How did the partnership between DHR and Sweet Briar develop?
The DHR-Sweet Briar partnership developed naturally as a cooperative venture to save and preserve Tusculum, the ancestral home of Maria Antoinette Crawford Fletcher, mother of the founder of Sweet Briar College, Indiana Fletcher Williams. More than six years ago, members of the Crawford family came to DHR with concerns that the latest owners of Tusculum, the Martins, had plans to tear down the historic building to make way for construction of a new family dwelling and for development of a new residential subdivision nearby. The Martins met with DHR director Kathleen Kilpatrick (Sweet Briar Class of 1974) in October 2001 but could not be persuaded to preserve the house in place. The Martins did come to agree to allow the house to be moved off site before development of their property proceeded and were willing to wait as DHR, the APVA Preservation Virginia and the College came up with a strategy to make that happen. In 2003, the APVA Preservation Virginias property committee, at Kilpatr
