The Campaign for the New Bruce Completes $1 Million Fundraising Match

Renovation and Construction Project Proceeding on Time and on Budget; 
Gallery Spaces Re-Open with Major Exhibitions of Art and Science

GREENWICH, CT, February 3, 2020 – Leaders of the Campaign for the New Bruce are pleased to announce continuing widespread community support for the $45 million renovation and expansion project that will transform the Greenwich museum of art and science.

In July 2019, two exceptional friends of the Bruce Museum agreed to match all new gifts of $10,000 or more and to bring the next $1 million raised to $2 million. The challenge was met by close to 20 generous donors, completing the match in early 2020 and bringing the Campaign to 85% of its fundraising goal for the renovation and construction project.

The $1 million challenge was launched by Rebecca Gillan, a member of the Bruce Museum Board of Trustees, and by a second Campaign leader who wishes to remain anonymous. “It’s wonderful to see such a positive response to this challenge, especially as this support comes from members of the community who have not previously given to the Campaign,” says Gillan.

“I became a docent two years ago, and seeing the excitement of the children exposed to the many educational programs made me want to help get the Campaign that much closer to the finish line,” Gillan adds. “I can’t think of a better way to show your support for our community than to help make this cultural and social hub of Greenwich even better.”

“We are grateful for these recent gifts, and thankful for the many other Bruce Museum supporters in our community who have made their own contributions prior to the public launch of the Campaign for the New Bruce in September 2019,” says James B. Lockhart III, Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Lockhart adds that the Campaign has also received 100% support from members of the Museum’s renowned Docent program, as well as full support from the Museum’s professional staff.

“This tremendous goodwill, and groundswell of community support will enable us to proceed on schedule with our plans to break ground on the new addition in July 2020,” says Lockhart.

The ambitious project to reimagine the Bruce has been proceeding in phases. A top-to-bottom renovation of the Museum’s changing gallery spaces, begun in September 2019, was completed on budget and on time to host the opening of major new exhibitions of art and science on Saturday, February 1.

L.A. Ring Exhibition

On view in the newly enlarged main gallery is On the Edge of the World: Masterworks by Laurits Andersen Ring from SMK—the National Gallery of Denmark. The Bruce Museum is the only U.S. venue on the East Coast to showcase the first exhibition outside Scandinavia solely devoted to L.A. Ring, considered one of the most important figures in Danish art.

Under the Skin exhibition

In the newly created and adjacent science gallery is Under the Skin, which highlights a dozen recent discoveries through a combination of remarkable imagery and real biological specimens.

With the renovations of its current gallery spaces complete (and fully paid for), the next phase of the construction project begins: the year-long renovation and reinvention of the Permanent Science Galleries, starting on Monday, February 3. The new Permanent Science Galleries will present a multi-sensory expedition through the region’s rich natural history and address critical issues in science today, with new interactives throughout, a refurbished diorama, and displays that include full-scale model dinosaurs and live animals.

In July 2020, construction is scheduled to begin on the centerpiece of the New Bruce: The William L. Richter Art Wing, a three-story, 43,000-square-foot addition that will more than double the size of the Museum, adding state-of-the-art exhibition, education, and community spaces, including a restaurant and lecture hall. Designed by the award-winning New Orleans firm of EskewDumezRipple, the building will open directly onto Bruce Park and feature a delicate striated façade of cast stone and glass inspired by the surfaces of Connecticut’s quarries and the rock outcrops of Bruce Park. The EDR team includes Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architects, who are creating a natural environment around the New Bruce that includes a new sculpture trail and places to stroll and play. 
“This year promises to be filled with significant milestones reached by the Bruce Museum,” says Robert Wolterstorff, The Susan E. Lynch Executive Director. “Thanks to our early donors and this significant recent support of our Campaign, we’re bringing our gallery spaces up to 21st century standards, within a treasured building built in the mid-1800s. Now we need others to step forward to help us meet our construction budget, and to continue to grow the Endowment that’s critical to ensuring the Museum’s sustainability far into the future.” 

The New Bruce Campaign Committee is led by Museum Trustees John Ippolito and Heidi Brake Smith and past Trustee and Museum Council Co-Chair Susan V. Mahoney. The Committee, Board of Trustees, and the Museum’s professional staff fully expect to raise the remaining $6 million needed to put the shovel in the ground in July. New gifts of all sizes are welcome!

To learn more about the Campaign for the New Bruce and to participate, please contact Whitney Lucas Rosenberg, Director of Development and Institutional Advancement, at 203-413-6765 or wrosenberg@brucemuseum.org, or Barbara Tavrow, Campaign Director, at 203-249-8225 orbtavrow@bjtavrowconsulting.com.

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