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I'm Heidi Ruehle-May and I am the executive director of the Pleasant Home Foundation
My role
is to oversee the staff
and the day-to-day operations of the home. Pleasant home was designed in 1897 by
Prairie School architect George Maher and it was commissioned by the John Farson
family
and John Farson wanted a home that was built for entertaining
so George Maher designed this amazing home for that purpose
and the Farson family lived here until 1910 and then the
Herbert Mills family purchased the home Herbert Mills owned the Mills Novelty Company
and you can see examples of some of their pieces in the home such as our
violano virtuoso.
So in 1939 the park district purchased the property from the Mills family
with the intention that it will be open to the community. The mission of the
Pleasant Home Foundation is to restore
maintain and operate the home to make sure the home is available and
accessible to the community.
Private donations are one of the most important forms of support for the Pleasant Home
Foundation.
This home is a National Historic Landmark and every player's a lot of
maintenance and repair
and upkeep. Without private donations we would not be able to
be as involved in the community as we are offer as many programs as we do.
What's great about Oak Park is how a lot of the nonprofit organizations work
together to promote each others' activities
and also provide other forms of support to make sure we're all robust into and doing what
we need to do
We are really looking forward to working with the Parks Foundation
of Oak Park to provide opportunities for people in the community
to help work on projects that they love that will ultimately benefit
the entire community of Oak Park.