Emily Dickinson Museum’s Evergreens’ Barn Comes to Life. 

Last week, I attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a new carriage house to be reconstructed at The Evergreens, the home of Emily Dickinson’s brother, Austin, and his wife, Susan Huntingdon Gilbert Dickinson. “Under Susan Dickinson’s direction, The Evergreens quickly became a center of the town’s social and cultural life and reflected the wide-ranging aesthetic and intellectual interests of the entire family.”  [https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/]  The Evergreens’ 1850s outbuilding, used mostly for Austin’s carriage, will be rebuilt on or near the foundation of the original structure and will meet passive house energy-saving standards. As many readers may already know, The Evergreens is an Italianate villa-style home that is now open to the public and part of the ticketed tour program with “The Homestead,” located next door, where Emily herself lived. 

Scheduled for completion in 2025, the carriage house will serve as a visitor center and museum shop for the campus of buildings. Most interesting to me is that the third and final phase of Homestead restoration will then include interpreting and exhibiting the ell of The Homestead, where servants resided or worked for the Dickinson family, and restoring a barn behind the Homestead. The Evergreens carriage house project  will be an exciting merging of historic preservation and sustainability goals in one of Amherst’s most loved and world-renowned sites. It was no accident that I sat next to two members of the Emily Dickinson International Society from China who were in town for this occasion.