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SYLVESTER MANOR RECEIVES $100,000 GRANT FROM THE
AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL HERITAGE ACTION FUND
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Sylvester Manor received $100,000 in funding from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund (AACHAF),
a program from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
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This funding will support a capital project for the Sylvester Manor Attic Preservation. The AACHAF grant will help preserve the 1737 Manor House attic interiors, supporting future interpretations of its former uses. As a remarkably intact interior space, the attic is significant for experiencing African American history. By preserving and rehabilitating the attic, it will become a place to honor the stories and legacies of those who built and sustained Sylvester Manor before and after emancipation. Although their history and stories are presented throughout the house and property, the attic evokes memories of those who lived and worked there. The grant enables the creation of a new interpreted space dedicated to the history of African Americans at Sylvester Manor.
The funding will be used for interior stabilization and preservation in the six-room attic and upper loft, where floorboards will be lifted to make repairs, improve insulation and air quality, and search for artifacts and other evidence to help learn about the people who occupied the space. The attic preservation project is a part of the larger rehabilitation and preservation of the Manor House, estimated to cost $13 million. As part of this work, the exterior building envelope will be repaired, historic interiors will be preserved, ADA-accessible ramps, elevators, and bathrooms will be added, and mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection systems will be updated. A Center for History & Heritage will be established in the northern, circa 1908 portion, offering work and residential facilities for artists and scholars and offices for staff, exhibition, program, and meeting spaces and support facilities.
“We are grateful to the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund for their support of Sylvester Manor and our dedication to telling stories of African American achievement and resilience,” said Stephen Searl, Executive Director. “This prestigious grant will allow us to preserve and interpret the Manor House attic, a space that represents the significant history and role of African Americans at Sylvester Manor.”
“At the Action Fund, we believe everyone can be a preservationist,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and senior vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “Our National Grant Program supports the physical preservation and management of these incredible places that are crucial to keeping our nation’s history alive. We hope this investment will further empower these communities to be leaders in this important effort.”
With more than $150 million raised, the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund is the largest U.S. resource dedicated to the preservation of African American historic places. Sylvester Manor is one of 24 sites selected this year to receive a total of $3 million in funding to advance preservation activities for historic sites, buildings, and landscapes that represent Black cultural heritage.
Sylvester Manor: The lands of Shelter Island’s Sylvester Manor were home for millennia to indigenous Manhansett People. In the early 1650s Dutch-English colonists, Nathaniel Sylvester and three business partners, established Shelter Island as a provisioning plantation for sugarcane operations in Barbados. Sylvester Manor is the most intact plantation remnant and former place of enslavement north of Virginia.
Over the past 370 years, Sylvester Manor has been a provisioning plantation, an 18th-century Enlightenment-era farm and a pioneering food industrialist’s summer estate. The nonprofit organization was formed in 2010 and today includes a 1737 Manor House, a 19th-century restored windmill, an Afro-Indigenous Burial Ground and family cemetery, 5 miles of public trails across 236 acres, a working farm, and educational and cultural arts programs open to all. Sylvester Manor was designated a Historic District of national significance on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015 and its mission is to Preserve, Cultivate and Share historic Sylvester Manor.
For more information, visit www.sylvestermanor.org.
Sylvester Manor | 80 North Ferry Road | Shelter Island, NY | 11964
631.749.0626
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AAQ / Resource
Araiys Design Landscape Architects
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