Longue VUE house and gardens is a national historic landmark and masterpiece of american design luminary and 20TH-century female entrepreneurial icon ellen biddle shipman

This $1,049,418 federal Project Grant award was provided by the National Park Service under the Save America's Treasures (CFDA 15.929) program to Longue Vue House And Gardens Corporation in Louisiana. The funding supports a strategic preservation plan for the nationally significant Longue Vue property, which features the landscape designs and interiors of renowned 20th-century female architect Ellen Biddle Shipman. Key project activities include: 1) stabilizing and digitizing the Longue Vue archives related to Shipman's work, 2) developing educational resources and training for staff/board on Shipman's design principles, and 3) actively restoring and conserving key Shipman design elements on the Longue Vue site. By consolidating national resources on Shipman, the project aims to enhance preservation efforts at Longue Vue and raise awareness of Shipman's legacy beyond this specific landmark. The project period runs from October 2024 through September 2027.

Operating in a field dominated by men, shipman designed 600 gardens and 8 interiors between 1912 and 1950 of these, longue VUE is the only property where both her interiors and her landscape design are intact and open to the public. Yet the integrity of shipman S design at longue VUE is under threat. Limited documentation and faded interest undermine efforts at preservation. Thisproposal seeks funding for the shipman collection, a strategic preservation plan with three integrated components: 1) archival stabilization 2) education and training 3) active restoration, conservation, and preservation of key shipman design elements at longue VUE.1) longue VUE holds extensive shipman-related archives. Yet none are digitized or catalogued, some are fragile, and most are discernable to only a few staff members. Additional shipman materials are dispersed across numerous archives, making research difficult for preservationists and designers. By stabilizing and digitizing the longue VUE archives and consolidating national resources on shipman, the shipman collection will activate currently diffuse resources as training tools for garden board and staff, will bolster public awareness of the importance of ellen biddle shipman, and ultimately will contribute to the preservation of longue VUE as well as other shipman sites.2) as research and archival work proceeds, the longue VUE staff will work to codify learning and share IT with staff, board, and the general public in accessible formats. A series of shipman garden guides will be a principal output, capturing, sharing, and instructing.3) simultaneous with the archival work will be site conservation and preservation, with a focus on restoring shipman design elements that have been overwritten. We will activate the research even as we process IT: key strategies will include updating plant choices rendered untenable due to climate change with sustainable replacements, still informed by shipman S textural, color, and sensory vision. The priority will be to enhance the presence and experience of details shipman intended. Thus, even during its development, the shipman collection will serve as a critical tool in site maintenance and conservation, public engagement, andpreservation of a national treasure for the long term.time is of the essence in this strategic effort. As development accelerates in the area surrounding longue VUE, sightlines and garden experiences are threatened by over-development. With stronger community and municipal collaboration, this risk could be mitigated. The shipman collection will be an important tool in raising awareness of shipman at longue VUE and nationally, positioning longue VUE staff and board to advocate forpreservation of the site and surroundings, and raising further funding in support of ongoing preservation.project activities will begin in late 2024, with work to digitize and archive on-site archives, followed by the compilation of external archival material related to shipman, creating a centralized, easy-to-navigate body of knowledge that is both comprehensive and practical. The shipman collection will reside at longue VUE and will create the foundation for restoration and maintenance plans to ensure longue VUE continues to align with shipmans design intent. By consolidating, organizing, and digitizing outside resources along with those in our own archives, the shipman collection will also be useful to a broader audience, serving as an investment inpreserving shipman S work beyond longue VUE.through both direct preservation activities and strategic foundational investments in long-term designcommitments, a grant in support of the shipman collection will serve as an investment in the strategicpreservation and sharing of a unique national historic landmark.