On January 3rd, 2021, the museums of NRF completed their 2020 season, and the museum staff closed Rough Point to the public until our reopening in early spring of 2021. Because I am a tad superstitious, I have held off on writing about the success (and challenges) of the season. However, now that it is well and fully over, and thankfully with no reported cases of COVID-19 from any of our visitors or front-line staff during the season, I can finally take the rabbit’s foot out of my pocket, the horseshoe off my doorway, stop asking the Magic 8 Ball for predictions about the future, and share a little bit about how it all turned out.
As with so many industries, the challenges posed to the museum field by the spread of COVID-19 have proven daunting. For example, as some readers of NRF’s blogs may know, my previous position was at a museum in Los Angeles. I know from conversations with my former colleagues that, at the time that I am writing this piece, not a single museum in Los Angeles County has opened its doors to the public since the closures in Mid-March of 2020. This sad reality has resulted in countless layoffs, financial uncertainty for institutions and individuals alike, and numerous careers delayed or destroyed.
At the outset of the pandemic, there was no reason to think that what has happened in California’s museums wouldn’t happen in Newport as well. Thankfully, at Rhode Island’s museums in general, and Newport’s museums in particular, things progressed differently. Our state government has done a very fine job of trying to help businesses open safely and as soon as possible. Based on the guidance of the state, most of Newport’s cultural institutions were able to open to the public by July (sometimes sooner) provided they developed and adhered to a detailed safety plan that integrated reduced attendance based on a venue’s square footage, enforced social distancing and mask wearing, added additional cleanings of surfaces, created greater circulation of fresh air, and gathered attendee data in case the state needed it for contact tracing.
NRF’s museum staff began work on our plans well in advance of the Governor’s announcements. Shortly after the March shutdowns, we suspended all public programming and our staff began to create a wonderfully diverse, creative, and robust collection of online programs to share safely a piece of the museum experience with the broader public and to provide opportunities to virtually attend some of the events we had hoped to hold in person throughout our season. If you have not seen these programs yet, I encourage you to visit our YouTube channel by clicking here. There’s something for everyone, including yoga classes, community spotlights (our Second Sunday series), a two-part jazz concert in the Great Hall at Rough Point, a four part scholarly symposium, and some really wonderful educational pieces on the life of our founder Doris Duke as well as closer looks at our exceptional collection of 18th-century Newport furniture at the Whitehorne House Museum.
Our virtual presence notwithstanding, it was always our hope to reopen our museums to the public as safely and as soon as possible. By early April, members of my staff and I met weekly to create a COVID-19 plan long before the announcement of any state mandates. While our concerns were broad-ranging, one particular worry was how to protect our front-line staff, by which I mean the guides, greeters, and other visitor experience staff who typically interact with our visitors in ways that, today, most of us would find risky. Naturally, we shared similar concerns about our visitors, but our front-line staff, who spend hours at a time encountering the public, would undoubtedly face the most significant health risk if we got any of our planning wrong.
With those risks in mind, we created a wide-reaching COVID plan that included, among other things, required online ticketing, moving our registration process outside at Rough Point (until November when the weather proved too cold), and the suspension of guided tours, creating instead a singular path through our museums with guides stationed throughout. Once we had everything in place, and the state permitted us to do so, we opened our doors to the public. The Rough Point Grounds opened in late June, Rough Point itself in early July, and the Whitehorne House Museum ten days after that. On the whole the plan worked well, and its success and adherence to state guidelines was reconfirmed by a surprise visit to Rough Point from the Rhode Island Department of Health in August.
During the season we took feedback from staff and visitors to see if they felt safe and comfortable, and while we received the occasional visitor complaint about our necessary changes and our insistence on mask wearing, I am happy to say that on the whole our staff felt safe and most of our visitors enjoyed their time with us while also commenting positively on the ways in which we had worked to ensure their safety.
Our museums were a respite for our visitors during these difficult times. Anecdotally, I know that many of our visitors were deeply appreciative that we could provide a pleasant and safe distraction from the difficulties of our new normal and the never-ending stream of bad news. At the Whitehorne House Museum, we provided an opportunity for our visitors to get away from the crowds of people on lower Thames Street so that they could spend a quiet hour safely enjoying our exceptional furniture collection and learning about Newport’s past from our talented guides. At Rough Point, sales of our grounds passes grew exponentially, and many visitors would spend hours outside enjoying the boundless seascape, our exceptionally beautiful gardens, and the Fredrick Law Olmstead designed grounds. On my evening drive home, I would pass Prescott Farm, and see the parking lot filled with minivans and kids and parents feeding the ducks in the pond. I suppose that none of these activities can replace the concerts, weddings, trips to visit distant friends and relatives, and other plans that so many of us wound up cancelling in 2020. Still, I am extremely pleased to know that we offered a pleasant, if somewhat less hoped for, alternative form of entertainment. And I am most pleased to note that we achieved all of this without a single reported case of COVID-19 from any of our staff or visitors.
