Hockaday Museum secures grant for capital project
Exterior of the Hockaday Museum of Art in downtown Kalispell. The building was built in 1903 and opened as a library in January 1904. On Feb. 10, 1969, the vacated Carnegie Library opened its doors with renewed purpose as the Hockaday Center. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)
The Hockaday Museum of Art is moving forward with renovations to aging heating and cooling systems after receiving funding through the Montana Historic Preservation Grant program.
The work is expected to be completed by the end of September, said museum Director Alyssa Cordova.
The renovations will ensure the comfort of staff and guests, as well as provide a stable climate necessary to preserve the museum’s collection of paintings and photographs.
“If there are fluctuations in the temperature it can affect the integrity of the art,” Cordova said. “If it gets cold rapidly, paintings can crack.”
The museum’s collection focuses on the art and artists of Montana and Glacier National Park, and is housed in a former Carnegie library building constructed in 1903. Cordova said that the heating and cooling system haven’t been updated since the late 1970s. The system now needs an overhaul.
“The building’s beautiful and we love this being our permanent home,” Cordova said. “But things age.”
The grant, which is administered by the Montana Department of Commerce, will reimburse the museum $31,000 for the costs of renovations. The money is part of over $10 million recently awarded to 44 similar historic preservation projects statewide.
Cordova said this was the first time that the museum has applied for such funding. It provides a rare opportunity to invest in the facility itself.
She said that while many grants exist to support educational and cultural programming, it can be difficult to secure funding for capital improvements, which she described as “less glamorous.”
“It’s tough for museums to fund these projects, but it’s important to manage the facilities and upkeep,” Cordova said.
Cordova hopes to improve the museum’s exterior in the future by updating the landscaping and restoring the building’s iconic dome to its former glory.
Although it isn’t obvious to museum visitors, the building’s black dome is actually made of copper but was painted as part of a World War II-era effort to disguise the structure from enemy bombers, Cordova said.
She hopes future rounds of preservation funding could once again allow guests to take in the feature’s natural luster.
“It would be really fun to remove the paint and see the original copper dome, the way it was built,” she said.
Reporter Adrian Knowler can be reached at 758-4407 or aknowler@dailyinterlake.com.