Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Expanding our Educational Outreach | Page 9

(Left) Preservation Initiative Task Force members inspect the
Hygeia monument; June 2007; (l to r) monument conservator
Ivan Myjer, Mount Auburn President Bill Clendaniel, Execu-
tive Director of the Cambridge Historical Commission Charles
Sullivan, preservation staff member David Gallagher, architect
Henry Moss, and Executive Assistant Linda Fisher. Photo by
Meg Winslow
(Above, l to r) National Park Service historian and conservator
Dennis Montagna, Meg Winslow and Mount Auburn’s Preser-
vation Planner Natalie Wampler, May 2007. Photo by Jennifer
Johnston
Preservation Initiative in Full Swing
As the steward of one of the nation’s most
historic designed landscapes, Mount Auburn has an obli-
gation and a vested interest in maintaining our beautiful
grounds—the built as well as the horticultural elements.
But after more than 150 years of use and exposure to
weather, many of the Cemetery’s structures are increasingly
in need of professional care. The obligation to maintain
or preserve our structures was recognized as an essential
part of Mount Auburn’s mission in 1993 by the Trustees,
and over the years since much preservation work has been
done. But the staff and the Buildings & Grounds Commit-
tee of the Trustees became increasingly concerned about
the unmet needs and the lack of a well thought-out process
of determining priorities.
Where to start? How much could and should we
take on? Who would do the necessary work and
how would it be funded?
To answer these questions the
Preservation Initiative was con-
Structures at
ceived in April to tackle a major
Mount Auburn
task of the coming year—to
38 buildings
“develop a comprehensive pres-
(including mausolea)
ervation philosophy and policies”
44,000+ monuments
covering all of the Cemetery’s
12 miles of road
structures, which were defined
70 miles of paths
as the built landscape elements
4 miles of perimeter fence owned by either the Cemetery
or private individuals. In addition,
62 iron lot fences
the Task Force was charged with
surveying data from the Archives, databases and departmen-
tal files relating to the preservation of structures, creating the
beginnings of a handbook of policies and procedures, and,
perhaps most importantly, devising a planning tool for pri-
oritizing and budgeting maintenance and preservation work.
Keeping to the schedule originally laid out in March,
the Task Force has forwarded to the Cemetery’s Trustees a
Statement of Values and Commitments for the Preservation
of Structures, which was reviewed at the Trustees Retreat
in early November and will be voted on by the Board in
December.
The Task Force—headed by Cambridge-based preserva-
tion architect/consultant Bill Barry of Heritage Planning
& Design—consists of Cemetery Trustees Oliver Scholle
and David Straus, seven preservation professionals: Shary
Berg (a landscape historian who was a member of the 1993
Master Plan team); Dennis Montagna (director of the Na-
tional Park Service’s Monument Research and Preservation
Program); Henry Moss (a preservation architect at Bruner/
Cott of Cambridge, which designed the Cemetery’s Pres-
ervation Services Building); Ivan Myjer (an architectural
stone conservator who is currently consulting on Mount
Auburn’s new interment space, Birch Gardens); Charles
Sullivan (executive director of the Cambridge Historical
Commission); Wendall Kalsow (a preservation architect
who led the recent restoration of Bigelow Chapel); and Liz
Vizza (a landscape planner who has done much consulting
at the Cemetery and who was the project manager of the
1993 Master Plan). The Task Force is aided by a Steering
Committee of Mount Auburn’s preservation staff and Bill
Clendaniel, who has said that every one of those invited to
be on the Task Force accepted without hesitation.
“If one of Mount Auburn’s essential landscape features is
its structures,” says Trustee Ollie Scholle, “then the work of
the Preservation Initiative is of the utmost importance in
ensuring that this National Historic Landmark will remain
the wonderful resource it is for the commemoration of
so many of the notables of our state and country and the
enjoyment by our hundreds of thousands of visitors of the
art and architecture of three centuries.”
Fall 2007 | 7