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A CEREMONIAL RESOLUTION
21-61
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
June 2, 2015
To honor Tudor Place Historic House & Garden Executive Director Leslie Buhler on the occasion of her retirement.
WHEREAS, as executive director since 2000, Leslie Buhler has established Tudor Place, a National Historic Landmark in Georgetown built by Martha Washington’s granddaughter and home to 5 generations of her descendants, as a meaningful cultural asset for the District of Columbia and the nation and helped secure it into its third century, commencing in 2016;
WHEREAS, on becoming executive director, Leslie Buhler brought to bear experience in outreach, programming, member development, and education at (successively) the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution’s Resident Associate Program, and the National Archives and Records Service, which granted her a Distinguished Service Award for her work on national Bicentennial observances, and experience in management that followed in 19 years leading and significantly expanding The Alban Institute, which advises religious congregations on financial and organizational management;
WHEREAS, Tudor Place became a museum only in 1988 and faced monumental financial and management challenges by 2000, when Leslie Buhler took charge; only clear leadership could have transformed it into the thriving modern museum it is today, where “America’s story lives,” with a full-and part-time staff of 18 credentialed and dedicated professionals, recognized for its leadership in education, collections and archive stewardship, and horticulture;
WHEREAS, at the start of Leslie Buhler’s tenure, much of the museum collection was in questionable condition, largely uncatalogued and stored in makeshift spaces, while its buildings were prone to leakage and other weakness;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler bolstered the museum’s physical structure, stabilized the collection, and established their wider significance by: completing a major restoration of the National Historic Landmark House and numerous conservation projects to protect the collection, archive, and landscape; undertaking documentation projects, including Historic Structures and Cultural Landscape reports, a comprehensive archaeological site survey; and created a comprehensive Master Preservation Plan to guide the museum’s coming decades;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler hired the site’s first full-time curator, engaged an archivist, and expanded its collections, preservation, horticulture, visitor services and education, and administrative staff; unstintingly pursued the digital inventory and (still ongoing) assessment and rehousing of its collection of its more than 15,000 objects and books, including more than 200 objects that belonged to Martha and George Washington and hundreds of artworks, such as 2 recently identified prints by James McNeill Whistler; supervised and cataloguing and rehousing of 300 linear feet of manuscripts, personal correspondence and other valuable archival materials; authorized accessioning of the site’s plants and trees into the collection; and beginning with a comprehensive “Phase 1” archaeological survey in 2010, commissioned ongoing investigations into the uniquely intact site’s unexplored underground riches, yielding insights into the early history of Georgetown and the capital city;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler has throughout her tenure solicited guidance from specialists, academics, and like experts, museum staff and trustees, and other informed constituents on all projects undertaken at the museum, and has applied this expertise and sought supporting funding and pro bono consultation to ensure that investigation and documentation would accompany every improvement and structures, landscape and objects at Tudor Place, and that such projects would expand understanding in relevant fields, as for example, in the archaeological investigation that preceded the Box Knot Garden’s restoration; the dendrochronology tests dating the 1794 Smokehouse, undertaken during its conservation; and the research and testing that accompanied conservation of Washington Collection objects such as Martha Washington’s leather trunk, a Revolutionary War camp stool, and the rare wax-and-shellwork tableau from the Washington’s bedroom at Mount Vernon;
WHEREAS, in keeping with Tudor Place’s national status as a heritage site, Leslie Buhler’s stewardship and research focus, as in the extensive archival study that became the “Slavery Map of Georgetown,” earned praise from academics and museum professionals and recognition, including: the 2014 Ross Merrill Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections from Heritage Preservation and the American Institution for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, a 2012 D.C. Office of Historic Preservation Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation for its intensive site-wide archaeological survey; and for Leslie Buhler herself from the Citizens Association of Georgetown, the 2013 William A. Cochran Award for “exceptional efforts to protect and enhance the community’s parkland and architectural resources;”
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler developed comprehensive public education programs for Tudor Place, reaching nearly 3,000 schoolchildren a year and thousands more via teacher development workshops and the Internet; developed its popular guided tour and attracted, trained, and retained dozens of well- informed volunteer docents to deliver it; expanded museum education to include educator workshops on teaching with primary sources, summer camps, scouting activities, and for schoolchildren, creative field trips (subsidized for low-income students) and in-class workshops meeting national curricular standards;
WHEREAS, to expand Tudor Place visitation to the 18,000-plus it is today, Leslie Buhler researched the interests, identities, and needs of site visitors; developed a well- managed rentals program responsive community needs; developed a full calendar year of lively public programming addressed to varied interests, ages, and constituencies, educating while also supporting the museum; and oversaw creation of a vibrant and flexible website that expands the museum’s digital reach internationally;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler formalized membership and established programs to inform and delight a loyal and growing cadre of members and donors, including Landmark Society Lectures, author talks and luncheons, a New Year’s Member Welcome Breakfast, quarterly Tudor Nights evenings, and the gala Spring Garden Party that constitutes the site’s most significant annual fundraiser;
WHEREAS, in an era when many public historic sites struggle against waning public interest, Tudor Place is growing, helping to connect people’s own stories and America’s story;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler personally shares her knowledge and demonstrates her encyclopedic grasp of Georgetown and District of Columbia history with members, donors, and the public, in numerous articles and a forthcoming book on the estate; in informative talks, such as her 2013 lecture on The Civil War in Georgetown delivered to a packed meeting of the Georgetown Citizens Association, and in 2012, “Tudor Place: Estate of the Nation,” delivered to the Colonial Daughters of the 17th century, and through scintillation private and small-group tours of Tudor Place and its collections, in which she discourses ex tempore from her vast knowledge of their provenance, attributes, inhabitants, significance, and, occasionally, still unplumbed mysteries;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler has built on the philanthropy and good governance by which Armistead Peter 3d established Tudor Place as a museum, by: cultivating a devoted and judicious Board of Trustees; building a funding base through ties to individuals and foundations who share her devotion to material culture, architecture, and landscape history, a capital campaign in 2009, and the Bicentennial Capital Campaign now underway to effectuate the Master Preservation Plan; securing material support and collaboration from government bodies including the Federal Save America’s Treasures Foundation, National Park Service and National Endowment for the Humanities, and in the District, this Council, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E, the Fine Arts Commission, Office of Preservation, and the Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Forum Cultural Tourism D.C., of which she was a founding member, and the Historic House Museum Consortium, in which she also took an early active role; and building bonds of mutual support with Georgetown organizations including the Business Association (on whose board she served), Citizens Association, Old Georgetown Board, Garden Club, Business Improvement District and local Kiwanis chapter;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler, for her hard-working professionalism, geniality, and wise guidance, has cultivated and earned the deep respect of dozens of talented Tudor Place employees and volunteers, past and present;
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler is the devoted wife of Robert Berendt, proud mother of Christopher and Ashley Berendt and their respective spouses, and attentive grandmother to Annika, Violet, and Edward Berendt, and Max Racanelli; and
WHEREAS, Leslie Buhler will retire in the summer of 2015, having prepared Tudor Place to celebrate its bicentennial.
IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, that the Council of the District of Columbia recognizes, honors, and salutes Leslie Buhler for her 15 years of transformational leadership and her assiduous stewardship of a treasure of national and local culture; thanks her for her work on behalf of the museum, its constituents, the museum profession, and the public; and extends sincerest best wishes.
Sec. 2. This resolution may be cited as the “Leslie Buhler – Tudor Place Recognition Resolution of 2015”.
Sec. 3. This resolution shall take effect immediately upon the first date of publication in the District of Columbia Register.
