nothin John Slade Ely House Closing Its Doors | New Haven Independent

John Slade Ely House Closing Its Doors

David Sepulveda Photo

Curator Clabby (pictured): “My heart is broken for these artists.”

The John Slade Ely House, a not-for-profit art center tucked inside an Elizabethan home at 51 Trumbull Street and known for promoting the work of local artists, is shutting down after 54 years.

Wells Fargo, the bank that serves as the center’s trustee, announced it is closing the center and converting the organization to a grant-making foundation.

Wells Fargo originally notified the curator and resident art clubs that the house would close on March 31. It agreed to extend the closing to accommodate the New Haven Paint & Clay Club’s 114th juried exhibition, scheduled to run from March 22 to April 12.

Grace T. Ely made provisions in her will to create a trust to run the home as a center for exhibiting works of art, holding art classes, lectures and recitals and as a meeting place for organizations interested in any form of art” after her death. Ely died in 1960; the center opened in 1961. It was named after her late husband, a Yale School of Medicine professor. It has hosted up to ten exhibits a year, highlighting the work of professional artists as well as high-school students. It has also housed two longstanding clubs, Paint & Clay and Brush and Palette.

The Ely House, unfortunately, needs substantial repairs that the trust is not sufficiently funded to pay for. In keeping with Ms. Ely’s understanding that over time, Ely House may need to be sold, Wells Fargo is preparing the house for sale, and converting the trust from an operating to a non-operating private foundation,” stated Wells Fargo spokesman Vince Scanlon. This trust will continue to support the fine arts in and around New Haven through grants to charitable organizations, and Wells Fargo will work to accommodate events currently booked at the home during this transition.”

The building needs about $500,000 in repairs, observed Paul Clabby, who has served as the John Slade Ely House’s curator for the past 20 years. Just to stop the water leaking you’re talking a minimum of $300,000.”

Allan Appel Photo

Clabby, who said he earns $25,000 a year as well as free lodging as the curator, now needs to find a new place to live. They’ve given me a severance, which will help me. Otherwise I’d be out on the street. I’ve got 20 years of stuff here,” he said.

He noted that the closing means the cancellation of an upcoming exhibition of art by Connecticut prisoners as well as an annual display of local high school artists’ work.

My heart is broken for these artists,” Clabby said. I’ve had teachers come to me and say, I was in this show in high school, and I became an art teacher.”

Artist Zeph Farmby, who lost his father to cancer when he was 13 years old contributed this portrait of a child holding up a sign to a 2015 Ely House show.

Everyone is very sad” about the closing, said Jeanne Ciravolo, president of both Brush and Palette and Paint & Clay, whose members meet three or four times a week in a studio at the Ely House.

The trust that runs the center was moved from New Haven to North Carolina in 2008 after Wells Fargo replaced Wachovia bank as the trustee.

According to its most recent Form 990 tax form, from fiscal year 2013, it cost the trust $122,183 a year to operate the center. It reported taking in only $16,794 in adjusted net income.

The trust lost much of its value in the 2008 crash, according to Clabby.

The Form 990 lists the trust’s total assets at $1,545,763, including $655,050 for the Trumbull Street property. The property had been worth $864,375 just a year earlier, according to the form. (Click here to read the form.)

Clabby said the trust used to have dedicated trustees, but Grace T. Ely’s will did not call for them to be replaced upon their deaths. And they all have died. The will envisioned the house being sold at some point if the trust couldn’t continue meeting expenses, Clabby said.

Click here, here, and here for Independent stories about some John Slade Ely House events.

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