Indeed, that last point, the absence of a COVID case, is the thing that I am most pleased about this past season and, likely, the thing that we are least responsible for achieving. For while I would like to think that our success was the result of exceptional planning, skillfully executed by a devoted and brilliant staff (which in some sense it was), I still can’t help but think that part of our success was sheer luck. Nevertheless, the thing that I most want our readers to know is that the NRF museum staff took the COVID-19 threat seriously every day (we still do), and every day they brought their energy, creativity, and brilliance to our museums to ensure the best and safest museum experience possible for our visitors. They did so because we care about each other’s safety and about the health and safety of our potential visitors, something we will continue to do now and in the years to come.
We look forward to demonstrating that care and creativity to all of you in the 2021 season, which begins in late March and runs until just before Thanksgiving followed by weekend programming until the new year. We will continue to take everyone’s health and safety quite seriously while simultaneously planning to create new opportunities to reach people remotely and to engage people in person as the world becomes a little safer and we can all congregate together a little more. You have my promise that (as with the season just past) the entire NRF museum staff will do everything that they can to keep you safe, educated, and entertained, and if you just want to be left alone to spend a few hours on our the grounds at Rough Point, you can do that too. We’ll see you in Newport!
By Dr. Erik Greenberg, Director of Museums, Newport Restoration Foundation
According to former staff, when Doris Duke particularly enjoyed a recipe she would have it faxed to her other homes so that the cooks in each house could learn how to make the dish.
Here are some recipes from Doris Duke’s personal recipe collection. These particular recipes were the work of three Rough Point cooks: Hattie, Annie, and Hulda Goudie.
Try one (or two) and let us know what you think! Click the images below to get a closer look.
And we’d love to see your special holiday recipes! Share with us @nptrestoration #DorisDukeDishes #RoughPoinsettias #roughpoint or at visit@newportrestoration.org.
In part two of our special interview with Rough Point’ Estate Gardener Tessa Young, we talk about off-season gardening at Rough Point, advice on how to prep your plants and gardens for the winter, and how to successfully get cozy this winter with houseplants.
How do you winterize Rough Point’s beautiful Dahlia flowers?
TY: So typically with the Dahlia tubers that we do have, two weeks after our first frost date, we dig them up out of the ground and I let them dry for maybe about a week or so in our little greenhouse. Then I put them in lawn and leaf bags with wood shavings that we get from our [preservation] crew in town who does all the work on the houses. They give us their wood shavings to use. Then we bring the Dahlia tubers into a special room in the basement that brings in cold air from outside so that they stay in a nice, sort of, regulated cold climate. They stay dormant in there until the spring, when I start to bring them out and repot them again. Every year we do order some new tubers just in case something goes wrong. A couple of years ago, it was really, really, really cold. All of the tubers for the most part didn’t come back the next year—they died because it was too cold. So I always order more tubers just in case, but it makes it fun because then every year we have a couple of new varieties in the gardens and even more flowers out there.
If people have their own Dahlias or other flowering plants, is that something they should be doing to care for them?
TY: Absolutely. If you have your own Dahlias at home and you don’t want to have to buy completely new ones every year, you should be digging them up two weeks after the first frost date. In warmer climates, this doesn’t work in our [New England] zone, but in other climates you can leave them underground—or you can try putting landscape fabric on top of some of the tubers to see if they would winter over in the ground. We tried this last year, and most of them did [winterize], but last winter was a warmer winter for our climate. So I can’t use that going into the future, per se, just depending on how the winters are. So if you have your own Dahlias, you could do either or, but if you’re in a colder climate and you try to just leave them underground with some protection, you might be at risk of losing them for the following spring.
Especially with the pandemic and a lot more people staying cozy at home, is there anything that you would recommend for people who are more interested in trying to bring a little of the outside inside? Do you have any recommendations for people who are trying to grow their indoor gardens, or maybe start introducing new houseplants into their homes and trying to cohabitate with them?
