Heurich House Museum, Phased Collections Storage Improvement Implementation
FAIN: PG-263524-19
Heurich House Museum (Washington, DC 20036-1531)
Allison Anne LaCroix (Project Director: April 2018 to September 2019)
Purchase
of storage furniture and supplies to improve care for the museum’s primary
collection storage area, currently inaccessible to outside researchers. The
museum is the historic home of brewer Christian Heurich (1842-1945), a German immigrant
who was the largest non-governmental employer and landholder in Washington, DC,
at the turn of the 20th century. The mansion and its collection of over 1,000 objects, including
upholstered settees and sofas, hand-carved chairs, Oriental and Persian rugs,
and sculptures and vases, provide insight into late-Victorian design and revival
styles—Renaissance, Rococo, and Neoclassical. They also tell the story of the
Heurich family and their experiences as German immigrants living through both
World Wars, as well as what it was like to be a brewer in the era of
Prohibition.
This grant will fund the purchase of museum-quality storage furniture and supplies to improve the Heurich House Museum’s primary collection storage area. This will initiate phased implementation of the museum’s Collections Storage Improvements Plan, which was developed using a 2017 PAG grant. The museum is the historic home of brewer Christian Heurich (1842-1945) and his family. Heurich, a German immigrant, was the largest non-governmental employer and landholder in Washington, DC at the turn of the 20th century. The Heurich’s lived in their technologically innovative Dupont Circle mansion for over 50 years. The museum interprets its highly intact furnishings, finishes, and rich archival collections to illustrate the family’s life and its connection to the city’s history. The objects in storage do not have proper storage furniture, making them difficult to access. Implementing the storage plan will allow better conditions for and use of the collections for exhibits and public programs.