Tag Archives: St. Louis Ballet

Monday Update » 6.11.12

Wel­come back to Mon­day, every­one! We hope you’ve been enjoy­ing your sum­mer so far. As usu­al, we’ve been busy here and we have some fun things to report to you:

Facelift for Camp­bell House
Actu­al­ly, more like a coat of paint. 2012 marks the 10-year anniver­sary of the com­ple­tion of the exte­ri­or ren­o­va­tion of the house, and we’re due for anoth­er paint job. For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve secured a gen­er­ous grant from the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for the funds to have the brick, win­dows and cor­nices repaint­ed. Since the house is so big and tall, this is going to be an excit­ing process because the painters will have to use a series of lifts to reach the high­est points of the house. Work will like­ly begin this sum­mer after we com­plete spot tuck­point­ing, and we’ll be sure to share pic­tures as the work pro­gress­es. Three cheers for the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for help­ing us keep the Camp­bells’ home in tip-top shape!

We ♥ Our Interns
Camp­bell House has a full com­ple­ment of six interns this sum­mer. Though most of them are from St. Louis, they rep­re­sent uni­ver­si­ties from all over the coun­try, (Vas­sar, Wart­burg Col­lege and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty) and a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines includ­ing art his­to­ry, chem­istry (real­ly) and Amer­i­can cul­ture stud­ies. They’ll get the full muse­um expe­ri­ence this sum­mer by giv­ing tours, con­duct­ing research, inven­to­ry­ing the Camp­bell col­lec­tion as well as all of the oth­er day-to-day stuff that needs to get done (i.e. water­ing the gar­den, book­ing tours, work­ing on mem­ber­ship renewals, etc). Check back in with us as we post intern pro­files to the blog. These dynam­ic — and wicked­ly smart — stu­dents breathe new life into this house, and we’re for­tu­nate to have their fresh per­spec­tive. While they’re learn­ing the muse­um biz, we get new insight and ideas for mak­ing this old house cur­rent and rel­e­vant to a young demo­graph­ic. Are you inter­est­ed in join­ing us for an intern­ship, too? Email Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org.

Inte­ri­or of Fort Laramie by Alfred Jacob Miller
Water­col­or, 1858–1860

Retrac­ing Robert’s Route
This week, Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  and our illus­tri­ous Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy are tak­ing a trip out to the wild west to vis­it Robert’s old stomp­ing grounds. Begin­ning at Fort Laramie, the pair will meet Robert’s great-nephew Alan (who is com­ing all the way from North­ern Ire­land) to see the annu­al Ren­dezvous that reen­acts the year­ly event where trap­pers would meet with mer­chants to trade furs for goods. Fort Laramie is sig­nif­i­cant because Robert found­ed Fort William, which was Fort Laramie’s pre­cur­sor. This year’s event will com­mem­o­rate artist Alfred Jacob Miller’s 1837 trip to the ren­dezvous. Miller pro­duced some of the most famous images of the Ore­gon Trail and Fort Laramie, includ­ing the one on the right. After the ren­dezvous, the trio will vis­it Muse­um of the Moun­tain Man, Pier­re’s Hole (the site of the famous bat­tle in which Robert and pal Bill Sub­lette played a major role), and final­ly — if they have time — a trip to Fort Bridger. We’ll be sure to post pic­tures after the trav­el­ers return.

A pic­ture from the process: the entire key­board was removed from the body of the piano.

Music to Our Ears
In what proved to be a five-month project, the Camp­bells’ piano is DONE! JoAnn Kaplan of Kap­stan Piano Ser­vices worked tire­less­ly to clean, fix and/or cus­tom-fab­ri­cate new parts, and final­ly tune the old Schomack­er. We did­n’t do all that work for noth­ing — we’ll start host­ing par­lor con­certs lat­er this year. Check back for details.

Tours on Tap
Did you miss our wild­ly suc­cess­ful Lucas Place/Tap Room walk­ing tour last fall? Have no fear — we’ll offer it again and then some. This week we’re meet­ing with our friends at Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis to put togeth­er some fun and infor­ma­tive tours. As soon as we work out the details we ‘ll get a sched­ule of events post­ed. Do you have an idea for a build­ing, neigh­bor­hood or spe­cial tour of Camp­bell House? Let us know! Send your bright idea to shelley.satke [at] gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do.

Detail of the reuphol­stered piano bench. That’s silk vel­vet and yes, it feels as good as it looks.

Facelift 2.0: Bidet and Piano Stool
The house is get­ting repaint­ed, and two pieces of fur­ni­ture have been reuphol­stered, too. The fab­ric on Vir­gini­a’s bidet cov­er had dete­ri­o­rat­ed to noth­ing more than threads, and the piano stool was­n’t in much bet­ter shape. Board mem­ber and inte­ri­or design­er Tim Rohan gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed new fab­ric and had the tops of both pieces of fur­ni­ture reuphol­stered over the exist­ing fab­rics so we would not lose the orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al (what was left of it, anyway).