When trying to bring greenery into the house over the wintertime, like houseplants and stuff like that, the best thing that you could do is look at what kind of windows you have in your home, and really think about light requirements for particular plants. I really recommend going to local nurseries, if you have them nearby, instead of going to the big box store places, just to help out your neighbor. But it’s great to bring plants inside. It helps improve your oxygen inside and everything like that. The one tip, I will say for sure with houseplants is also trying to not over-water them. That’s a very common thing. Typically with indoor plants, it’s kind of best to let them, unless they’re specific ones, dry out first. Otherwise you’re going to start getting soil gnats and things like that. You don’t want that in your house.
Head Housekeeper Pamela Carolino Lima describes projects during the off-season at Rough Point, shares some advice for cleaning furniture and other surfaces in our homes, and reflects on her role in making NRF Museums open and accessible to the public—as well as helping to ensure the museums’ preservation for future generations to enjoy. Listen here or read the transcript below!
Could you tell us your name, and what your title is here at the museums, and a little bit about what you do?
Pamela Carolino Lima: My name is Pamela. I am the Head Housekeeper for Rough Point and Whitehorne House Museum. What we do mostly is maintain our museum spaces and take care of our collections—everything from the tapestries, to our wood furniture, to our paintings, to anything that is marble or gilded, or the chandeliers, just to help maintain these pieces so that we can have them for a very long time, for our guests and for the community to be able to see and love them as much as we do.
Rough Point has a seasonal rhythm, and we’re typically not open to the public full-time during the off season, which is over the winter. How does that change the work you do and what kind of projects do you work on in the off-season?
PCL: In the off-season or in our winter season, we have various projects that we work on, which is more deep cleaning of some of our collection pieces and some of the areas that we can’t really do during the open season. So that’s taking care of our marble surfaces, taking care of our crystal chandeliers, more in depth cleaning. And along with that, also monitoring to see if anything has changed, cracked, broken, if anything needs repair. We’re also doing an evaluation of all of our pieces at the same time.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the cleaning process of the chandelier?
PCL: Sure. Cleaning the crystal chandelier is [a process involving] a mixture of water and vinegar, cleaning piece by piece one at a time, and then using cotton gloves to kind of buff that out. And the reason we use water and vinegar is because it doesn’t streak and it doesn’t have any harsh chemicals in there and doesn’t leave behind any residue on the crystal.
And about how many crystals are we’re talking about when you say you have to remove each one? Tens, hundreds?
PCL: Hundreds and hundreds.
You’re part of this bigger collections team in that you work with the Conservator as well. So could you talk a little bit more about how it is you work with the Conservator or are there things [that happen with the collections team] particularly in the off season?
PCL: Because I have more frequent contact with our collections and I’m in those spaces so often, it’s my responsibility to just monitor— to see if anything has changed, if anything is flaking, anything is broken, if stitching is coming undone, if there are any pests in the different collection spaces that are now affecting the collection— all of that information has to be gathered. And then I relay that on to our Curator and our Conservator, and we sit and come up with a solution if anything needs to be addressed. That could be implementing new guidelines for pest management, or [adjusting] if it’s something that has to do with the climate in the collection space. If a piece is being affected by more visitor traffic where it is located, maybe moving it. And then now with the pandemic, it has been about what chemicals will be effective in what we need to disinfect, but at the same time is not going to affect the collection. So it’s really a joint effort between the housekeeping department, the curatorial department, and our conservator to always try to maintain what is best for the collection so that we can preserve it and have it around for a really long time.
What are some of the challenges of cleaning Rough Point? Considering it was a house-people used to live here actively, but now it’s a museum.
PCL: So before, a lot of commercial products were used. For example, for years, all of the silver was polished in the house. And then shifting over to a museum, all of that has to change: how we maneuver through the house, what techniques we’re using, what kind of products we’re using, because now we have to be more conscious of the chemical emissions. What do these chemicals attract onto the pieces? Because we are a museum that’s by the ocean, we’re also combating some environmental things with all the salt in the air. It’s like this constant collecting of information, and monitoring, and adjusting accordingly, now that we are a museum.
Now during the pandemic, some of us have been staying at home more. I think most of us are more conscious about cleaning and surfaces. Do you have some advice on products that are going to be safe, but also effective?
