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The barn at Highland Farm. (Photo by Grace Alfiero)
I began working at Rodgers and Hammerstein in May, 1981, virtually a yr and a half after Richard Rodgers handed away. My bosses have been Rodgers’s widow Dorothy and Bill Hammerstein, the oldest little one of Oscar. I knew Mary Rodgers and had met Dorothy however knew not one of the Hammersteins. When I met Bill I discovered him to be avuncular, clever, contemplative, and cautious. He had been round lengthy sufficient to know the ins and outs of the connection between his father and Rodgers—sophisticated, sure, but in addition terribly fertile and constant.
One day after I had been in cost for a couple of years I acquired a telephone name. The home that Oscar Hammerstein II had owned in Doylestown, Pa., Highland Farm, was available on the market, and for a value that appeared modest—round $250,000. I knew that after Oscar died, his spouse Dorothy—coincidence that each males had wives named Dorothy?—had bought the home. Bill and I had by no means had a dialog in regards to the place and what it meant to the household. Maybe somebody would really feel nostalgic sufficient to purchase it again? I put in a name to Bill.
“Do you have Hugh Fordin’s biography of my father nearby?” he requested. I pulled it from the bookshelf. “Look at the aerial photo of the house. Do you see the tennis court, below the circular driveway?” Yes, I mentioned, it’s fairly clear. “Well, there is a major highway running right through where the tennis court used to be. That is why the price is what it is.”
I used to be crushed. What a disgrace, I believed. And that was the tip of that.
Then a couple of years later I acquired one other name out of the blue. This one was from Christine Cole, the brand new proprietor of Highland Farm, who was working the home as a mattress & breakfast. She invited me down. My curiosity was piqued. I had by no means been to the home, didn’t actually know the place it was, however as president of Rodgers & Hammerstein I used to be at all times up for brand new discoveries that had a connection to the work I used to be now charged to handle.
The driveway to the home was so modest that on first go, I missed it fully. Backtracking over the double freeway, I did discover it, and drove in. There was the round driveway, and the home. A bit of historical past on the hoof, the place wherein so lots of Oscar Hammerstein’s iconic lyrics and librettos had been written. Wow, I believed.
Christine was a gracious host. We walked the property. Despite the lack of the tennis court docket, the remainder of the property nonetheless felt like a farmhouse, even the in-ground swimming pool—the primary in Bucks County—that Oscar had been very pleased with. She had assigned me what had been Oscar and Dorothy’s bed room. Across the corridor was the room that had been Oscar’s research, the place, standing at his desk, he had carried out his writing. The walkway across the porch roof was nonetheless intact. On the one hand I used to be in a stunning outdated Pennsylvania farmhouse with, amusingly, the identical balusters on the staircase as my 1865 Carpenter Gothic home in Connecticut; however, it was a spot of extraordinary spirit wherein so many artistically inspirational occasions befell.
Christine was not simply decided that the home stay standing—a mattress & breakfast with only some bedrooms is a tough monetary endeavor. Instinctively she felt that the historic worth of the place must be acknowledged and solidified. How might that occur, she puzzled?
In pretty quick order, Will Hammerstein, certainly one of Oscar’s 4 grandsons, turned dedicated to a future for Highland Farm. He dreamed huge: He needed to show the barn right into a theatre that may current productions of Oscar’s exhibits, flip the home right into a research middle, put the place on a visual inventive map. Some fund-raising occasions befell at which Will’s ardour was clearly evident.
After some time, it didn’t seem like the dream would come true. Some of the property surrounding the home was being eyed by a developer. Some of the sensible elements of making a public place in what had been a non-public dwelling turned extra evident. Problems, issues…
But there was an thought, and it wasn’t going to go away. Happily for everybody, some good native Pennsylvanians stepped in and noticed not solely the probabilities, however the significance of saving this piece of American cultural historical past. Why not flip the place right into a theatre museum and training middle?
That is now the plan: The Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit group with the mission to honor Oscar Hammerstein II’s work as a librettist and lyricist, and his legacy of mentorship and social activism. The imaginative and prescient is to buy, restore, and protect the Hammerstein dwelling and barn at Highland Farm in Doylestown, Pa., and create a museum and theatre training middle on this historic web site. With the purpose of making a multifaceted and dynamic museum expertise, with a robust theatre training part, serving as a spot of inspiration for Broadway followers and humanitarians alike, OHMTEC has raised practically $1 million towards the acquisition of Highland Farm. An further $1 million is required to finish the primary part of the venture, in order that the house might be opened to the general public as a museum. Donations of any quantity are welcome and might be made by verify, bank card or appreciated securities. Information might be discovered at hammersteinmuseum.org.
There are a couple of pictures in that Hugh Fordin ebook displaying Hammerstein males sitting in rocking chairs on the porch of Highland Farm. The chairs are fairly particular—giant scale with round arms. After Bill Hammerstein died, his spouse, Jane-Howard, gave me two of these rocking chairs. Although I saved them proudly on my porch in Connecticut, as soon as I received the sensation Highland Farm would have a future, I felt I ought to carry not less than certainly one of them again. (I nonetheless have the opposite one…maybe I’ll discover the proper time to carry it again as effectively!) Those chairs are tangible reminders of the individuals who as soon as sat in them, whose conversations led to among the most extraordinary works within the American theatre.
Ted Chapin was president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization for greater than 30 years.
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