Restoration Update
Please bookmark this page and revisit for updates.Congressman John Hall Praises Green Roof Installation
Speaking at the reinstallation of the green roof on Russel Wright's home at Manitoga, Congressman John Hall praised Wright's foresight in designing a home and studio that protect and complement the natural environment. Congressman Hall told a group of more than 40 participants assembled for a workshop about maintaining green roofs at Manitoga's Volunteer Landscape Day on April 17 that water is rapidly becoming a critical international issue and one that green roofs can help address.
Green roofs could greatly reduce surface runoff from storms, cutting back on pollution that storm runoff picks up from parking lots. Hall suggested bringing Walmart to see how Russel Wright's mid-20th Century strategies for living and designing in harmony with nature can be deployed to benefit the environment in the 21st century. "Walmart must own more of the world's roofs and parking lots than anyone else," Hall noted. Walmart, Hall surmises, could make a huge environmental improvement by greening their own roofs, and their example would model a greener solution for the huge audience that shops with them.
The green roof on Wright's National Historic Landmark home was restored through a federal Save America’s Treasures matching grant, paired with NYS funding sponsored by Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, Senator Vincent Leibell and New York State Council on the Arts the David L. Klein, Jr. Family Foundation and other private sources, and a major in kind donation from Kemper System Inc.
An official unveiling of the more than $650,000 project - which also includes upgraded drainage strategies around the home, new electrical service, replacement of badly deteriorated structural members, and addressing damage caused by moisture and mold - was a highlight of Manitoga's second Volunteer Landscape Day of the year.
Living and designing in harmony with nature was central to Wright’s philosophy as he built his "Dragon Rock" home and studio, nestled into the side a quarry in Garrison, NY and surrounded by a 75-acre woodland garden that uses the native plants of his beloved Hudson Highlands. Wright used the Manitoga site as a "learning laboratory" to explore and teach environmental ideas emerging in the 1960s and 1970s.
