Tag Archives: Tim Rohan

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!

Campbell goblets are on their way home!

One of twelve Camp­bell gob­lets that are com­ing home.

First day back in the office after a long week­end, and we have an email from a board mem­ber announc­ing he’s secured the dona­tion of some Camp­bell pos­ses­sions from the Selkirk auc­tion back in Feb­ru­ary 1941.

What was the Selkirk auc­tion? After Hazlett — the last sur­viv­ing Camp­bell — died in 1938, the Camp­bell estate went through a long pro­bate case. It was one of the largest in Mis­souri his­to­ry, and it took ten years to wrap up. As part of the set­tle­ment — and why we have many of the pos­ses­sions we do — all the Camp­bell fur­nish­ings went up for auc­tion at a 1941 sale by Ben J. Selkirk and Sons (now Ivey-Selkirk Auc­tion­eers). Stix, Baer & Fuller, mean­while, pur­chased the house from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty (who had inher­it­ed it), and they in turn donat­ed it back to the new­ly formed Camp­bell House Foundation.

Since the Camp­bells’ fur­nish­ings were auc­tioned at a pub­lic sale and the foun­da­tion only had a bud­get of $6,500 to buy back as much as pos­si­ble, quite a few items end­ed up with oth­er fam­i­lies. For­tu­nate­ly, many gen­er­ous folks have giv­en us back items over the years. Today was no exception.

Board mem­ber Tim Rohan learned a local fam­i­ly had this set of twelve punch gob­lets (pic­tured above), and they agreed to gen­er­ous­ly donate them back to us . Here’s the orig­i­nal auc­tion cat­a­log description:

[969] Amer­i­can Ster­ling Sil­ver Punch Gob­lets, Mer­mod & Jac­card Co

Hemi­spher­i­cal body with dou­ble-scroll bor­der, balus­ter and ring stem; ris­ing cir­cu­lar foot with bead­ing, height 4–1/4 inches.

They fetched a whop­ping $2.25 each at the 1941 Selkirk auction.

St. Louis Post-Dis­patch clip­ping of the Selkirk auc­tion. These cups are on the bot­tom shelf of the case in the top pic­ture. Also note that “Women Almost Swoon.”

To the left is an image of a page from the Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 23, 1941 edi­tion of the St. Louis Post-Dis­patch, and these cups can be seen in the top pic­ture on the bot­tom shelf of the case.

Want to see the gob­lets (and all of our oth­er cool stuff)? They’re not here just yet, but give us a call at 314/421‑0325. The house is open by appoint­ment only in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary, but we are here all week and we’re always hap­py to wel­come guests.

With this dona­tion, ongo­ing mys­ter­ies and all the oth­er excit­ing pro­grams and events we have on tap, 2012 has kicked off swim­ming­ly. From the Camp­bell fam­i­ly to yours, we hope that you’re hav­ing a hap­py and pro­duc­tive new year.

What’s new at CHM

Ran­dom fun­ny his­to­ry thing. Yep, the CHM blog is back. (For more on these uber­cool posters, here’s the full sto­ry: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/story-of-the-historically)

It’s been awhile since we’ve been on here, but let’s just say the super fan­cy new look of our blog — cour­tesy of the awe­some nin­jas at Think Tank — has inspired us to get back to it.

What have we been up to? One word: Loads.

Between inten­sive research and a cal­en­dar chock-full of spe­cial events, we’ve been busy lit­tle bees at the Muse­um. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

  • You know the names McCaus­land, Clay­ton and Mar­shall, don’t you? Not only are these the names of streets that are for­ev­er linked to the land­scape of St. Louis, but all of them are relat­ed to the Camp­bells. More on this over the next week or so as we fin­ish writ­ing the story.
  • Research con­tin­ues on Eliza Rone, the slave Robert eman­ci­pat­ed in 1857. We have now found her grave and we are learn­ing more about her and her exten­sive fam­i­ly in Kansas City.
  • More Camp­bell loot was returned to the Muse­um. This time, were­ceived a vase that Hugh Camp­bell gave to the cook, who gave it to anoth­er ser­vant upon her wed­ding. After we acces­sion it (i.e. hoity-toity museum 

    Our new (sort of) vase!

    term that means to make a new record for the item and for­mal­ly bring it into inven­to­ry), we are going to do a blog post all about the piece, com­plete with fam­i­ly pictures.

Are you look­ing for things to do over the next cou­ple of months? Check out our events page, but here’s a quick low­down of what’s happening:

  • Lucas Place Walk­ing Tour AND a trip to the Schlafly Tap Room. Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 1 (that’s this Sat­ur­day), 2:00–4:00 PM. Back when the Camp­bells moved into this house in 1854, Lucas Place was THE place to be. Direc­tor Andy Hahn will take the group through the house, then we’ll hit the street where he will point out where the big names lived as well as oth­er sites includ­ing the orig­i­nal St. Louis Art Muse­um and the loca­tion of the first doc­u­ment­ed roller coast­er (!). After the tour is done, we’ll stop at the Tap Room where one beer is includ­ed in your tour tick­et price. Host­ed with Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion.  Tick­ets are $25.00; only $20.00 if you are a Camp­bell House or Land­marks mem­ber. Tour is fill­ing up quick­ly, so call us at 314/421‑0325 to reserve your spot!
  • Psy­chic Par­ty, Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 8th from 6:30 to 9:00 PM. Yes, you read that right. Is the house haunt­ed? We’ll nev­er tell, but come to fes­tiv­i­ties to find out for your­self.  We’re throw­ing a par­ty the way the Camp­bells did: gourmet food in the din­ing room, an assort­ment of French wines in the kitchen and the house is open for explor­ing. Two psy­chics will be on-hand for pri­vate tarot card read­ings on the third floor. Host­ed by our very own Tim Rohan, this par­ty was a hit last year, so make your reser­va­tions soon by call­ing 314/421‑0325. Tick­ets are $50.00, and wine, beer, heavy hors d’oeurves and a tarot card read­ing are includ­ed in your tick­et price.
  • Twi­light Tour, Thurs­day, Octo­ber 13 from 5:30 to 8:30 PM. We offered our first Twi­light Tour this week, and one guest said, “THIS is the way to see a muse­um.” We could­n’t agree more. Come down to the house to enjoy wine and a selec­tion of hors d’oeurves while you explore the house and gar­den. At 6:15 we will begin an evening tour of the house, a unique expe­ri­ence that — lit­er­al­ly — show­cas­es the hand­some home in a whole new light. Tick­ets are $20.00; only $10.00 for Camp­bell House mem­bers. Please call us at 314/421‑0325 for reservations.
  • Mem­bers Par­ty, Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 22 from 3:00 to 6:30 PM. It’s our semi­an­nu­al mem­bers par­ty, so come down to the house for refresh­ments and our spe­cial Anniver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion to com­mem­o­rate the Muse­um Store’s 20th year. We will be offer­ing 20% off all items in the shop, so you can stock up on some ear­ly hol­i­day gifts.
  • Hol­i­day His­toric House Tour, Thurs­day, Decem­ber 1st. Details will be post­ed as soon as they are available.

Thanks again for check­ing out our new blog, and stop in often to learn about muse­um news and events.