2020
ANNUAL REPORT
CHASE HOME INC.
Chase-Lloyd House 22 Maryland Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 www.chaselloydhouse.org
Dear Friends of the Chase Home, Inc., This has been a year of challenges and exciting new developments that will help us secure a strong future for the Chase Home, Inc., located in the Chase Lloyd House. In January we welcomed three new Board members to the Chase Home. We engaged the Virginia-based firm MTFA Architecture/John Milner Associates Preservation to embark on an extensive Building Condition Assessment, complete with laser scan, on the 250 year old structure that is the Chase Lloyd House. This in-depth exploration informed us of needed repairs and maintenance work. We successfully navigated the first several months of the Covid virus. Under the Governor’s Stay at Home Order for Seniors our wonderful staff managed to keep themselves and our residents safe and healthy throughout the initial phase of the pandemic. The Building Condition Assessment revealed safety issues with our 100 year old porches that compromised our fire escape. In July we had to relocate our residents to their families, sponsors, or to entirely new homes. We are grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support by the local community and thank all who assisted with our residents’ relocation and showed us such warm interest and assistance in the face of our need. This fall, we have invested in a comprehensive Health and Safety Assessment of the House to be coordinated with the Building Condition Assessment. We recently retained the Washington, D.C. architectural firm Citadel DCA to develop a work plan based on information from both reports. The tasks are to remediate life safety issues and to undertake repairs necessary to make the house habitable again for women in need. For more than 130 years, the Chase Home, Inc., has operated as a boarding house providing independent living for women in need. We look forward to an exciting new year in continued service to Hester Ridout’s vision. We are immensely grateful for the many financial supporters of the Chase Home, Inc. through the years. We hope they and others will join us in continuing this worthy institution.
Our best regards, Margaret Pickall, President The Chase Home, Inc.
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OUR MISSION
Our founder, Hester Chase Ridout, created the Chase Lloyd House to be a "retreat from the vicissitudes of life" for needy women. In her will executed in 1886, she established the charitable trust named Chase Home, Inc. and set up a board of trustees to own the house and administer her trust, which requires that the historic house always be cared for. The ongoing mission of the Chase Home is to carry on the legacy of Hester Chase Ridout in providing a safe haven for women while maintaining the architecture and artifacts of the beautiful 18th century mansion in which they live.
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OUR HOME
The Chase Lloyd House and Garden serve as the home for its residents. Each resident lives independently in her own private room with its own bathroom. They pay only what they can afford. Three meals daily are provided and served in the formal dining room seven days a week, fostering a sense of community and support. Residents have use of the front and back parlors, the common rooms on the upper floors, and the large garden. There is a guest bedroom for visitors and space in the basement for storage. Residents are independent women between the ages of 60 to 80. Beginning in mid-March, the Chase Home staff ensured that the residents adhered to the home's COVID-19 restrictions and monitored the health and safety of each resident as a precaution. No visitors were allowed to the home at the time. One staff member remained full time within the house. In July, due to significant building safety issues, the House was closed to residents. Residents were assisted with relocation and moving expenses. We are pleased all of our residents secured new affordable homes.
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OUR OUTREACH
While operating as an independent living facility for elderly woman, the house also exists as a monument to Georgian architecture and an important part of American history. We have partnered with other historic institutions such as the Hammond Harwood House, Historic Annapolis, Inc., St. John's College, and the Historic Preservation Program of the University of Maryland, School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Our outreach activities are meant to engage the community with our missions and our significant history. This year the Chase Home engaged a professional videographer to create a documentary in recognition of the 250th Anniversary of the Chase Lloyd House. It features interviews of a resident, a Trustee and our gardener. The Chase Home Board of Trustees engaged a Textiles Graduate Research Fellow at the North Carolina State University Wilson College of Textiles and completed a research study of textiles in the Chase Lloyd House, with suggestions for the future of the textiles. The research fellow partnered with Winterthur Museum & Gardens and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to assist in this research. The Chase Home staff partnered with the St. John’s College to engage students in docent training, historical research and gardening. This program and our usual guided tours of the home and garden were cancelled during 2020 due to COVID-19 protocols. Chase Home Inc. Annual Report
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OUR HOUSE
The Chase Home partnered with the University of Maryland to conduct a comprehensive 3-D documentation of the Chase Lloyd House using a terrestrial laser scanner. The Board of Trustees approved an investment in a comprehensive 2020 Building Condition Assessment of the buildings and grounds of the Chase Lloyd House and Kitchen Annex. A Comprehensive Health and Safety Assessment followed. The Board engaged the architectural firm Citadel DCA to prepare a 3-year work plan to accomplish the repairs necessary to make the house habitable again. This plan includes updating/replacing electrical and mechanical systems as well as repairing structural features. The work plan will not only identify health and safety issues but also the repair of the 3story side porch and other historic features. We've added additional security and safety measures including camera monitoring of all entrances at the home.
