this, but I would have pitched a brand new museum building be built instead, somewhere on the straight and level, where there is a good daily traffic flow by the front door. A building that is equipped with proper climate control and adaptable to all kinds of uses and set up, in advance architecturally, for the ease of future expansion. Most of us knew that the restoration of an 1880's house was going to be a money pit, yet we embraced it none the less. It hasn’t been a lost cause because we did save an important architectural relic in North America. Attached to this, of course, was the subtle acknowledgment that, as it is a jewel, it was going to take a king’s ransom, each year, to maintain. It’s no different than many other historic buildings in Muskoka. The Gravenhurst Opera House comes to mind. The Town will get a real eye-opener one of these days, about the cost of serious new restoration. It’s the cost of owning and operating any old structure. As far as architectural conservancy, the problem is always the same. Money. Constant availability of money. Stages of restoration, versus big, expensive ones, when it’s found out deterioration is greater than anticipated.

Spending half a million dollars, or more, on Woodchester Villa’s restoration, is something to worry about.....because it won’t end there. Unless there is a serious plan to keep a large reserve fund for annual physical upkeep, ten or fifteen years from now there will be a similar dilemma. At a tough economic time, it will be a serious drain on finances.......but that’s not what was intended when so many kind citizens pooled together, and worked so hard, to make the town museum a reality. We just didn’t set down a good working relationship with the town until the late 1980's, when for all intents and purposes, the museum was already on a downhill slide......money and volunteers were in ever-declining numbers.

As one of the founders, I’m sure that I will upset some of my contemporaries, when I suggest that the late 1980's stressful decision to divide the property, to allow the Muskoka Arts and Crafts community, to take over the museum annex as a gallery / administrative centre, was not only the right move then, but potentially the right move now to expand their operations into a much larger arts resource centre. I took a huge amount of flack from directors and Historical Society members, when, with the town’s backing, I initiated negotiations to diversify the property use. The Chapel Gallery is a huge success story, and one I’m proud to have been involved with from the onset. I think there is a good potential for expanding their operation, and making that picturesque hillside into a much larger gallery, workshop, resource centre.

I expect a similar outcry today, as it happened in the late 1980's. I think that to justify the expense of restoring Woodchester Villa, a better-use plan has to be developed, that will guarantee more visitor traffic to the site, and be an even better town attraction over four seasons. The museum, as much as I love it, and helped operate it over many years, is not enough of an attraction to make much difference to traffic flow on that hillside. I think it may be time to look at a further diversification, and a reduction or removal of the museum collection, to be replaced by an arts related use.....gallery, resource centre, workshops, with an artist in residence potential in exchange for housekeeping services rendered. The possibility of getting access to art centre funding may be more successful now, than getting museum operational funds......because it won’t happen without a full time curator. Muskoka Arts and Crafts has the stewardship situation well in hand, and I think they would be appropriate users of the entire Woodchester property......if indeed they could see the future potential for themselves, and an expanded resource centre and gallery.

I recognize this is presumptuous of me. Forgive this friend of Woodchester Villa, for writing on its behalf. I’d love to see it have a great future potential, but as a renewed museum, I think the move would be futile, unrewarding and expensive, as an examination of its history over three decades clearly shows.

As an historical purist for much of my life, I have become a seriously concerned ratepayer of Muskoka. And I realize that critically important questions were not raised in 1979-80, about long term museum operation and restoration contingencies......and that inevitably determined we would reach this point of decision sooner or later. I think Bracebridge should have a new library with a museum attachment, in an accessible area of town, where the community’s heritage can be displayed and used in a modern, climate controlled, easy to maintain, modern structure. It’s worth waiting for.

I can see myself, visiting my old friend on the hillside, (I always talked to Woodchester as if it was a living entity), sharing memories of the good old days, the labors, the trial and error, and the laughs, and feeling good about the bright new use for an historic building of its acclaim. I wouldn’t feel at all bad, to see the property being used like it should be.......and frankly, I think having more use would please many of us, who do feel bad it has fallen on hard times.

The arts community has very much improved life and times on the Woodchester hillside. I didn’t have a doubt about their success, when I opened that Pandora’s Box......and despite a rough patch of dissent, even the critics would have to agree, it gave Woodchester a few more years of viability.

Only an idea.