Gettysburg Foundation To Rent Sherfy House
By Deborah Fitts

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - Citing cost savings that will benefit a nonprofit partner, officials at Gettysburg National Military Park plan to rent a historic home on the battlefield to the private foundation that will build and operate the park's new $70 million visitor center and museum.

The Sherfy House, located on the west side of the Emmitsburg Road near the Peach Orchard, was built in the 1840s. It witnessed intense fighting July 2 and 3, 1863, including the Confederates' ill-fated Pickett's Charge.

The Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation will use the home primarily for meetings, according to spokesman Suzanne Helm, and also occasionally for overnight stays by foundation board and staff members, and by major donors.

The nonprofit foundation is launching a fundraising campaign this fall to build the new facility, which is the cornerstone of the park's new General Management Plan (GMP). The public-private venture is being watched as a possible model for other major infrastructure improvements in the National Park System.

The park leases out 19 of its historic houses as living quarters, with all but one used by park employees (the exception is a local farmer). Four other historic houses are used for park offices, and two are vacant because of their small size, the Leister House and the Bryan Farm.

The Sherfy House fell vacant early this year upon the retirement of a park employee, and has been the focus of a $70,00 rehabilitation.

The foundation's personnel are spending more and more time in Gettysburg, away from their Washington, D.C., headquarters, park spokesman Katie Lawhon said, and "they really needed some space in the area. This would help them save costs. With the house coming vacant at the time, this seemed a perfect fit."

The park's announcement prompted criticism that the use was "inappropriate." It was the first negative reaction in months to a venture that in its infancy was buffeted by bitter opposition. Eric Uberman, a Steinwehr Avenue merchant who was outspoken against the new museum and visitor center, called the foundation's plans "a bed and breakfast - for the rich," and likened its plans for the Sherfy House to the Clinton administration's use of the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House to host big donors.

And the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg, which is taking the lead in fundraising for other aspects of the GMP, also weighed in. Friends Executive Director Vickey Monrean said her 13-member board voted unanimously Aug. 13 to approve a resolution criticizing the lease as "an inappropriate use of historic resources."

Monrean acknowledged that groups that fundraise for battlefields typically go upon the battlefield to do so, including the Friends, "but there's a distinct difference between that and spending the night on the battlefield."

Monrean said the board's criticism did not mean that the Friends have cooled in their determination to support the GMP, including raising millions of dollars to restore the landscape closer to its 1863 appearance.

"This is not a huge split between the Friends and the foundation," she said. "But we pledged to our members that we would voice our objections when we saw something we did not agree with."

The foundation's Helm said the Sherfy House will be used mostly for meetings, such as those now increasing in number between the foundation and its architects and museum designers. It would also provide space for private meetings and serve as "a marvelous place to immerse our donors in the battlefield experience," she said. Helm said, however, that the foundation will not hold fundraising events at the Sherfy House, or charge fees. "We're trying to be very respectful of the dignity of the battlefield," she said.

According to Lawhon, Park Service policy allows parks to rent properties to "essential cooperators," such as friends groups and organizations like the nonprofit Eastern National Park & Monument Association, which operates the park bookstore.

The park's rehabilitation of the house included reroofing, installing new heating and air conditioning systems, adding a new bathroom, remodeling the kitchen, and repairing doors, windows and trim.

Helm said the foundation will undertake additional interior work to bring the house closer to a 19th-century appearance, including replacing linoleum flooring in the kitchen with pine boards and applying wallpaper. The rental will begin in November "at the earliest," Helm said. She noted that as a nonprofit, "All the money we raise will benefit the park."

Lawhon noted that other national parks offer historic buildings to their "partners" for office space, including Ellis Island, which houses the nonprofit Ellis Island Foundation in the main building at the site, and Valley Forge, where the Valley Forge Historical Society is planning to move its offices into a historic house on the park.

Rent from the foundation for the Sherfy House, like all the rents the park collects, will be placed in a park fund to use in preserving the historic houses on the battlefield, Lawhon said.

Following Park Service policy, park personnel who lease the houses are charged rents commensurate with the area. Lawhon said the park had not had a similar request for space from a cooperating organization. "We would have to judge each proposal from our partners on its merit, on a case-by-case basis," she said.