New Geo­cache
Are you into urban trea­sure hunt­ing? We have a new geo­cache in our garden.…dig up your GPS or down­load a geo­cache app to find it, and add your name to the list!

Board Pres­i­dent Fritz Clif­ford with St. Louis Bal­let dancers.

We’re the Daaaahncers
Last week we wel­comed a crew of St. Louis Bal­let dancers who per­formed at our Mag­i­cal Spring Thing in April. They got the VIP tour with Andy and Board Pres­i­dent Fritz lead­ing the way.  Do you have a spe­cial group that would like to have a spe­cial behind-the-scenes expe­ri­ence at Camp­bell House? Con­tact Andy (andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org) or Shel­ley (shelley.satke [at] gmail.com) and we are more than hap­py to accom­mo­date you!

Bye, Bob
Bob’s going away.…for now. The beloved gar­den gnome that was left on our front steps as a prank will be vaca­tion­ing back at the DeMe­nil Man­sion until we launch a secret expe­di­tion to bring him home.  <super sadface>

.…and that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Have a spec­tac­u­lar week!

Monday Update » 4.23.12

A draft of one of Lind­sey’s pan­els. Come by in two weeks to see the whole exhib­it in per­son. (Believe me, she’ll be REALLY hap­py if you do.)

Wel­come to the down­hill slope of Mon­day, every­one. It’s been a marathon around here the last few weeks, and this is what we have to show for it:

New Civ­il War Exhib­it
Out with the old and in with the new.….Weekend Man­ag­er Lind­sey is putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on her new exhib­it, A Fam­i­ly Apart: The Camp­bells Dur­ing the Civ­il War Years. She’s pulling some of Vir­gini­a’s dress­es and jew­el­ry out of stor­age, along with some excep­tion­al old let­ters. Come by after May 8th to see the sto­ry of the Camp­bells dur­ing this tur­bu­lent peri­od in Amer­i­can history.

Mag­i­cal Spring Thing
Sam Clark’s big show — the Mag­i­cal Spring Thing — on April 14th was a huge suc­cess. We’re still recov­er­ing from it, but we raised a few dol­lars for new envi­ron­men­tal pro­gram­ming and spe­cial projects around the house. Big thanks to Sam and all the vol­un­teers and board mem­bers who helped pull off anoth­er spec­tac­u­lar show with Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis Bal­let, stu­dents from Web­ster Uni­ver­si­ty’s Leigh Ger­dine Col­lege of Fine Arts, St. Louis Rag­timers and the Ball­room Dance Acad­e­my of St. Louis.

Web­ster Groves High School stu­dents work­ing on an over­grown area at our fence. The yard looks won­der­ful thanks to their hard work.

Web­ster High School Lends a Hand
Our gar­den vol­un­teers (read: Moms and Dads of the CHM staff) are espe­cial­ly grate­ful for the group of ten Web­ster Groves High School stu­dents and par­ents who came by on April 10th to do some heavy lift­ing in the gar­den. The enthu­si­as­tic teens knocked out an impres­sive amount of weed­ing, trim­ming, mulching and plant­i­ng, and it was a plea­sure to have them at the house.  The gar­den looks FABULOUS because of all their help. <please come back!>

The Mys­te­ri­ous Gus Meyer
Between dig­ging up scoop on Lucas Place and the Camp­bell Fam­i­ly, there isn’t much Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  can’t find. Last week, he start­ed the quest to uncov­er more infor­ma­tion about Gus Mey­er, a devot­ed ser­vant who began work­ing at Camp­bell House as a gar­den­er in 1901, and he even­tu­al­ly worked his way up to be Hugh Camp­bel­l’s per­son­al assis­tant. After Hugh died in 1931, Gus stayed in the house and took care of Hugh’s broth­er Hazlett until he died in 1938. Gus con­tin­ued to live in and man­age the house until it final­ly opened as a muse­um five years lat­er. He signed the Muse­um’s guest book on its open­ing day, and we lost track of him after that. Intre­pid Researcher Tom™ has found infor­ma­tion on his fam­i­ly and what hap­pened to him after he left his job of over 40 years at Camp­bell House. We’ll make a blog post with all of his find­ings shortly.

Bring Mom to Camp­bell House for Moth­er’s Day
Stumped for what to get your dar­ling mom on Moth­er’s Day? Easy, bring her to our house for Arias in the After­noon, a gar­den par­ty we’re co-host­ing with Union Avenue Opera. Spend the after­noon relax­ing in our gar­den and lis­ten­ing to a spe­cial one-hour con­cert while enjoy­ing tea and nib­bles from our neigh­bors, the Lon­don Tea Room. It’s going to be a great event and if you bring your mom, you’ll be her favorite son or daugh­ter. We promise. Click here for tick­ets.

Urban Explor­ing 2.0: Muse­um Build­ing at the Mis­souri Botan­i­cal Garden
After the over­whelm­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of the post on our recent trek through the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Elec­tri­cal Sub­sta­tion, we’re going to try mak­ing Urban Explor­ing a reg­u­lar fea­ture. This week­end we had the chance to get inside the Muse­um Build­ing at the Botan­i­cal Gar­den, a struc­ture that’s closed to the pub­lic. A blog post fea­tur­ing pic­tures of the Muse­um Build­ing and Tow­er Grove House is com­ing this week.

