Seton Castle Restoration Progress Report

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September 2004
 

Senator Jeff Bingaman (center) and his wife, Anne, visit Seton Castle

Rachel and Lynda sell lemonade to help restore Seton Castle.

South and east views of Seton Castle. Click on picture for larger view.

West view of Seton Castle. Click on picture for larger view.

What a busy summer it’s been at Seton Castle! We have quite a bit of news to share with you.

On August 27th, Senator Jeff Bingaman and his wife, Anne, visited the Castle and met with Aaron Stern and the rest of the Academy’s project team, to learn more about the Castle and our vision for its use as an educational, cultural and environmental renewal center. The Senator and his wife, who are actually neighbors of the Castle, had never before visited it and were interested and greatly impressed with the work we have done so far and our vision for the future. The Senator and the rest of the New Mexico Congressional Delegation, including Senator Pete V. Domenici, Representative Thomas Udall, Representative Heather A. Wilson and Representative Steve Pearce, have promised us their further help and support with the restoration project.

We are delighted to say that the first phase of the restoration project is complete. We’ve catalogued more than 350 artifacts including over 150 paintings, drawings and sketches by Seton. In addition, over 2,000 books, including dozens of books written by Seton, a collection of books dating back to the 1600’s, and an extensive collection of Native American and Southwest History.

We’ve also completed the clearing of the castle land and adjacent land of rubbish including broken glass and fallen wooden structures – over 120 tons have been disposed of. This has changed the feel of the property significantly from neglect to cleansed and energetic.

In early July we had a very successful yard sale that brought in over $3,000. We’d like to thank the volunteers who helped us with the yard sale – including; cashiers (Bill Buehler, Christa Franklin, Amy Lewis, Eleanor Makris and Lucy Moore), parking (Speed Franklin), lemonade stand vendors (Rachel Franklin and Lynda Romero), and our favorite greeter and information provider (Jerry Zollars) - we truly could not have done it without their assistance! In addition to the volunteers, we’d like to thank Whole Foods, The Chocolate Maven and Back Roads Pizza for providing food and supplies for the day.

The collection of Seton’s paintings, drawings and sketches are currently being analyzed and assessed by David Witt, the curator of The Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexico. David approached us last fall as he had heard that we were restoring the Castle. In the early 1970’s, David was the assistant curator at Seton Memorial Museum and Library (now Philmont Museum) at Philmont, the Boy Scout ranch, located near Cimarron, New Mexico. His job was to catalog and assess the vast collection of Seton artwork and artifacts that Seton’s wife, Julia had donated to Philmont. So, coming full circle over 30 years later, David yet again is analyzing the work of this talented and creative artist.

We asked David about his thoughts of the collection:

"The art collection includes scores of beautiful Seton paintings and drawings as well as containing some masterpieces such as The Sleeping Wolf and the Sharpshinned Hawk. It is exciting to think about how great it will look when reinstalled in Seton Castle."

The team from historic restoration architectural firm Spears Architects has also been working diligently with our team to create the final plans for the restoration. Extensive research into the history of the property has been ongoing for several months. The plans are almost finalized and we are excited to share with you some of the architectural renderings of the Castle.

We are pleased to announce that the Academy has received a substantial gift from music-lover and friend of the Academy John B. Geist to cover costs of restoring the portion of the castle known as the music library.

The Geist media center will house and be the foundation of what we consider to be one of the finest collection of Western music in the country. At the heart of the center will be listening stations where music lovers and music scholars can come and listen to and explore this great musical tradition. The collection will continue to grow with the guidance and curatorship of Academy President, Aaron Stern. His attention to the aliveness and quality of recording that characterizes Geist’s extraordinary collection will ensure that it continues to be an important asset to the music learning and loving community.

Finally, the restoration development plan also includes the installation of a new grey and black water re-use septic system, known as Pirana. This cutting edge system will take all of the waste-water from the restored Castle and convert it into clear, clean water that we will then use on the land. Recycling and conserving water is vitally important in the southwest and worldwide and the use of this modern technology to protect and sustain the environment is something we are sure Ernest Thompson Seton would have been happy about. In fact, Seton himself had incorporated the rudiments of such a system on the property in the 1930’s!