Preservation Archives - Page 2 of 6

Preserving the Past, Planning for the Future

May 8, 2023Billy Rankin

Creating a New Long-Range Plan for Shaker Village

Billy Rankin, Vice President of Public Programming and Marketing

For most visitors to Shaker Village, the typical conversation is framed in the “past tense.”
Who lived here? How were these buildings used? What did this look like in the 19^th century? What did the Shakers believe?

As Kentucky’s largest National Historic Landmark, this makes perfect sense, of course. It has been over 200 years since Shaker missionaries first came to our state, and the rich and vibrant stories of Pleasant Hill’s rise, decline and restoration have attracted millions of visitors since our nonprofit opened the Village to the public in 1968.

There are a committed few, however, that have recently been framing their conversations about Shaker Village in the “future tense.” With these conversations come a very different set of questions.
How will we use this building? What will happen in this space? What infrastructure is needed to support higher visitation? What will our guests need, that we don’t already provide? How do we ensure Shaker Village will be healthy for generations to come?

After 55 years of sharing Pleasant Hill with the public, Shaker Village is creating a new Long-Range Plan.

Building on Success

So, what has prompted this new planning process, and what are the intended outcomes?

Over the last decade, Shaker Village has tackled a number of major challenges and celebrated many successes. We have made great strides in historic preservation, exhibit installation, care of the grounds, upgrades to infrastructure, growth of our endowment and increases in annual visitation, passholders and individual donors. There is still much to be done to preserve and care for the buildings and property at Pleasant Hill, but we have turned an important corner. Our successes have built momentum, and with this momentum comes the opportunity for continued growth.

*Shaker Village staff meet with representatives from Bernheim Forest to discuss initiatives to increase youth engagement at the Village.*

In late 2021, the Shaker Village Board of Trustees, recognizing this pivotal moment in our nonprofit’s history, created a Long-Range Planning Committee (LRPC) and commissioned it with developing a new Master Site Plan for the property. The committee, chaired by Centre College President Emeritus Dr. John Roush, is comprised of a select group of architects, preservationists and business people from the Board of Trustees, joined by members of the Village’s Senior Leadership staff.

Doing Our Homework

The LRPC wasted no time getting started with their assignment. In the last 18 months this committee has conducted studies of Shaker Village’s operations and identified key challenges and opportunities.

*Shaker Village Curator Becky Soules speaks with an interpreter during a site visit to Colonial Williamsburg.*

Members of the LRPC have made site visits to nearly 20 other cultural sites to draw comparisons and learn from shared experiences. These visits, to organizations including Colonial Williamsburg, Conner Prairie, Bernheim Forest, Yew Dell Gardens, and the Kentucky Historical Society, have inspired the team at Shaker Village not only through learning of successes, but by also learning of mistakes made by each organization along the way.

The LRPC also conducted a series of interviews with architects, landscape designers and master site planning specialists to prepare for the questions and inevitable hurdles Shaker Village will face when implementing its own Master Site Plan.

Staying on Mission

One bit of wisdom the LRPC has taken from their study has been: “just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do something.” Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill is an incredibly special place, and always has been. As our team works to enhance guest experiences, grow visitation and increase accessibility, it is incredibly important that nothing we do detracts from what the Village already is.

*Shaker village staff and board members visited many other cultural sites over the last 18 months, including Conner Prairie in Indiana.*

This perfect balance of preservation and hospitality is where the magic of Shaker Village is found.

To guide our team’s efforts, every idea and concept is run through a series of “strategy screen questions” and ultimately viewed through the lens of our mission, to inspire generations of guests through discovery, by sharing the legacies of the Kentucky Shakers.

As our team examines needs for additional overnight rooms, kitchen space, programming areas and more, coming back to our strategy screen and mission ensures that future projects are in line with the spirit and identity of Shaker Village, and only augment the overall experience of the site.

What Comes Next?

In the coming months, the LRPC will select and partner with a firm that specializes in master site planning for large, diverse properties. Together, they will refine a list of projects and initiatives that help to preserve the property, while enhancing guest experiences. At the end of this process, the leadership of Shaker Village will have drawings, site maps and other renderings to share this vision for the future to the public.

