At Three National Trust Historic Sites, New Leaders are Tapping Into the Power of Place

Three National Trust Historic Sites now have new leaders at the helm.

Miguel Rodriguez was recently appointed as Chesterwood’s executive director after the retirement of his predecessor, Donna Hassler, who led the site for 14 years. Meredith Sorin Horsford was named the new executive director of The Pocantico Center, which includes National Trust Historic Site Kykuit, following the retirement of Judy Clark, who was with Pocantico for nearly 40 years. And at Cooper-Molera Adobe, Karyn Lee-Garcia has taken the reins as the site’s first executive director.

These places each tell a distinct story: Chesterwood in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was once the summer home and studio of American sculptor Daniel Chester French; Kykuit is a 40-room estate originally built for the Rockefeller family in New York’s Hudson Valley; and Cooper-Molera’s two adobe homes, historic corner store, and barn sit in the heart of downtown Monterey, California.

Despite these differences, the new leaders have a similar vision for how to usher their sites into the future. They're each working to make these historic places, and preservation as a field, more accessible to their visitors. We sat down with Rodriguez, Horsford, and Lee-Garcia to learn more about their plans.

Read more at the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Preservation Magazine.