Marshall House HVAC

In the spirit of using this blog to keep you current on some of the background of the properties, this is an update on the pending need to replace the aging heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system in the John Marshall House. From the beginning of our involvement with the Marshall House in 1911 until 2005, it (the Marshall House) was actually owned by the City of Richmond. After pressure from local preservationists forced the City to abandon its plans to demolish the house to make way for a new John Marshall High School in 1911, the City of Richmond passed an ordinance giving APVA the right to operate the property as a museum. It also served as the headquarters office of the then all-volunteer organization throughout the middle decades of the 20th century. The City gave the deed of the House to APVA in 2005 as part of the 250th anniverasay of John Marshall's birth.

The major renovation of the House into the condition we know it today was undertaken between 1974 and 1976. This was also around the time of the construction of the adjacent City Hall tower. The City agreed to install piping between the two buildings so that the chilled or heated water from the City Hall mechanical equipment would also feed a then state of the art air handling system in the basement of the Marshall House and provide interior heating and cooling. This system worked pretty well for 30 years.

Now the major systems in City Hall are nearing or just past their useful life as is the air handler in the Marshall House. The other challenge has been that the way the system is designed, we get either chilled water for air conditioning or hot water for heating, but not both. And once the switch is made, it stays that way for the next six months or so. With the variable Richmond weather, this often leads to uncomfortable days during the transition periods in the spring and fall. The Historic Structures Report (HSR) completed for the Marshall House three years ago recommended we install our own stand-alone system, which would allow us to control the temperature ourselves to reflect the actual weather conditions, and provide humidity control which the current system cannot do.

As the retreat ended yesterday, we received the first actual cost proposal for doing this. It came in at $120,000. This would involve completely removing the 1976 equipment in the basement mechanical room, capping off the pipes from the City Hall and running a natural gas feed line into the basement. We would have a two zoned system allowing each floor to be maintained at a constant temperature, and the ability to maintain the humidity inside the house at a constant range of 45 - 50%. It would require two outside condenser units, likely placed at the far corner of the backyard, near the enclosed area for trash cans.

This is a system that we will have to install in the next couple of years as the City changes its systems and we lose what we have, and as our equipment ages even more. We will secure additional proposals but the $100K range is about where we will likely end up. Another fund raising challenge, but an opportunity to provide a more museum friendly interior environment for the house and its remarkable collection. I'll keep you posted! - Louis

Site Coordinators to Meet

Here's a news items that would otherwise get lost in the overall crush of events. We have scheduled a meeting of all our site coordinators with the Richmond staff for Monday, March 31. We operate our properties through a number of mostly part-time, modestly paid folks based at each site. Only two are full time employees. Not surprisingly, given the Board discussions the last two days, those are Historic Jamestowne (Ann Berry) and Cape Henry Lighthouse (John Starling). The John Marshall House benefits from part time attention of two full time employees. We combined museum operations at the John Marshall House and The Richmond History Center (RHC) a couple of years ago. One of the main efficiencies we garnered from this was having a full time customer services representative (David Nickels) based at the RHC but providing scheduling, oversight, training etc. for a common pool of docents. Thus the folks who interpret the Marshall House are fully versed in the RHC and vice versa. We also are fortunate to have Doug Welsh, who works roughly two days a week for us and three days a week for the John Marshall Foundation. Doug provides on site oversight of the grounds, the physical inspections and maintenance of the building as well as being a skilled docent and promoter. Most of the others, whom I will introduce to you in subsequent posts, are part time, seasonal. As you know, many of our properties close completely during the depths of winter. Next weekend, with the beginning of March, Bacon's Castle and Smith's Fort will re-open on weekends only. Scotchtown opens with a full schedule on April 1. Thus a meeting at the end of March is a fitting time for getting ready for the re-opening of the properties.

This meeting will bring the site personnel up to speed on procedures and reporting as well as new membership initiatives and other aspects of daily site management that they perform on our behalf. (Maybe we should set up a separate properties blog for a focused ongoing discussion of just site issues!). One of the items for discussion will be to solicit their ideas on expanded and alternative uses for their sites. Most of these folks have been with APVA and their particular site for an awfully long time and have insights that we would likely not. We`need to bring them into the conversation. These are the front line folks that most of the Board never gets to meet, but are vital to the financial and brand success of APVA as long as it is in any respect a property based organization. You would be proud to know them. They are fiercely loyal to their site and the APVA (often in that order) and work for far less than they are worth.

I want to keep these relatively short and focused to allow for comment and discussion, so I will stop this now (besides, Bill Maher is on TV!). See you in cyberspace! - Louis

Beginning the conversation

Okay, inspired by two days of often intense discussion during the Board Retreat, I decided to go ahead and start this blog. It really is quite simple and not nearly as mysterious as it would seem. My intention is to use this to post news, thoughts, updates, queries, whatever strikes me as important at any point in the day. I hope that it will inspire responses and reactions and that we can advance the overall discussion in an informal way.

Since I got it started, I get to set a couple of ground rules. One is respect. The intention of this is to allow for open and honest discussion and disagreement if necessary, but always in a respectful way. Two is helpful. We need to keep in mind that the intention of this informal discussion is to advance the organization and its mission. Three is relevance. I define this very broadly. I hope to use this vehicle to keep interested participants informed and engaged. There is often much going on that we do not communicate and this vehicle may be a simple way to do it. So do not be afraid to ask questions. I realised in listening to Buzz and Eric that there is much jargon that they obviously understand but I don't. It makes me wonder if perhaps we get into too much jargon ourselves.

So another principle is asking questions. If there is something that needs clarifying, amplifying or simplifying, don't be afraid or reluctant to ask a question (remember Rule #1 - we all will respect that you have enough interest to ask, not ridicule you for not already knowing).

As this is an introductory post, I will stop this one here and follow on with a substantive post. Thanks for being part of the conversation. I'll see you in cyberspace! - Louis