Reynolda House is “the gemstone of Winston-Salem’s ‘Emerald Necklace’”
NOTE: this is my last day of PTO this week, so this is a pre-post
In this Issue: Discover the jewel in Wake Forest’s crown: Reynolda House, Museum of American Art
Reynolda House, Museum of American Art is one of the great treasures of the Wake Forest campus. It’s a historic home and an exceptional museum of American art, all within walking distance of the campus (and free for your students!). Reynolda House, and its lovely gardens, is a place well worth discovering; if you have time at Move-In, Family Weekend, or any other time you are on campus, you should visit this amazing place. (It has a great gift shop too!)
Starting in 2002, the museum formally affiliated with Wake Forest, ensuring that our students and faculty can study the artworks, historic home, and gardens for academic purposes, or simply enjoy their beauty.
Generations of Wake Foresters have had their lives enriched by Reynolda House and Reynolda Gardens. To learn more about this remarkable part of Wake Forest, here are some past articles you might enjoy:
Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, affiliates with WFU (2002)
“In an agreement described as historic and visionary, Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, has become an affiliate of its longtime neighbor, Wake Forest University.
Reynolda House President Barbara B. Millhouse and Wake Forest President Thomas K. Hearn Jr. announced the new relationship in an afternoon press conference on Jan. 15 at the house, built originally as the early 20th century home of R. J. Reynolds, founder of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and his wife, Katharine Smith Reynolds. It is now home to a museum distinguished for its collection of American art dating from the mid-18th century and a wide range of interdisciplinary educational programs serving adults and children…..
In the late 1940s, Mary Reynolds and Charles Babcock contributed a large portion of the family estate for the construction of Wake Forest’s Reynolda Campus, which opened in 1956. Wake Forest’s undergraduate College, Calloway School of Business and Accountancy, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Babcock Graduate School of Management, Divinity School, and School of Law are located on the campus.
In 1964, the Babcock family placed Reynolda House and the surrounding 19 acres in a non-profit institution dedicated to serve as an education center using a collection of American art as its focal point. In 1967, Reynolda House, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, presented to the public an art collection with works by many of the nation’s most distinguished artists, including John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Albert Bierstadt and Frederic E. Church.
Many other significant works have been added by artists including Georgia O’Keeffe, Mary Cassatt, Grant Wood, Stuart Davis and Jacob Lawrence. With works dating from 1755 to the present, the collection has been described by preeminent art scholar John Wilmerding of Princeton University as ‘the finest concentration of American art in a public collection south of Washington (D.C.).’”
Read the full story from January 2002.
Reynolda House: My Favorite Things
“There is a tree-lined alley on the south end of the formal gardens that has always been special to me. When you leave the gardens on that side, you pass under one of the Japanese gazebos and enter a cozy, enclosed path with a wooden bench at the end, like you might find in many a traditional garden. But behind the bench is a log cabin, once the playhouse for the Reynolds’ sons Dick and Smith, and now a kind of rustic folly, a reminder of the agricultural source of Winston-Salem’s industrial fortune and a reminder that Reynolda was really in the country until the city grew up around it. It’s a touch of whimsy on the edge of a large formal garden, thumbing its nose down the long, proud axis containing gazebos, fountains and greenhouses.” – Phil Archer (’03, MBA ’05), Betsy Main Babcock Deputy Director, Reynolda House
“I can sit in the basement and go through the documents, the invoices, the letters, the photographs. Then I can go up one flight of stairs and walk through the spaces that this family lived in, that they made decisions in, that they looked at Winston-Salem and the rest of the world from. Then I can go up to the third floor and see the clothes that they actually wore — these beautiful, handmade, perfect, perfect clothes — and I can imagine them walking through these spaces, making these decisions. It’s an incredibly powerful experience for me.” – Michele Gillespie, Provost and author of Katharine and R.J. Reynolds: Partners of Fortune in the Making of the New South.
Read the full story in the June 2017 Wake Forest Magazine.
Reynolda’s Charm
“From the air and on the ground, Reynolda is the gemstone of Winston-Salem’s ‘Emerald Necklace’ which encompasses the University, Reynolda, Graylyn and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA). …
The museum was created 50 years ago by [R.J. and Katharine] Reynolds children and grandchildren as a way to ensure Reynolda’s continued relevance to the community, and hence, its preservation. … Drawing on her Smith College training as an art historian, Barbara Millhouse (L.H.D. ’88, P ’02) assembled a major American art collection in the 1960s. Generations of art majors have felt that Reynolda belonged to them, but the collection has been important for everyone who loves art.”
Read the full story in the June 2017 Wake Forest Magazine.
Reynolda House: 4,000 photos, good vibes
“Imagine sorting through 4,000 photographs to best tell the story of the genesis of a Winston-Salem landmark. That immersion in the archives set the course for Barbara Babcock Millhouse, who intended to write a ‘guided tour’ of Reynolda House, decided to think bigger and published instead the new pictorial history ‘Reynolda: 1906-1924.’ Her book chronicles the transformation of a ‘patchwork of eroded and worn-out farms’ 3.5 miles from the city center to a model, productive country estate on 1,067 acres at its peak.”
Read the full story in the June 2011 Wake Forest Magazine