According to Dr. Roush, “Shaker Village is going to be here, as an organization and as an historic site, for a very long time. We are taking our time to plan for the long-term. Some tasks we discuss may be accomplished relatively soon, while others are years away, but the important thing is that we have a thoughtful plan that provides a playbook for the success and longevity of this incredibly unique place.”

Follow Our Progress

As plans develop, you can expect to hear more about the progress on social media, through emails and on the Shaker Village blog. We hope you follow along!

If you have questions about master site planning at Shaker Village, please reach out to our Vice President of Public Programming & Marketing, Billy Rankin at [email protected] or 859.734.1574.

The Origins of the North Lot Dwelling

March 27, 2023Billy Rankin

Jordan Lewis, Interpreter

Early Homes

In the first decade after the arrival of Shaker missionaries in Mercer County, before the Pleasant Hill community had built many of the iconic structures that make up the village today, new converts lived on farmsteads scattered around what would eventually become the village center. Many of these homes and outbuildings had not been built by the Shakers, but were put to use to house the rapidly growing community as the Shakers bought land from their neighbors. Early journals make reference to many of these farmsteads, including “the Denny Farm on the hill West of the Grist mill pond, the Varner place about a mile North of the village, and the Brickey place about a half mile or more beyond that” (Church Record Book A, SVPH Archives, pg. 38).

*1816 North Lot Family Dwelling c. 1940s. Courtesy of the Historic American Building Survey.*

One such property was a parcel of land the Shakers bought from William Hoard in 1807, just two years after Shaker missionaries arrived in Mercer County. The property included a frame house which had been built by a previous occupant, which became home for the next ten years to several groups of new converts, including some of Pleasant Hill’s most prominent early families – the Bantas, the Runyons, the Bryants, and converts like John Shain, who later became the village doctor.

A New Location

Over time, the Shakers at Pleasant Hill established two purpose-built Gathering Orders, the North Lot Family and West Lot Family, to house new members of the faith while they learned about Shaker lifestyle and religion. The scattered farmsteads that had characterized early village life were simultaneously being phased out. At this time, the Shakers deconstructed the frame house from the Hoard property and recycled some of the materials into a new dwelling.

On December 16, 1816, Shakers recorded the beginning of this work in their journals: “Today we began to pull down and move away the old fraim house where Samuel Banta collected a Family in 1807, we intend establishing a gathering family or family of young believers, the family is to be 1 mile North E of the Center Family it will be known by the name of North Lot” (Origins & Progress of the Society, SVPH Archives, pg. 123).

*North Lot Family Dwelling prior to restoration efforts c. 1960s*.

Over the next year, the Shakers built the new North Lot Family Dwelling, purpose-designed to serve as a home for the new gathering order and complete with a cellar, kitchen, communal meeting area, and staircases for men and women. The first residents moved to North Lot Family on November 25th, 1817. This building served as the primary dwelling house for the family until December of 1832, when a larger brick dwelling (lost to a fire in 1946) was completed, after which point it was used as a workshop.

Gathering Orders at Pleasant Hill

Shaker Gathering Orders hosted diverse and shifting populations of potential converts as needy families, European immigrants, spiritual seekers, free black Americans, and countless others arrived on the Shakers’ doorstep. Records note frequent arrivals and departures: members leaving the faith, novitiates transferring to other spiritual families, run-away children, expulsions and readmittances, births, deaths, and other dramas. Some residents of the North Lot Family Dwelling stayed for months, weeks, or years while never formally joining the community, while for others their time at North Lot Family was merely the first step toward a life lived in the Shaker community.

*The North Lot Family was once home to almost two dozen structures. Several can still be seen standing here in 1912.*

The North Lot Family Dwelling

Today, the frame dwelling is the only building remaining from the North Lot Family Gathering Order, 206 years after it was moved to its present location. Because the frame house was in existence before the Shakers began constructing some of their first structures on the site, the building likely contains some of the oldest materials still on the site today.

