Some people have plenty of money:
"Gardner shows off its graceful update; When leaders of the 109-year-old Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum unveiled its $114 million addition yesterday, they did so with an eye toward the past" by Geoff Edgers | Globe Staff, January 12, 2012
On a January evening in 1903, Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her new museum in grand fashion, with a concert, a courtyard filled with flowers, and priceless art all around. Yesterday, at the official unveiling of the Gardner’s $114 million expansion, the spirit of the glamorous socialite who once lived on the fourth floor of the original palazzo museum seemed to hover over the proceedings....
The Gardner’s $118 million renovation - melding the new $114 million, 70,000-square-foot addition with the old but extensively refurbished museum - comes near the end of a massive, decade-long museum building boom in the Boston area. It has included expansions of the Museum of Fine Arts and Peabody Essex Museum, and the construction of a new Institute of Contemporary Art....
Related:
"The Peabody Essex has announced a record-breaking fund-raising campaign and an expansion plan that will make it one of the largest and most well-endowed art museums in Massachusetts."
They raised HOW MANY MILLIONS??!!
What’s different about the Gardner project is its connection to the singular force known as its founder. So strong was Gardner’s vision of this house-museum that her will stipulated it remain virtually unchanged after her death. The museum had to seek approval from government boards and regulators to create a new building because of restrictions outlined in the will; the original museum remains little changed....
I'm bored. Let's get out of here.
--more--"
