RoyCroftCampusCorporation

The GPI chair

Every once in awhile Roycroft items come up for auction. Recently a friend and I were looking at some items and I was drooling over a chair with a prominent GPI on it. My friend asked "Whose monogram is GPI?". (Not all my friends are Roycroft geeks like me).

The letters GPI are not someone's initials but rather Grove Park Inn, in Asheville, North Carolina. The Roycrofters built most of the furniture for this beautiful mountain retreat in 1912-1913. It was their largest commission. 

Here is an example of a GPI chair that the Elbert Hubbard-Roycroft Museum has on display. The Elbert Hubbard-Roycroft Museum is a easy walk down the block from the Roycroft Copper Shop. The Museum is located at 363 Oakwood Ave. The hours of that museum are June 1 to October 31, Wednesday, Saturday & Sunday, 1 to 4 PM. Staff at the Roycroft Copper Shop will gladly give you directions.

Julie

View from the Roycroft Tower

Here is a copy of an old postcard. This view is from the tower in the Print Shop building on the Roycroft Campus looking down at the Roycroft Chapel.  The "Chapel" is on the corner of Main and South Grove Streets and currently houses Town of Aurora's business offices. 

Do you see the skylight in the roof?  This was quite innovative for the time period - circa early 1900's.

Maybe someday this neat view will be accessible to the general public. Until then, enjoy this snapshot of the past but come see us in the near future.  Roycroft Campus located at 31 Grove St, East Aurora, NY 14052.

Julie

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

It is said that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.

    As featured in the book, Head, Heart and Hand by Marie Via and Marjorie Searl, the painter Alexis Fournier actually did see spring lambs. The Roycroft Campus was a favorite grazing site for the little lambs as seen in this photograph.

Fournier used the lovely view as his inspiration for Peace, one of his most famous paintings at the Roycroft. The blossoms and birds are bathed in spring light, while the flock soaks up the warm sun.

      When you come to see the Campus this spring, stop by the Copper Shop Gallery. You can pick up a copy of the newly reprinted Head, Heart and Hand book these pictures are from and many other Arts and Crafts titles.

(No, I haven't seen any references yet to lions on the Roycroft Campus...)

-Amanda

US History meets Roycroft History

When I give tours of the Roycroft Campus, I like to set up the time period. It helps to keep the Arts and Crafts Movement into context people can relate to. Here are some selected History facts mixed with what was happening at the Roycroft Campus at the time:

1899 Roycroft Chapel built

1901 President McKinley was assassinated. Roosevelt took office.

1901 Print Shop on Roycroft Campus built

1902 Roycroft Copper Shop built

1903 Wright brothers fly first plane

1904 Furniture Shop on Roycroft Campus built

1907 Oklahoma admitted to the United States

1908 Ford sells the first Model T

1910 Edison demonstrates motion pictures

1910 Roycroft Power House built

1912 Titanic is sunk

1912 New Mexico and Arizona admitted to US

1915 Elbert and Alice lost on the Lusitania

We look forward to you touring the Campus some day.  Learn more interesting tidbits about the Campus and the practices of Roycrofters by making your reservations today.  Simply call the Copper Shop Gallery at 716 655-0261.

Julie

Did you know that the Roycroft published yearbooks?

There is a great book of collected interviews called Talk Less, Listen More. These interesting stories were transcribed from interviews done in the late 1970s.

When I was recently reading this book I found many facts I did not previously know. What I find fascinating is that many of the folks interviewed either worked for the Roycroft or their parents did. They can tell you first hand (or second hand) stories what it was like to work at the Roycroft.

One particular fact I found interesting was The Roycroft printed the yearbooks for the Naval Academy at Annapolis for a few years and West Point for one year. The Lucky Bag was the Naval Academy book and The Howitzer was the army book.

If you want to read more of these interviews, The Roycroft Copper Shop has this book along with many others you will find interesting.  Visit the shop at 31 South Grove Street in East Aurora, NY.