The building has been closed to the public since the 2000s, but preservation will begin as soon as funding is secured. As preservation of the building begins and progresses, we will continue to research and share the story of this significant structure, while preparing it to be used again someday very soon.

Learn more about the history of historic preservation at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill!

Saving Shakertown

June 27, 2021Shaker Village

It takes a Village to save a Village.

Maggie McAdams, Education and Engagement Manager

After the last Pleasant Hill Shaker passed away in 1923, the once vast Shaker community ceased to exist as a religious society. The historic buildings that once formed the foundation for this community found new uses with new owners. Shakertown, as it was known locally, became another stop along Highway 68, with gas stations, general stores, restaurants and hotels interspersed among farms with houses and barns.

*Robert Renfrew, Bob Houlihan, Earl Wallace and Hillery Boone inside The Trustees’ Office at the time of purchase.*

The First Attempt to Save Shakertown

There were very clear and deliberate efforts in the 1930s and 1940s to see Pleasant Hill set aside as a historic site or state park. Individuals and organizations were working on many fronts to see this happen. Burwell Marshall had purchased quite a bit of land during this period under the name Pleasant Hill Realty Co., and eventually opened a museum in the Centre Family Dwelling. It appeared that almost everyone with an interest in this village during this period, wanted to see it set aside and saved, and wanted to help interpret Shaker history by doing so.

By the 1950’s; however, momentum to save the site had waned. Though there were still interested parties, the buildings were in worse shape than ever with many on the brink of collapse.

The Renfrew Restaurant

By this time, the bulk of the original Shaker buildings were in the hands of just five individuals. The Gwinn brothers owned much of the West end of the Village, while Burwell Marshall retained ownership of the Centre and East portions. Robert and Bettye Renfrew purchased the Trustees’ Office in the 1950s to run a restaurant.

According to one of the restaurant regulars, “the place had a lot of character. It was like something out of a Faulkner novel, going there for dinner. It was a bring-your-own-bottle operation, and the food was wonderful. They just had a few things – a special eggplant casserole and fried chicken and old ham, but they’d never get it ready. Guests would sit out on the front steps and ‘kill a bottle of whiskey,’ and finally a member of the party would stroll back into the kitchen and casually ask, ‘How’re things coming, Mrs. Renfrew?’ The lady would look up at her interlocutor from her cup of tea, ‘but it wasn’t tea.’ Finally everybody would get fed, and then somebody would wind up the old Victrola in the corner and put on a record, and sometimes the waitress would join the dancing.”[1]

Raising Funds to Save Shakertown

Despite the charm of the buildings, it was apparent something drastic needed to be done. The effort to save Pleasant Hill was revived with the Shakertown Committee of the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation. At a dinner in 1959 at the Shakertown Inn, the Renfrew’s restaurant, members of the Harrodsburg Historical Society, the Chamber of Commerce and other community leaders excitedly announced the formation of a committee to “explore methods to restore some fifteen buildings at Pleasant Hill and to make the place a historical and tourist site.”[2]

By 1962, the Shakertown Committee had secured options to be able to purchase many of the remaining Shaker buildings, but the combined figure of $362,000 was daunting! Earl Wallace, then chair of the board of Trustees, claimed “the first challenge to our enthusiasm came as the option on the present Trustees’ House was about to expire. We were faced with the payment of $62,500 which we did not have. The challenge came from Barry Bingham of Louisville who said that he would give $25,000 if we would raise the balance. The seriousness of our undertaking dawned on me and five other trustees when we had to endorse Shakertown’s note at a Lexington Bank to get the balance. I recall we said at that time that Shakertown would own one property if never another!”[3]

*Fundraising efforts led by the non-profit Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, Inc.*

The Trustees’ Office was the first building purchased by the newly formed non-profit Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, Inc., and this decision was very deliberate; they viewed this building as the key to the restoration effort. This building was unanimously considered “the vital first purchase in the Shakertown project.”[4]

Preserving the Past for the Future

After subsequent waves of preservation and fundraising, the Village currently sits on 3,000 acres of Shaker land, which includes a nature preserve, farm and a historic site with 34 original Shaker structures remaining. Today, the Trustees’ Office continues to serve as an integral part of the Shaker Village experience. With shops, a restaurant, and guest rooms, this space allows visitors to connect with this historic site in a personal way.

