President’s Letter
We have had another busy and fruitful year to date. As you will read below, we finished restoration of the interior of the first floor of the west wing, the oldest part of the house. The service prep kitchen will be installed by the time you are reading this. We hosted two concerts by the Robert Sykes Jazz Quartet and two concerts in the Appalachian Chamber Music Festival Parlor series. At the end of April, we were again gratified to see high school prom goers flock to Happy Retreat to take their prom pictures under the flowering dogwood trees. Earlier this month, Revolutionary War reenactors encamped for the weekend on our rear lawn.
We were extremely fortunate to have two major donors step forward to make significant contributions to underwrite our restoration efforts. Pat Rissler, who along with her late husband Jim Rogers, has been one of our most generous and devoted supporters since Friends of Happy Retreat began, enabled the completion of the west wing restoration, the restoration of the front portico columns and the prep kitchen installation. Matt Jackson, son of board member Bill Jackson and his wife Pat Fiori, gave us an extremely generous donation in honor of his family.
Both of these donations were matched by a second Save America’s Treasure grant secured for us by U. S. Senator Shelly Moore Capito and former U. S. Senator Joe Manchin in FY 2024. This doubled the value of both donations and will allow us to move forward with our next projects, which include installing handicapped-accessible bathrooms and tackling the daunting job of restoring the exterior façade of the house.
Many thanks to Pat and Matt and to everyone who has generously supported Happy Retreat over the years. Thanks to all of you, the end of our restoration efforts is in sight and we will soon be able devote all of our efforts to making Happy Retreat the active center for culture and history we have long envisioned.
Walter Washington
President