Julie

A New Year Greeting from the Roycroft

A New Year greeting as posted in the Roycroft magazine:

Just as lovely in 2008 as it was in 1919. 

     The Roycroft Campus Corporation is ready for another exciting year. Stop into the Copper Shop at 31 South Grove St. in East Aurora and get a look at the artist renditions for the Campus and the Powerhouse!

Happy New Year!

-Amanda

Talking Turkey at Roycroft Harvest Time

             "Four farms supported the Roycroft Inn and community. This is a view of harvest time at the Roycroft farm. Roycrofters and guests were enlisted to help at this time of year. The colored photo shows Elbert holding the horses, with Alice on the hay wagon and Miriam with her horse, "Asbestos", to the left. The car may be a Thomas Flyer, the Roycroft chauffeur is unidentified." Click on the photo to see the full image.

Reprinted courtesy of Kitty Turgeon from the book Images of America, The Roycroft Campus, by Robert Rust and Kitty Turgeon, Arcadia Publishing, www.arcadiapublishing.com

A great deal more physical labor went into the harvest in those days - one reason why the guests were drafted to help out! Don't worry, the Inn doesn't make their guests harvest the food or milk the cows nowadays. The biggest challenge is deciding what to order from the menu!

The day after Thanksgiving, the Copper Shop is open at 10 AM for you to start your holiday shopping. Come in to see all the beautiful hand made items in the gallery at 31 South Grove Street.

Happy Thanksgiving,

-Sue

Roycroft Campus Corporation's Copper Shop Has History

          Following the bankruptcy of the Roycrofters in 1938, all the buildings which constituted the Roycroft Campus were ultimately sold to private owners.  As you can see in this photo from 1944 the Roycroft Copper Shop was even then the Roycroft Gift Shop.  This photo, taken in 1944 shows Charles and Ellen Webster.  Charles still in his World War II uniform.

         They were to become owners and established the reputation of the Roycroft Gift Shop which continues today under the ownership of the Roycroft Campus Corporation, and known as the Roycroft  Copper Shop. 

          Special thanks to Lou Zink for sharing this photograph.  Lou has many memories of working in this building, just ask him about those Maple Pecan Patties made famous in the Roycrofter's Goodie Box.

          Visit the Shop, across the street from the Roycroft Inn, the door is the same as it was back then though the merchandise may have changed, and the personnel, but it's charm remains.

Visit too, www.roycroftcampuscorporation.com

         

Elbert Hubbard Inspired by William Morris

          In 1892, having "tired of undergraduate routine" the young Elbert Hubbard abandoned Harvard University, and decided to "tramp to Europe and take his learning from original sources."

          Felix Shay in his book Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora gives this account of Hubbard's pilgrimage to the British Isles where, Shay says, he met William Morris.

      "This chance meeting definitely established Hubbard's ambition, and set the pattern for his life's work.  There was much in common between Morris and Hubbard: both were writers, both were inherently artists, both were craftsmen, both leaned toward the beautiful and good, the plain and the simple,' and both were out-of-door men.

          When Hubbard came a-visiting, Morris was getting on toward sixty, while Hubbard was still in his middle thirties.  The difference in ages made it easy for one to give and the other to take; one, in a sense became the grateful apostle of the other.  Morris tossed the torch to the hand that was ready to grasp it, and Hubbard said he 'caught it!'"

           Shay wrote his book on Hubbard in 1926.  Hubbard and his wife Alice Moore had perished on the sinking of the Lusitania 11 years earlier.

          For more on Felix Shay's story of his friend Elbert Hubbard suggested reading is Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora 1926 Wm. H. Wise & Co. New York.

          Visit the Roycroft Campus and become a supporting member.  Check our website at www.roycroftcampuscorporation.com

Guest Books from the Early Roycroft Inn Contain Interesting Comments of Visitors

           This entry from one of the guest books at the early Roycroft Inn reminds us of the famous folks who were guests at Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Inn.

          "I am an easygoing individual (never had a pain in my life) but these "inspired" sentiments make me sick."  Signed and dated by Alice Roosevelt in 1907.