Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Berwyn resident to be honored for cultural contributions
The 30th Annual Wyck-Strickland Award Dinner honored John M. (Jeff) Groff of Berwyn, director of Interpretation and estate historian at Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, Nov. 2, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia.
Award Chair Robert McCracken Peck, curator of art and artifacts and senior fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, presented the award, followed by a presentation by Groff.
Established more than a quarter-century ago, the Wyck-Strickland Award is the annual benefit event for Wyck, a National Historic Landmark house, garden, and farm in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. The award is inspired by the balance of tradition and innovation created at Wyck when renowned architect William Strickland redesigned the interior in 1824 for his friends, then-residents Jane and Reuben Haines. The award honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the cultural life of Philadelphia through work that balances a drive for progress and modernity with a sensitivity to the past. This honor has evolved over the years to include architects, landscape architects, engineers, urban planners, historians, museum curators, and librarians. All share a love of Philadelphia and its rich history and cultural life.
Groff was honored with this year’s award for his leadership as executive director of Wyck Association from 19902006, and for his continued dedication to research and public history in his role as work at Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library.
He has studied, written, and lectured on American country houses with an emphasis on country life and colonial revival design for more than 40 years, and been active in the preservation community and with local historical organizations. Groff served as cocurator of Winterthur’s highly successful exhibition Costumes of Downton Abbey
and currently is completing a book with Winterthur’s retired Estate Historian Maggie Lidz on the back of the house servant spaces in large country houses and the various outbuildings, recreational facilities, and farm structures that made up a great estate.
For more information, visit Wyck.org or call 215-848-1690.