Kensington Mansion supporters pledge to make International Paper hear their frustration
Imagine the howls from the people of Memphis, Tenn., if some out-of-state corporation owned Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion and it began to fall apart from lack of maintenance.
The reaction was similar Tuesday as Richland County residents made noise about Memphis-based International Paper’s apparent disinterest in repairing historical Kensington Mansion near Eastover. Kensington, built between 1851 and 1853, sits on land owned by the paper company next to its plant along the Wateree River.
The mansion had been open for tours for more than two decades when the nonprofit that furnished the house was told to stop running its tours because of damage caused by an ice storm in February 2014. The leaks in the roof, which preservationists say began years before, got worse with no repairs. The Scarborough-Hamer Foundation early this year expressed concerns to IP about its thousands of items – furnishings, silverware, paintings – stored in the house.
The company’s response was to end its long-standing contract with the foundation and give them a year to move everything out of the mansion. International Paper officials said last month the company is still considering the mansion’s future, but preservation groups and Lower Richland residents are concerned. A Save Kensington movement gained momentum Tuesday during a meeting at Richland Library.
“We need to band together and go to their top corporate people,” said Doug Marks, who moved to the area more than 30 years ago to work at the paper plant being built by Union Camp. “The decisions on things like this are carried out locally, but they aren’t made locally.”
An International Paper spokesman, reached Wednesday, said the company is trying to resolve the concerns. “We don’t want this to drag on any longer than anyone else,” said Tom Ryan, global director of media relations for the company. “We want to partner with the community.”
He noted that the company has pledged $40,000 in moving costs and $60,000 in storage costs for the Scarborough-Hamer Foundation collection.
Marks and others lauded Union Camp for spending nearly $1 million to restore the mansion back in the 1980s. That restoration was forced on the company in return for federal permits to pull water from the nearby river for the paper mill. Preservationists consider that requirement still intact, even after three decades and the takeover of Union Camp by International Paper.
“We believe the term preserve was an active verb, not a one-time thing,” said Mike Bedenbaugh, executive director of the Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation.
Bedenbaugh’s group and Historic Columbia are leading the charge. They started a Save Kensington Facebook page and plan to send a letter to International Paper stressing the interpretation of the original water-withdrawal permit as ongoing. So far, Bedenbaugh said, the company’s management has refused to return their phone calls.
Those company managers should expect loads of letters to begin arriving in the coming weeks from the nearly 100 people at Tuesday’s meeting and from others in the community concerned about the mansion.
Kensington was built by Col. Richard Singleton, a wealthy planter. Its unique design transforms a plain farmhouse concept into an elaborate Italianate structure. It was in disrepair when Union Camp bought the property, but the restoration turned it into a showpiece. Several thousand people toured it each year, despite its extremely rural location. Bedenbaugh said it could be a much bigger draw if the paper company allowed restoration of the one remaining slave dwelling and the plantation’s former gardens.
The Scarborough-Hamer Foundation is stuck in a bad spot. Tuesday’s meeting actually grew out of a foundation board meeting. The board members are reluctant to say anything critical of the company because the company has agreed to pay for removal and storage of the items now in the house.
One option being discussed is moving the items to the basement of the Columbia Museum of Art. When the foundation board went into executive session to discuss details of that agreement, an informal meeting of the new Save Kensington group cropped up.
Among those taking charge were Bedenbaugh, Historic Columbia executive director Robin Waites and former Richland County Council members Bernice Scott and Kit Smith.
“I’m disappointed that IP is in the community but isn’t a part of the community,” Scott said.
“We need to invite the CEO (of International Paper) to come to Columbia and tour Kensington,” Smith said. “And we need the message to him to be, ‘You’re breaking your promise to us.’”
Scarborough-Hamer Foundation board members said they had offered to help raise money to repair what apparently started as minor leaks in the roof, but the company turned them down. The company also pushed back several years ago when a grant was awarded to restore the slave dwelling.
The foundation board indicated the company had estimated repairs now would cost about $750,000. Much of the expense would be not for the roof repair but for restoring elaborate plaster molding that has suffered water damage, Bedenbaugh said.
“How much can you do to protect something they don’t want to fix or don’t know how to fix?” Bedenbaugh asked. “We’re not here to beat them over the head. We’re here to help them come up with ways to fix it.”
This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Kensington Mansion supporters pledge to make International Paper hear their frustration."