The organization that stewards the Doylestown farm once owned by Broadway lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II is moving ahead with its restoration and redevelopment plans.
The Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center has secured a $1 million matching grant from the state to support several pieces of its project. The funding from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program will help the museum build a visitor and education center with classrooms and exhibition galleries. It will stand on the site of the former barn, which collapsed after a thunderstorm in May.
The grant also will go toward a parking lot, which must be built first to support ongoing tours of the Hammerstein home, museum board secretary Christine Junker said. The red farmhouse where the songwriter lived for the last 20 years of his life is due for several rounds of restoration, including a new roof and climate control systems. That work will begin in September…