GREENFIELD — A dream years in the making is starting to take shape in downtown Greenfield.
Construction crews last month broke ground on the new Lizabuth Ann’s Kitchen, located behind the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home and Museum in Greenfield. They’ve already laid the venue’s foundation and are starting to frame the walls of the nearly 1,000 square-foot building, which will be used for events. The 1880s carriage-house-style structure will double the size of the former “kitchen” in the Hoosier Poet’s backyard.
The building is named for a character in several of Riley’s poems.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryThe Lizabuth Ann’s Kitchen fundraising committee — spearheaded by many members of the Riley Old Home Society nonprofit — raised about $265,000 for the project through grants and private and corporate donations. That exceeded the group’s expectations, said Stacey Poe, museum director.
The construction price shifted multiple times since fundraising began in 2017, Poe said. At first, the Riley Old Home Society and the Greenfield Parks and Recreation Department, which owns the museum and Riley Boyhood Home, said the facility could cost between $175,000 and $200,000. That number grew to a $225,000 goal, Poe said, and it went up even more once they received construction bids.
But that didn’t stop the community from giving, she said.
The Lizabuth Ann’s Kitchen’s main grant benefactors, Poe said, include: the city of Greenfield, Hancock County, the Hancock County Tourism Commission, the Hancock County Community Foundation, Greenfield Main Street, NineStar Connect and the Indiana Historical Society and Lilly Endowment Inc. What put the Riley group over the top for fundraising, Poe added, was securing $75,000 through the region’s Stellar Communities grant program.
Poe said she wrote requests for about half a million dollars’ worth of grants over the past few years.
“To finally be on the other side of that and to actually see it take shape is very exciting,” she said.
Joe Skvarenina, the Hancock County Historian and chairman of the fundraising committee, said many organizations gave to the cause knowing what James Whitcomb Riley means to Greenfield; he said they supported both local tourism and local history.
“It speaks well to the community when people can get that involved in something and make it happen,” Skvarenina said. “History is important to the community; without the history, they have no institutional memory of the past of where they were and where they’re going.”
The event space, which can house 50 to 60 seated guests, will attach to the back of the Riley museum through a 10-foot covered breezeway, Poe said. It will also have two restrooms, a small warming kitchen and will be ADA-accessible.
Hundreds of people, from school groups to curious passers-by, tour the home and grounds every year.
Those involved in the project envision the space to accommodate larger museum groups as well as a meeting area for lunches, parties, retreats and small weddings. The new space, she said, will also allow the museum to offer more programming and bring in outside exhibits. Poe said Greenfield lacks mid-range event venues that aren’t already associated with a specific caterer or restaurant.
The former Lizabuth Ann’s Kitchen, an old 500 square-foot converted garage with one public restroom, was inefficient in size and accommodation. It could only hold about 25 people at six tables. That meant larger groups would have to split up when visiting the grounds, Poe said.
The structure, which had no historical significance, was not insulated and had to be closed down in the winter; if the water stayed on, Poe said the pipes would freeze.
Suzanne Kosovich, a neighbor of the museum and boyhood home and member of the building committee, said she’s seen a number of people wander into the grounds to look around or take senior and wedding photos and not even realize the former event space was there.
“To have a bigger facility that would invite more people in — that’s what it’s for: for people to enjoy and learn about the history of James Whitcomb Riley and the town,” Kosovich said. “Hopefully this will bring more people in.”
Construction could wrap up in July, Poe said, but upgrades to the Riley grounds have just started.
The museum is working with Cheryl Jacques, a local landscape architect, to redesign the gardens in anticipation of the multi-use Riley Literary Trail that’s set to be built in 2023. The trail, which will connect to the Pennsy Trail, is designed to route people in the gardens from Main Street (U.S. 40) to North Street.
Also, the Greenfield Parks and Recreation Board last month approved installing a 12-foot by 20-foot gazebo in the gardens. The $18,000 gazebo is double the size of the current one, parks officials said.
An earlier version of this article did not include the Hancock County Tourism Commission as a contributor to the Lizabuth Ann’s Kitchen project. We regret the error.
