Mark Twain House Opens New $16.5 Million Museum Center

Hartford, CT - The Mark Twain House & Museum officially opens the new Museum, Visitor and Education Center at 11:00am November 17, 2003. The opening ceremony will feature remarks from Conn. Governor, John Rowland, and two Hartford High School students will cut the ribbon to mark the official grand opening of Connecticut's newest Museum Center.

"From the start of this project, we believed that the Museum Center could bring long-term benefits to other cultural institutions in the region, as well as to the hotels, restaurants and stores that serve the tourism industry," Boyer said. "Today, more than 80 percent of our 70,000 visitors are from out-of-state," Boyer noted that the facility is expected to substantially increase visitation to the museum and to other cultural-heritage and arts venues in the region.

The Museum Center uses new ideas and new technologies to explain and enhance the legacy of one of America's most revered icons. "This is an exciting moment for an institution that has worked for 75 years to preserve this National Landmark house and teach future generations about the richness of Twain's work," explained Executive Director John V. Boyer.

The education center will offer state-of-the-art distance-learning technologies and systems to support computer-aided research opportunities. A 178-seat theater with internet-ready audio-visual technologies will enable the institution to expand its nationally-recognized symposia and lecture series, including the Clemens Lectures.

A 2,000-square-foot gallery will allow the museum its first opportunity to present changing exhibits year-round on issues that relate to the ongoing relevance of his remarkable body of work.

The Museum Center will also be a repository for the institution's 50,000-item collection of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, Victorian-era artifacts and fine and decorative arts - many of which have never before been on public display.

Museum Center Unique Features

The $16.5 million, 33,000 square foot center was designed by Robert A.M. Stern, founder of Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA). Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture and designer of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, N.Y., has recently completed major commissions for Harvard and Princeton universities.

One of the challenges facing the architects was a mandate to construct a modern museum to meet the future needs of museum and education audiences while respecting the integrity of the existing historical site and buildings.

Stern's solution was to build the Museum Center into the slope of the hillside so that the new building does not dominate the Victorian-era structures - the Twain House and the adjacent Carriage House - that make up the Mark Twain House complex, or the other historic properties in the Nook Farm area, including the adjacent Harriet Beecher Stowe House.

Boyer noted that the institution placed an additional demand on the architects: Develop an energy-efficient, "green" building. As a result, the Museum Center at will be the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified museum in the nation and the first LEED-certified building of any kind in Connecticut.

The Mark Twain House & Museum Center will be open seven days a week from 9:30am to 5:30pm and will offer guided tours every hour, and is open until 8:00pm on Thursday evenings. The Center is closed on Tuesdays January through April. Admission is $xx.00 for adults and $xx.00 for seniors and children. Group tour rates are available. For tour information, call (860) 247-0998, ext. 26.

The Mark Twain House is the author's Hartford home, his primary residence from 1874 to 1891, when he wrote seven of his greatest works, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. A National Register Historic Landmark since 1963, the house is located at 351 Farmington Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut.