The National Trust for Historic Preservation is thrilled to announce the 2023 recipients of the Johanna Favrot Fund for Historic Preservation and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors. Grants from these two funds will help preserve a diverse range of historic sites across the country. Between them, the National Trust has granted a total of $223,500 to 32 organizations in 19 states.
The Johanna Favrot Fund for Historic Preservation and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors are annual grant opportunities offered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In July 1994, the Johanna Favrot Fund for Historic Preservation was created in honor of Johanna Favrot’s 80th birthday. The fund aims to save historic environments to foster an appreciation of our nation’s diverse cultural heritage and to preserve and revitalize communities. The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors was established in July 1997 by George P. Mitchell in honor of his wife Cynthia to assist in the preservation, restoration, and interpretation of historic interiors.
In total, the National Trust received 211 eligible applications requesting funds for planning work, physical preservation, and education and outreach programming. Below are the 2023 grantees.
Johanna Favrot Fund for Historic Preservation
Tucson Museum of Art | Tucson, Arizona
$8,000 to support the restoration of La Casa Cordova for its reopening to the public. La Casa Cordova is among the oldest surviving structures in Tucson, likely predating the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.
Restoration Works International | Albany, California
$5,000 to conduct a structural assessment of the historic clinic building at St. Christopher’s Mission to advance its 79-year-old mission to provide public services to vulnerable populations and Indigenous communities.
Friends of First Church Berkeley | Berkeley, California
The Friends of First Church Berkeley was awarded $11,000 to support a feasibility study for the first phase of a capital campaign to repair extensive damage at its National Historic Landmark, the 1910 First Church of Christ. A creative integration of Arts & Crafts, Byzantine, Romanesque, Japanese, and Gothic Revival make up the church’s design by architect Bernard Maybeck. The church’s values were defined by an all-female Plans Committee ten years before suffrage.
Hui Noeau Visual Arts Center | Makawao, Hawai?i
$5,000 for roof repair of the Hui?s historic Kaluanui Estate garage, which serves as a fully functioning printmaking studio for public use.
City of Pocatello Historic Preservation Commission | Pocatello, Idaho
$5,000 to fund the first phase of exterior restoration work for Pocatello’s Brady Chapel, a 100-year-old historic landmark.
Level Ground | New Orleans, Louisiana
$8,000 to develop historic exhibits and programming throughout the Dew Drop Inn, a Green Book-listed music venue and hotel that included performances by Ray Charles and Little Richard.
Lost Province Center for the Cultural Arts | Lansing, North Carolina
$8,000 to replace gutters and repair drainage to the Historic Lansing School’s stonework, built in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration as part of the Public Works program of the Great Depression.
National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites | Mt. Laurel, New Jersey
$3,500 to develop interpretative planning for the Clara Barton National Historic Site in Glen Echo , Maryland through a series of facilitated discussions with academics and public historians.
Taos Center for the Arts | Taos, New Mexico
$7,000 for roof repair of the historic Carriage House Gallery, constructed prior to 1899. Today, it functions as a site for workshops, local retail marketplaces, live theatrical performances, and art exhibitions.
Upward Bound Camp for Persons with Special Needs, Inc. | Gates, Oregon
$8,000 for window repairs at Gates School, which serves as the site of a year-round Upward Bound Camp for persons with diverse-abilities .
1901 Church, Inc. | Johnstown, Pennsylvania
$5,000 to support the first phase of design work to adapt the former church into a professionally equipped theater for dramatic arts.
Nakashima Foundation for Peace | New Hope, Pennsylvania
$8,000 to produce preservation planning documents for the home and studio of renowned furniture designer, woodworker, and architect George Nakashima.
Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
$5,000 to provide hands-on, paid training opportunities in Philadelphia to support graduating cohorts with living wage employment in masonry and carpentry trades.
Cavalla Historical Foundation | Galveston, Texas
$8,000 to restore the superstructure of the USS Cavalla, a historic naval vessel from World War II that became a museum ship in 1971.
Aldo Leopold Foundation, Inc. | Baraboo, Wisconsin
$8,000 to replace the roof on Leopold Shack, a site that welcomes thousands of visitors annually to learn about conservation pioneer Aldo Leopold, who developed the philosophy known as “Land Ethic.”
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors
Poston Community Alliance | Phoenix, Arizona
The Poston Community Alliance was awarded $12,500 to restore the interior of an abandoned wood frame barrack that is one of only a few remaining barracks that housed Japanese American families unjustly incarcerated during World War II. It will become part of an interpretive center that tells the site’s unique history as the only place where two communities—Japanese American and Native American—once co-existed.
Okahumpka Community Club, Inc. | Okahumpka, Florida
$5,000 to support the interior restoration of the Okahumpka Rosenwald School, one of 20 remaining Rosenwald Schools for African American children in Florida.
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Dubuque of Iowa | Dubuque, Iowa
$5,000 for the conservation of a hand-painted trompe l’oeil decorative ceiling executed in the Italian Renaissance style, which was uncovered during the German Methodist Episcopal Church’s restoration.
Art Center of the Bluegrass | Danville, Kentucky
$5,000 to support architectural planning for interior renovations that will facilitate new community programs in the restored space.
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church | New Orleans, Louisiana
$7,500 to restore the original treatment and appearance of damaged interior plaster exposed on the sanctuary’s entryway walls.
Applegarth Tubman Medicine Hill Preservation and Education | Church Creek, Maryland
$10,000 to support the interior restoration of an original 1790 home at Medicine Hill, which was used after 1815 as Dr. Robert Tubman’s office.
Mount Vernon Rosenwald School | Iron Station, North Carolina
$10,000 to restore the school’s interior to its 1925 appearance as part of a larger preservation effort to reuse the space as a community resource for education and fellowship.
Stone Quarry Hill Art Park | Cazenovia, New York
$5,000 to repair the wood floor and interior skylight of the Dorothy Riester House and Studio Library to preserve the home’s Midcentury architecture and provide greater public access.
Carolee Schneemann Foundation | New Paltz, New York
$5,000 for the conservation of wallpaper and wall collages in pioneering artist Carolee Schneemann’s 18th-century Huguenot farmhouse.
New York Studio School | New York, New York
$5,000 to support restoration of the windows and barn doors of the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio to stem deterioration and increase the facility’s energy efficiency.
Mark Prairie Historical Society | Canby, Oregon
The all-volunteer run Mark Prairie Historical Society was awarded $10,000 to restore the Schoolhouse’s interior to its circa-1879 origins in the wake of a destructive 2021 ice storm. Since 1950, the Schoolhouse and its two acres of Oregon white oak savanna have served as a meeting place for community use to the people of the rural neighborhoods south of Portland.
Longview Museum of Fine Arts | Longview, Texas
$5,000 to support the museum’s expansion with the removal and storage of its signature Great Lone Star sculpture to accommodate more exhibitions and programs.
Vision Historic Preservation Foundation | Rockdale, Texas
$5,000 to support interior restoration of The 1895, the former Rockdale City Hall and Opera House, as part of adaptive reuse plans to transform it into an Arts & Entertainment Center.
James and Janie Washington Foundation | Seattle, Washington
$11,000 to engage a preservation consultant to create a restoration plan that retains the integrity of the James and Janie Washington Cultural Center , protects its archival collections, and increases accessibility to the public.
Door County Historical Society | Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
$10,000 for the interior stabilization and restoration of the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse to the 35-year tenure of the Duclon family who worked at the Light Station from 1883 to 1918.
Marshall County Historical Society—Cockayne Farmstead Project | Glen Dale, West Virginia
$5,000 to restore the North Parlor of the Historic Cockayne Farmhouse to its original 1850 style and grandeur. It is one of the only 19th-century farmhouses to remain in Marshall County in its original state.
Harpers Ferry-Bolivar Historic Town Foundation | Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
$5,000 for the interior ceiling restoration of the First Zion Baptist Church, built in 1894 by African Americans as a center of spiritual and social life for the local community in Harpers Ferry and Bolivar.