PCL: If you have more modern furniture in your house, using everything that the CDC [Center for Disease Control] has recommended is fine. You just always want to monitor how that’s affecting the coloring in your furniture piece. If you have more antique or vintage pieces in your home, that’s where you have to adjust a little bit. We don’t recommend using bleach necessarily because of course it will affect the coloring if it has a finish, a varnish, a stain. What we have been using here at Rough Point on our wood surfaces–because we have a lot of that here at the house–we’ve been using a mixture of Orvis and water, which is a less harsh soap. And then we spray it onto a little cotton cloth and we wipe our furniture once a day and then just let it air dry. But it’s the same thing in your home, you just want to be aware of that because any kind of product that you do put on your piece, be it modern, be it an antique, it’s going to affect the finish. So you just want to mindful of that.
What, for you, is the most rewarding aspect of your work, or what do you enjoy about working at Rough Point?
PCL: When I first started, I was 18. So I think through the many years that I’ve been here, my love for culture and art and history has really grown. I’ve grown very fond of the collection. One of my favorite things was having the kids’ school groups come through, and them now discovering our collection and seeing our collection and enjoying it, and just fostering this love for the house and for what is in it. I think for me, those things have been my greatest joys here because I experienced that, then you get to see the next generation experiencing that too.
What do you wish that visitors coming to Rough Point knew about the work you do that maybe they don’t notice?
PCL: Well, my desire is that this house is around for a really long time for people to enjoy, for the next generation to enjoy. And the work that I do here contributes to that. And it’s not just what would fall into a janitorial category, it’s so much more than that. We [the other housekeeper, Delma, and Pam] are way more hands-on than I think people really know. We really need to become quite intimate with all of the pieces here, so I don’t think people really realize that. And we really have grown to love the work that we do here.
Any last thing you want to say?
PCL: I hope the interest for this house grows because we are very different from the other houses down the Ave [Bellevue Avenue]. And I hope that when people walk through our doors, they not only grow to love the house, but to love Ms. Duke’s story, and that they feel that warmth that I’ve grown to feel when I walk through these doors and really get to know how much of a gem this house is in Newport.
With profound sadness, Newport Restoration Foundation shares the news of the passing on November 28, 2020 of our former Board Chair, Roger Mandle. Roger joined the NRF Board in 2002 while serving as the President of Rhode Island School of Design. He left the Board in 2008 to become Executive Director and Chief Officer of Museums at Qatar Museums Authority in Doha, Qatar, but rejoined after returning to New England four years later. In December 2013, he was elected Board Chair of NRF and served in that role for five years.
Roger’s passion for life and the depth and breadth of his experience inspired all of us who had the pleasure to work with him. As a leader, his enthusiasm was infectious. He understood the role that an organization like NRF could play in the life of the community, and he recognized that the word “community” encompasses everybody who lives and works here.
Although he is perhaps best known in Rhode Island for his role in academia, his knowledge of museums, and especially art museums, was unsurpassed. Prior to his arrival at RISD, he served as Associate Director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Director of the Toledo Museum of Art, and Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Roger retired as NRF Board Chair to devote more time to the Massachusetts Design Art & Technology Institute (DATMA), a New Bedford organization he co-founded with his wife, Gayle Wells Mandle, in 2016. Contributions in his memory may be made to DATMA or RISD.
Newport is a unique city filled with special stories. The Newport Restoration Foundation interprets the life of Doris Duke, one of Newport’s most famous residents, but her story is only one part of the many-layered portrait of our community. As a member of the Newport community, NRF embraces the textured history of the city, and welcomes the stories and memories of the many different people who lived and live here.
By sharing your own story, you contribute to the collective and varied memory of our city, and we hope you are able to find connections with others in our community as you look through the collection. The Memory you submit may reflect on any topic you choose; this is your story after all! We’ve included some question prompts below if that helps you to begin brainstorming, but if you would like to explore a memory or story of Newport that falls outside of the questions we’ve posed, please feel free to pursue it.
What is your first memory of Newport?
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Newport?
What object do you own/have at home that most reminds you of Newport?
What changes have you seen take place in Newport during your lifetime?
You are free to share your Memory with us however you would like: through video, audio recording, written story, poetry, art, etc. Contributions will be posted to NRF’s online collection on Flickr, where you will be able to see your submission alongside other Newporters’. Click below to view the page.
Submissions may be made as text, video, audio, or photo. Text submissions may not exceed 1000 characters.
Memories will be posted online within 5 business days.
If you have any questions regarding this project or your submission, please contact Caitlyn Sellar at caitlyn@newportrestoration.org. Thank you for sharing your memories with us!
Photo courtesy of Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Historical Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
