[78-L] Billy Murray Historic Site [was: Billy Murray Memorial, anoter mention]

[Ken "Silver Showcase"]

Bob Rice wrote:
>   Hi Sports Fans;
>
>   ANOTHER one on Billy Murray! This might be far fetched, but didn't he live 
> in Denver, most of his life? Would there be a Billy Murray HOME to enshrine? 
> Well, not anything like Elvis's Graceland, but a modest home, IF he had one, 
> thast could be filled with memoribilia? Recordings, sheet music, pix, etc. A 
> grave site isn't much to see and as pointed out OTHER folks wouldn't WANT 
> fans, trampling through the Place of Rest?There are artists of lesser 
> calabur that have shrines?
>   

Old House museums have potential to highlight various aspects of history 
be it a particular era, ethnic group, personage, or something else.  But 
they're tricky to get started and much trickier to maintain.  And they 
usually cost lots and lots and lots of money.  The only old house museum 
that actually pays for itself that I am aware of is Mt. Vernon, George 
Washington's home.  There are hundreds of other old house museums 
scattered across the land and most if not all of them need to have 
either a major financial endowment to or public support of some kind to 
stay open and in good repair.

Start-up costs for a Billy Murray house would depend on so many 
variables.  I wouldn't be surprised if a Billy Murray historic site 
would need a few million to get started.  You'd also need a very 
committed board of directors who really care about Murray and who know 
how to write grants, raise funds from the public, and promote the hell 
out of the idea of a Billy Murray historic site.  You also need people 
who know how to work with local zoning laws and other legalities.  And 
it wouldn't hurt to have a professional historian on staff to interpret 
things properly.

After the house is purchased or donated, (assuming there is an extant 
house), there would be restoration costs that could run into major 
dollars depending on the condition of the joint and how much its been 
altered over the years.  There are all sorts of costs involved with this 
sort of thing if you want to do a professional job and be authentic.  If 
you want to present it "as it was" then you need to acquire as much of 
the original furnishings as possible and that can be a very daunting 
task.  Even more difficult might be learning how he used the spaces 
inside and outside the house, and learning anecdotes about his life 
there that will help to make the place more interesting.  If you want to 
use the spaces to "suggest" the house as it was when Murray lived there, 
but use most of the space to present displays about his career and the 
history of recorded music from his era you might have a slightly easier 
task acquiring items.

Getting the public interested in such a place is particularly difficult 
for someone like Murray because few people today have heard of him or 
know anything about him.  But, of course, the publicity generated by 
creating such a site could help to change that.

And, depending on lots of variables, you probably wouldn't be able to 
open the museum for a year or two or more.

There is a very charming old house museum near where I live - the 
Boyhood Home of Sterling North in Edgerton Wisconsin.  (North was the 
author of "Rascal," and other books.)  It gets a straggling of visitors 
and they operate on a shoe-string budget, but they do stay afloat.  I 
was surprised to learn that they get some very enthusiastic visitors 
from Japan - the book "Rascal" is very popular in Japan and so Japanese 
tourists who come to this part of the US make the trek to little 
Edgerton to see the house where North grew up with his pet raccoon, 
Rascal.  And, (to keep this on topic), where North certainly listened to 
78s while growing up in the early part of the 20th century.  Go to 
http://www.sterlingnorth.com/

On a very large scale, and also near where I live, is "Ten Chimneys," a 
magnificent restoration and presentation of the private home of Alfred 
Lunt and Lynn Fontanne located in tiny Genesee Depot, Wisconsin.  After 
Fontanne died in 1983 the house was on the road to destruction and the 
site was going to be redeveloped.  But interested parties got together 
and saved it and now it is beautifully and very carefully restored on a 
huge scale with terrificly well interpreted tours.  My friends raved 
about it after their first visits and I thought that it couldn't 
possibly be that good.  I went and found it was even better than they 
said.  It not only brings alive the Lunts and how they lived there with 
their long line of glittering guests, (Chaplin, Olivier, Noel Coward, 
Helen Hayes, Kate Hepburn to name a few), but it brings alive their 
careers and the rich history of the theatre that they were so much a 
part of.  (Go to http://www.tenchimneys.org/lynn-and-alfred/   to learn 
more.)

My long winded point is that the idea of a Billy Murray historic site is 
very exciting to people like us, but making it a reality would be a 
massive undertaking.  Is anyone here up to it?

-- Ken