Our mission at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill is to inspire generations through discovery by sharing the legacies of the Kentucky Shakers. We do this by inviting the public to explore the Village, to stay the night and to take part in our daily programs that help interpret the Pleasant Hill story. We take the legacies of the Pleasant Hill Shakers to heart, and hope that these legacies continue to welcome visitors for years to come.

[1] Thomas Parrish, Restoring Shakertown: The Struggle to Save the Historic Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill (KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2005), 2.

[2] Ibid., 41-42.

[3] Earl D. Wallace, A Review of the First Fifteen Years of Financing the Restoration of Pleasant Hill (KY: Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, KY Inc., 1975-1976), 4.

[4] Parrish, Restoring Shakertown, 47-18.

Preserving the Shaker Legacy

April 29, 2021Shaker Village

Melissa Williams, Development Coordinator

It’s fascinating to look through photographs from the time between when the Shakers closed their covenant at Pleasant Hill in 1910 and the opening of the Village in 1968 as an educational nonprofit organization. These photographs tell a five-decade story of change, care, preservation and deterioration, as private citizens took ownership and utilized many Shaker buildings for their homes and businesses.

Despite the changing uses of the buildings, the legacy of the Shaker community, their faith, and their values have endured at Pleasant Hill. Local residents and those who passed through the Village on U.S. Highway 68 recognized that Pleasant Hill represented something very important, and it needed to be preserved and shared with future generations.

Preservation efforts gained momentum during the 1950s as private citizens came together in a more organized way. In 1961 – 60 years ago –our non-profit organization was formalized and incorporated. Tasked with the enormous undertaking of acquiring the remaining Shaker structures and the land previously held by the Shakers, the organization set to work raising funds and restoring the buildings to their mid-19^th century aesthetics.

Earl D. Wallace, chairman at Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Inc., breaks ground at the former Shaker community to celebrate the beginning of a 12-month construction and restoration project costing more than $1 million. June 21, 1966. The Courier-Journal.

The initial restoration and preservation of the Village is an inspiring story, illustrating the allure Pleasant Hill has held since it was settled by the Shakers 216 years ago. But the $1 million restoration project carried out in the 1960s is just the beginning of the preservation of the site. In the decades that followed, our nonprofit has worked to preserve the restoration, with this work continuing today

Over the last decade, Shaker Village craftsman have conducted at least $1 million of work each year to ensure the long-term preservation of the 34 historic buildings on the site, as well as the cultural landscape. Our long-term historic preservation plan is based on this level of spending on an annual basis.

A price tag of at least $1 million a year seems like a lot of money, so how is that money spent?

The most immediately recognizable preservation projects are those that include a comprehensive work plan including the roof, doors, windows, interior woodwork, exterior siding, and masonry of the building. Since 2016, Shaker Village has completed such projects for the 1815 Carpenters’ Shop, 1820 Meeting House, 1824-34 Centre Family Dwelling, 1833 Water House and 1860 Brethren’s Bath House.

*East Family Dwelling during renovation.*

Currently Shaker Village craftsmen are undertaking a multi-year preservation project for the 1817 East Family Dwelling that began in 2019. If you have stayed this building’s overnight rooms in the last decade, you’ve seen firsthand the condition of the windows, which is one area of concern for this 16,000 sq. ft. building. Our carpenters and painters spent most of 2020 methodically working through repairs to window frames and sills on about one-third of the 79 existing windows; this work will continue until all of the windows have been restored. In 2020, our crew also completed repairs to several of the building’s doors and the wood shake roof was replaced. In the latter half of 2021, you’ll see scaffolding reappear around this building as stone masons begin the task of repointing and cleaning the exterior masonry.

While the historic preservation plan lays out 18 additional and upcoming comprehensive projects, preservation work happens on a smaller scale across the Village throughout the year.

*Painters working on building exterior.*

Each year the SVPH painters repair loose plaster on interior walls. The plaster will become loose over time due to regular use, environmental factors such as humidity, and water leaks created by deteriorating roofs, windows and doors as well as by leaks in the HVAC systems that serve the historic buildings.

