BRM marks major renovation
About 250 people gathered Thursday night in the Brandywine Museum of Art’s new courtyard to celebrate the supermoon and a museum milestone.
The Enchanted Courtyard by the Light of the Moon party came three years after the last bits of Hurricane Ida caused the Brandywine River to rise almost 20 feet in hours on Sept. 2, 2021.
It left the museum dealing with $30 million worth of damages, remediation and mitigation work.
The flooding pushed water into Brandywine Creek, along which the museum sits in an old grist mill, and damaged 10 buildings on the museum’s 15-plus acre campus.
Water destroyed the museum’s lowest level, which contained a lecture room, classroom, offices, public restrooms, an ADA-accessible visitor entrance and critical mechanical systems. They can no longer used as a public space.
The waters did not, however, make it to the museum’s first floor, where the galleries begin, They are known for featuring work by N.C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth, all of who live or lived in the area.
“As prepared as we were, because we have dealt with floods before, every measure that we took wasn’t enough, because Ida was just so much higher and so much more water,” said Virginia A. Logan, executive director and CEO of the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art.
She greeted her guests wearing a headband made of tree branches twinkling with lights, which looked like reindeer antlers, as did other museum workers and officials.
Patrons at the Enchanted Courtyard party not only had food, drink and live music by the Bill Handy Trio, but could visit the museum’s six galleries, including special exhibitions “The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick” and “Up East: Andrew Wyeth in Maine.”
Admiring the crowd from the top of the museum’s half-moon entrance steps, a grinning trustee R. Thorpe Moeckel said it was very exciting to see so many people in the new courtyard enjoying it.
“So many people worked so hard on this, and it’s just turned out wonderfully,” he said. “We just couldn’t be prouder. We hope everybody enjoys it and comes out, uses it, takes it all in.”
He is particularly pleased the courtyard, lined with flat, rectangular stones and bounded by stone walls and board-formed concrete walls, is much bigger than the old one.
That will give the museum more flexibility for programs and fund-raising, he said.
The multi-million-dollar courtyard renovation required about eight months of construction.
It was designed by architect Bruce Davis of Cooper Robertson, a New York-based architectural firm, in cooperation with Tevebaugh Architecture of Wilmington.
Calling the assignment “a gem of a project,” Davis said the opportunity to reimagine the space was appealing “especially because it’s the Brandywine’s front door, and they really wanted to create a more welcoming space as people’s first impression, especially after the flooding.”
He wanted his design to reflect the character and styles people might see in the region of Chadds Ford.
The Rolling Rock Glen stone in the walls was mined at a nearby quarry, some concrete walls look like wooden boards to reflect area barns and the mill’s history, and sloped roofs meant to offer shade were designed to evoke the angle of area barn roofs.
Gone are the courtyard’s original Belgian block cobblestones and the wooden stalls surrounding the courtyard. The stones were kept and will be used to line trails and other work, but the stalls were lost, Logan said.
The new courtyard is meant to withstand any flooding, Davis said.
The space will feature integrated lighting for evening events and native plantings designed by Hallie Boyce at OLIN, a Philadelphia landscape architectural firm.
It also offers a new permanent ADA entrance ramp that will allow all guests to enter through the front doors.
The old ADA entrance had been on the destroyed ground floor.
Boyce said the plantings, which will use native plants, start as the walk begins to slope up to the courtyard. Inside, they will be against walls closest to the museum to maximize space for programs.
Some seating will be fixed, but most will be moveable for events, she said.
“This building is so important to the origin story of the institution that’s been adjacent to the river,” Boyce said. “That was something we explored early on, and the decision was to remain adjacent to Brandywine Creek, given that original design and the view of the river that really transforms people when they come here. They leave their cares behind. They leave the city behind, often their daily life, and enter this new realm at the forefront.”
Inside, the museum’s renovations include an ADA-accessible family restroom added to the first floor, near the Millstone Café, to replace a restroom on the destroyed lower level.
A new state-of-the-art multi-purpose Waterview Room on the second floor of the Museum—created out of former office spaces—features floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Brandywine Creek. It can hold more than 100 people at lectures, art activities and special performances.
Larger programs such as concerts, dance groups, and events such as Saturday’s “Barks & Brews” Oktoberfest are expected to take place in the courtyard.
The museum soon will tackle one of its biggest projects: flood hardening to make the lower level watertight.
That complex engineering procedure is expected to take place over the next year, but the museum will be able to remain open throughout.
“To describe that process in the simplest terms, openings on the lower level—including windows and vents—will be removed or sealed; structural reinforcement and waterproof material will be applied to the building interior; and the foundation will be anchored to resist buoyancy forces,” said Nicole Kindbeiter, director of marketing and communications for the museum.
That floor will only be used for emergency exits in the future, she said.
The hardening project will not alter the exterior appearance of the historic mill portion of the museum, she said.
“All of this work is critical in ensuring that the museum will be better prepared for future severe flooding events in the years ahead,” Kindbeiter said, “so that we can remain focused on safeguarding our renowned collection and creating the highest-possible visitor experience.”
About Betsy Price
Betsy Price is a Wilmington freelance writer who has 40 years of experience.
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