The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
She made waves in the art world
Now her family’s foundation wants to preserve her home
MADISON — The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation is seeking a zoning special exception to allow the former family home, which once housed a $56 million art collection, to be used for philanthropic and educational purposes.
The foundation’s application for the 6-acre property at 6 Opening Hill Road, also a noted architectural site, goes before the Planning and Zoning Commission at a public hearing May 16. The special exception would allow these uses in the residential zone.
The foundation plans to relocate its office there and seeks to host indoor and outdoor educational programs and “gatherings,” which would be held by invitation and limited to 25 guests at a time. These gatherings would include exhibits, lectures, meetings, retreats, seminars and tours. No on-street parking would be allowed, according to the application.
Plans are to hold larger events for up to 150 people, three times a year maximum and no more than one in any given month. Parking would be offsite and attendees would be shuttled in a 20-person vehicle. No amplified music would be allowed, the application stipulates.
The property would also offer “on-site residencies” to artists, art historians, authors, architects, researchers and nonprofit leaders for no more than four months and would allow no more than eight guests at a time. This would fall under the town’s Bed and Breakfast regulations and is not part of this application.
The site, which features work by celebrated and controversial architect Philip Johnson, would be extensively renovated. Johnson is perhaps best known in this state for the Glass House in New Canaan.
The house was sold upon Emily Hall Tremaine’s death in the 1990s, and in recent years had fallen into disrepair before it was foreclosed on by Bank of America, according to the applicants.
The foundation bought the house for an undisclosed sum in 2023, according to town land records.
“It’s a significant site, it probably would have been lost,” said Michelle Knapik, the foundation’s president.
The process of the property going into foreclosure became an “amazing opportunity” for the Tremaine family “for preserving it, saving it, resurrecting it,” Knapik added.
In an effort to be transparent with the neighbors, foundation representatives wrote letters to neighbors and made a preliminary informal presentation to the PZC last month, Knapik said.
Since then, some neighbors have voiced objections to plans for the site. Neighbors scheduled a public information meeting 7:30 p.m., May 2 at the North Madison Congregational Church, Fellowship Hall. Neighbors are concerned about traffic and public safety on the quiet street, according to meeting organizer Bruce Lockhart.
Kapik stressed, however, that the foundation is “trying to bring forward a way that we can do this harmoniously, transparently with the neighbors.” She said the foundation aims “to have programming at the right scale for the neighborhood,” she said.
She said the foundation is “really making sure that we protect and control for the things that neighbors care about — like traffic that could come with those few events where … parking can’t be contained on the site.”
Knapik also noted that the foundation’s annual operational plan for the property must be submitted to the PZC every year so there will be no surprises as far as events and happenings.
The location is key to this project and is a “touchstone” to the Tremaine family now, as both the unique house and Emily Tremaine were “at the intersection of art, architecture and design,” Knapik said.
“We’ve gotten a lot of questions about the why — why this property, why in Madison,” she said. “There’s just such a significant thread and rooting of the foundation’s history with the family being at this Madison property,” she said.
The historical value of the property is multi-faceted, she said. Noted 20th century architects made their mark on the 18th century farmhouse. Philip Johnson designed a glass addition to the main house and built the “Glass Barn” on the property.
Knapik said the family wants to honor the modernist architecture that “was meant to draw a through line between indoor space to outdoor space.”
“We’ve had a huge response from the architectural community,” she said. “We have had architects from across the country commenting on the significance of the property.”
She said there’s also town history there due to the site’s historic nature.
“There’s art history around contemporary art in America and how the Tremaine collection was expressed and on view, growing and changing and ever present in the house here and in the property,” Kanpik said.
She added that this is tied to the foundation’s history, as well.
“There’s this notion of the foundation being a 40-year-old family foundation intending to operate in perpetuity, already having distributed $100 million across our three program areas,” she said.
The $90 million foundation gives about 5 percent annually in three program areas: the arts, learning differences and environmental sustainability through Sustainable Connecticut, according to Knapik.
The house has seen its share of illustrious guests — artists Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein dined at the home of Emily and Burton Tremaine decades ago. “She was avant garde in her collecting and getting to know artists and caring about these artists,” Knapik said about Emily Tremaine.
The couple saw contemporary, abstract expressionism, pop art and other similar styles as it collect after World War II.
“Emily Tremaine was such an important art collector in her day, she made waves in the art world,” said Knapik. She noted that Emily Tremaine’s correspondence with these iconic artists is in the Smithsonian archives of American Art.
Some 250 pieces of the Tremaine’s collection is now at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and 70 are at the National Gallery of Art, according to Knapik.
Emily Tremaine’s background in lighting is also evident on the site with the various fixtures.
She was the art director at the former Miller Company in Meriden, which Knapik said, “stood as really a beacon of modern industrial lighting.” She said the foundation’s roots in Connecticut and Meriden itself are deep, adding the office was once based in Meriden before moving to New Haven.
“And so this notion where art, architecture and design were coming together… is a huge part of the family history and it really came to life both in the house and the Miller Company,” Knapik said.