That’s just some of what is hap­pen­ing at Camp­bell House. Check back with us for some excit­ing news on house paint­ing (!), the 2012 Free­dom’s Gate­way Sig­na­ture Event, and our Spring Mem­bers Par­ty. From the Camp­bell fam­i­ly to yours, have a stel­lar week!

Monday Update » 3.26.12

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn with his unusu­al­ly shy Leo before our urban explor­ing field trip to the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Sub­sta­tion on Locust this morning.

Hap­py Mon­day, everyone!

We had a busy week­end, due in part to the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight mad­ness hap­pen­ing at the Dome. While our week­end man­ag­er takes a well-deserved break, here are some newsy bits and a few things we’ve got cook­ing over the next two weeks:

Camp­bell House Archi­tects Featured
Camp­bell House research vol­un­teer Tom Gron­ski’s arti­cle on the Camp­bell House archi­tects (Joseph C. Edgar and Thomas Waryng Walsh) earned top-billing in the Mis­souri Val­ley Chap­ter of Archi­tec­tur­al His­to­ri­an’s newslet­ter. Read all about it (and some oth­er beau­ti­ful local build­ings) here.  Way to go, Tom!

Field Trip to the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Substation
A long-vacant build­ing up Locust was built to house a big, giant bat­tery sys­tem for street­cars. It was con­struct­ed right before the 1904 World’s Fair because the city antic­i­pat­ed sub­stan­tial­ly more street­car traf­fic due to the influx of vis­i­tors. We’ll have a post about our vis­it to the old build­ing com­plete with pic­tures for you next week.

New Civ­il War Exhibit
Lind­sey’s plug­ging away on research, writ­ing, and find­ing objects for her new exhib­it on the Camp­bells dur­ing the Civ­il War. Shar­ing new research on Robert’s polit­i­cal lean­ings, slav­ery, and the impact of the war on the fam­i­ly and their friends, the exhib­it will open in the third floor gal­leries in ear­ly April. You won’t want to miss it!

A Few Good Interns
We have more intern inter­views booked, but we’d love to hear from you or some­one you know needs a sum­mer intern­ship. We’re not picky about your course of study because it takes all kinds to oper­ate a muse­um. Non­prof­it Man­age­ment? Muse­um Stud­ies? PR/Marketing? His­to­ry? Art? Come talk to us. Camp­bell House is a small place, so every­one — staff, vol­un­teers and interns — wear many hats. You’ll get to see all sides of how we run the busi­ness, and we promise you’ll have an awe­some expe­ri­ence here. Con­tact Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] camp­bell­house­mu­se­um [dot] org if you want to talk; we’d love to hear from you!

Upcom­ing Events
We’re work­ing on putting togeth­er two spec­tac­u­lar events that you won’t want to miss. In just a cou­ple of weeks, we’ll again be host­ing the Mag­i­cal Spring Thing at the Mahler Ball­room, which will fea­ture St. Louis Bal­let, Union Avenue Opera, the St. Louis Rag­timers, the Ball­room Acad­e­my of St. Louis. It’s going to be an unfor­get­table evening, so click here for more infor­ma­tion. On Moth­er’s Day (May 13th), we’re pleased to part­ner with Union Avenue Opera to bring you (and your mom!) Arias in the After­noon: A Vic­to­ri­an Gar­den Par­ty. While you enjoy scones, tarts and tea from the Lon­don Tea Room, Union Avenue Opera artists will ser­e­nade you with a spe­cial Moth­er’s Day pro­gram. For details, read all about it here.

50-cent piece appear­ances last week: 0

Another Magical Spring Thing

St. Louis Bal­let com­pa­ny dancers per­form at the 2010 Mag­i­cal Spring Thing.

We’ve got some big events com­ing up, and you’ll want to mark your cal­en­dar for the first one on April 14.

Anoth­er Mag­i­cal Spring Thing is the sec­ond install­ment of 2010’s uber-suc­cess­ful vari­ety show pro­duced by our very own Sam Clark. Fea­tur­ing the St. Louis Rag­timers, Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis Bal­let, and the Ball­room Acad­e­my of St. Louis, the evening will be a treat to the eyes and ears to raise mon­ey for new fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed envi­ron­men­tal and gar­den pro­gram­ming at Camp­bell House Museum.

Host­ed at the Mag­nif­i­cent Mahler Ball­room, the night will be an ele­gant evening that begins with gourmet hors d’oeurves and cock­tails at 7:00 with the show fol­low­ing at 8:00. After the per­for­mance, guests can enjoy a dessert bar and danc­ing on the ball­room floor.

We had a packed house in 2010, so make your reser­va­tions ear­ly! Tick­ets are $125, and pre­ferred seat­ing tick­ets are $150. Event spon­sor­ships are avail­able. For tick­ets, call us at the Muse­um at 314/421‑0325 or down­load the RSVP at our web­site.