The carpenters repair doors and thresholds. Doorways become damaged over time by regular use, water and humidity, sunlight and wind.

The stone mason repairs breaks in the historic stone fences. Changing temperatures slowly cause the rocks to shift and then topple. Sometimes human interactions also damage these landscape features. In 2020, we repaired 35 breaks in the fences ranging from 3 feet to 10 feet in length. Each linear foot costs between $40 and $60 to repair.

*Buildings and Grounds Manager Mike Brown receives an award for excellence in maintenance.*

The maintenance team keep the mechanical systems working. Shaker Village has a mix of systems that provide modern heating, air conditioning, and hot water to the historic buildings: The East Family buildings, Centre Family Dwelling, the Meeting House, the 1813 Old Ministry’s Shop and the 1824 Tanyard are heated and cooled by geothermal systems, while the West Family buildings, the 1839 Trustees’ Office and 1821 Ministry’s Workshop are serviced by boiler-chiller plants. These plants were originally installed in the 1960s and while some of the components of both plants have been upgraded in recent years, these systems are challenging to maintain.

Our nonprofit made a commitment to preserve the historic buildings and the cultural landscape when it formed in 1961. Over the last six decades, Shaker Village has carried through with that commitment. This work has been made possible by donors who have supported this powerful place with charitable gifts, and by our guests who have stayed overnight, dined at the Trustees’ Table, shopped and explored. The preservation of Pleasant Hill is work that will never be completely done, however, we are committed to doing our part as the stewards of Kentucky’s largest National Historic Landmark.

Learn more about preservation at Shaker Village and how you can get involved.

Ever wonder what lies behind a closed door? Learn how our guided tours take you to rarely-seen areas of the Village.

Sharing the Archives, One Bite at a Time

July 17, 2020Shaker Village

Laura Webb, Program Specialist

“I visited here in 1993 and remember seeing an interesting clothes press. Where is that now, and can I see it again?”

“These journal excerpts are fascinating! Can we read the whole thing?”

“Do you have any other examples of Pleasant Hill oval boxes I could look at?”

“Can anyone go poke around in your archives, or only researchers?”

“Where’d all the stuff go that used to be in this building?”

*Shaker artifacts are housed in protected storage.*

As historical interpreters working with the public, my colleagues and I often receive questions about our artifact collections. You may already know that we’ve had to shuffle many of our artifacts due to recent preservation work, including in the Centre Family Dwelling. What you may not know is that our artifacts on display are just the tip of the iceberg of what we have in our collections!

So, why don’t we have all of this great Shaker “stuff” out for everyone to see all of the time? It’s not because we don’t love our visitors (we do) or want you to see them (we do). First, space is always at a premium, and a room packed with furniture doesn’t make the best exhibit. Second, and more importantly, many of our artifacts are fragile — for their conservation, we need to limit how often they are handled, exposed to sunlight and taken out of controlled storage.

*Large items like furniture are carefully organized and archived.*

“How can I see the artifacts if they aren’t on display?” I’m glad you asked! With grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the help of the internet, the team here at Pleasant Hill are developing a means of digital access to our collections. Anyone with an internet connection can search or browse our documents, artifacts and photographs, regardless of who or where they are. This eliminates the risk of damaging any of the objects. Sounds like a win-win, right?

In order for all of the information to be documented someone (…me) has to:

Sift through existing digital records with an editorial eye checking for consistency, accuracy and potential missing information.
Find, or create, and enter in missing information such as images or dimensions.
Start chipping away at creating records for items that have never been digitized.

With approximately 4,700 object records in our database alone, it’s an elephant-sized task! You know what they say about how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time.

From now until the end of the year, this blog series will go behind the scenes of this project, and tell the stories of some of the objects you’ll see in our database. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you along the way!

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill was awarded a CARES grant through The National Endowment for the Humanities in June 2020. Funding from this grant award supported two activities to enhance digital humanities initiatives at SVPH, including Laura Webb’s work to review our collection records and prepare them for publishing in a public digital database.