Bruce Museum gets stripped down to its bones| Jo Kroeker| Greenwich Time| December 3, 2019

Collections Manager Tim Walsh shows the original stone walls of the Bruce mansion during construction at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn. Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019. With the gutting of the interior for the construction and renovation project, the original stone walls of the Bruce mansion have been exposed for the first time in decades. Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

As construction progresses on a major expansion project at the Bruce Museum, a certain amount of destruction is underway.

In recent weeks, workers have torn down and stripped away walls and structures, revealing parts of the old stone mansion that had been covered for decades.

Director of Exhibitions Anne von Stuelpnagel had to stop and think about how long it had been since she had seen parts of the building — a mansion originally built back in the 1850s. It had been 26 years.

“It was nice to go, ‘Ah, that is where that was,’ ” she said.

Before the Bruce can expand outward for a project that will double the size of the museum, workers first had to strip down many existing structures, which exposed some of its original stone walls.

Work has begun on a $45 million expansion to add more space for exhibitions, education programs and community events, dramatically enhancing the art and science collections on view.

The addition will wrap around the original museum, just as the second expansion wrapped around the mansion. The addition will feature a light-filled courtyard with real granite that is landscaped with natural ferns to mimic the granite outcrops the house is built on. The slope of the landscaped granite outcrops will match the stairs that visitors will take to the upper galleries.

The new addition will tie the museum into Bruce Park in a more organic way than it has before, Director of Communications Scott Smith said.

“In some ways, the renovations and expansion exposes the foundation of the museum,” Smith said.

The construction project has revealed how the Bruce “is this magnificent building at the base of the town,” he said.

The bones of the Bruce consist of a stone mansion set on a granite outcrop that was formed by glacial movement thousands of years ago. The exposed brick and granite provide little clues that Bruce Museum Collections Manager Tim Walsh uses to trace the history of the mansion on the hill. He will present the building’s history in an exhibition on the architectural history of the Bruce next spring.

“Unfortunately, not very much is known” about the mansion, said Walsh, who has also written biographies of the first two museum curators. “There is very little history.”

The original entrance driveway to Bruce Park and Bruce Museum. The old museum caretaker’s cottage can be seen in the middle of the image. Source of the image unknown.Photo: Contributed

For one, Greenwich Library’s newspaper archives do not go back to the 1850s; the earliest archived articles are from the 1870s. The little history that does exist contains some conflicting information. One article says the house was built in 1853, but the Rev. Dr. Francis Lister Hawks only purchased the land in May 1853, Walsh said.

Lister Hawks bought the property for his wife’s use and enjoyment, and intended it as a retirement property, Walsh said. Although there is no evidence that he made it his permanent residence, Lister Hawks is buried in Greenwich and no information explains why.

Walsh assumes the house was built in the 1850s, and may not have been finished when it was purchased by Robert Moffat Bruce, a wealthy textile merchant.

In 1908, he deeded his property to the Town of Greenwich, stipulating that it be used as “a natural history, historical, and art museum for the use and benefit of the public.”

The old stone mansion hosted its first exhibition in 1912. Over the years, the Bruce has undergone two expansions, one in 1958-59, and another in the 1990s.

The town of Greenwich received money from the state when it was building I-95 to compensate for the highway running through the property, Walsh said. The caretaker’s cottage was lost in the highway project. That money was used to pay for the first expansion project.

The entrance to the park and walkway to the home, marked by pillars, were separated from the rest of the property and can be seen in front of the Greenwich Police Department’s downtown shooting range.

Paul Howes, the curator from 1918 to 1967, had grand plans for the building that never came to fruition. Between the 1990s and today, an idea was floated but the market crash did away with it, von Stuelpnagel said.

“There has never been a time when the director-curator has not been thinking about expansion,” she said.

The full construction timetable will be finalized when the funds are raised for the project and for a $15 million endowment.

Director of Exhibitions Anne von Stuelpnagel speaks in the attic at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn. Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019. With the gutting of the interior for the construction and renovation project, the original stone walls of the Bruce mansion have been exposed for the first time in decades.Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media