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OUR GARDEN
A significant aspect of the Chase Home is its extensive garden which was certifued Bay-Wise by the University of Maryland Extension. This year the Chase Home focused efforts towards environmental stewardship with sustainable practices to improve waste management, recycling practices, and water conservation. A Master Gardeners Project led by Anne Arundel County Master Gardeners and with assistance from the Chase Home Gardener removed invasive species and replanted with native species. The Master Gardeners also assisted with a new interactive Chase Home garden map with native plants citing Bay Wise practices and referenced to be used for future self-guided tours. A Unity Gardens Grant funded the removal of non-native plants, the planting of native plants to attract pollinators, providing Bay Wise and Unity Gardens educational signs and metal plant labels for Bay-Wise practice and native plant specimen identification as part of the garden tours program. A Chase Home Master Garden Plan is in development for the sustainability of the garden and Bay-Wise best practices. As part of the Master Plan, the Board of Trustees developed a Boundary Drainage and Tree Damage Project. A landscape and stormwater design firm has been retained to design a mitigation for those issues.
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OUR BOARD
The Chase Home leadership facilitated orientation for new and current board members with a new Board Manual and a retreat to revisit the Chase Home mission statement through SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) Analysis. The Chase Home Board of Trustees reaffirmed their commitment to the mission of the Chase Home to carry on the legacy of Hester Chase Ridout by her will executed in 1886 to carry out the stipulations of the will to provide a haven where women "may find a retreat from the vicissitudes of life". Chase Home strives to accomplish this mission while maintaining the National Historic Landmark in which it is housed. In 2020, the Chase Home received 100 percent Board giving as the Board of Trustees lead by example and commit to their responsibility to fundraise.
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OUR FINANCES
The Chase Home is unique in that it has always been a self-sustaining historic landmark funded by our endowment. We are a 501(c)(3) Private Foundation.
5% PERCENT DISTRIBUTION FOR OPERATING COSTS
The annual distribution from the Chase Home Endowment Investment is approximately 5 percent. Our goal is to reduce the distribution to less than 4 percent. Total operating and administrative expenses number roughly $500,000 in 2020. The Chase Home reduced expenses in the later half of the year with the closure of the home and savings in food, house supplies, utilities and streamlined staffing. The Chase Home invested more than $60,000 in the Building Condition and Health and Safety Assessments.
Chase Home, Inc. Annual Report
Expenses Administrative
20 %
10 %
Maintenance
70 %
Programs
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OUR CHALLENGE
For more than 130 years, this Georgian mansion has sheltered women. Our primary goal is to continue to operate as an independent living facility for elderly women. Our challenge is that without a house there is no home for women. The Chase Home is committed to undertaking the repairs necessary to make the house habitable again and to restore the historic structure. We know that the restoration and repair work is going to be costly. The Chase Home Board of Trustees are developing a fundraising plan. We will need to secure major donations, grants and foundation funding. The Chase Home Board of Trustees and staff have the responsibility to ensure that Mrs. Ridout’s request is carried out to the best of their abilities. We are grateful for the many donors and supporters over the years. Donations will continue to support our mission for another 130 years and to cover the Chase-Lloyd House repair projects to enable us to continue housing women.
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OUR FUTURE
This year, the Chase Home had been forced to make a series of big decisions that drastically changed our operations, staffing and programming due to the COVID pandemic and closure of the home. This presented an opportunity to realign our mission and invest in our future. Our primary goals for the new year are: to assess how our organization can have a greater impact on the community we serve to complete our Fundraising Plan and position the Chase Home for fundraising success in 2021 to include grant and foundation funding and the Quiet Phase of our Capital Campaign to secure funds to repair the Chase Lloyd House and to embark on a comprehensive five-year Strategic Plan to guide us into the next phase of our important work and the years to come. We eagerly look forward to the completion of these improvements. These are extensive and comprehensive programs designed to correct issues of age, health and safety. They will make us a better facility, a better neighbor and serve to protect this National Historic Landmark. When we reopen our doors to needy independent women we will again be serving both Hester Rideout's missions well into the twenty-first century.
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OUR LEADERSHIP
FY2020 CHASE HOME INC. BOARD OF TRUSTEES Nancy Clagett Michael Creighton Lynn Mortoro Robert Petty Margaret Pickall Constance Ramirez Joanna White The Rev. Manoj Matthew Zacharia, Rector, St. Anne's Parish, non-voting The Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, non-voting
CHASE HOME INC. STAFF Heather East, Executive Director Kim Forry, Master Gardener and Special Event Coordinator David Michaels, Home and Resident Manager Jan Scopel, Facility Manager
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OUR FUTURE Chase Home, Inc., has owned and managed a home for needy older women in the historic Chase-Lloyd House since 1888. This Georgian style mansion was begun in 1769 by Samuel Chase and completed by Edward Lloyd, IV, in 1774. Following the Palladian design principles, the elegant exterior is complimented on the interior by the hanging double staircase, elaborate moldings and ornate plaster ceilings created by William Buckland. The Lloyd family, and their enslaved staff, occupied the house, and its kitchen wing, until 1847 when it was purchased by Hester Ann Chase to be a home for her and her three orphaned nieces. The last surviving niece, Hester Ann Chase Ridout, willed the house to a board of eight trustees to become a home for aged women. For 130 years, the self-perpetuating board of trustees has carried out this charitable trust to preserve the house and provide a home for women. In 1970, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior designated the Chase-Lloyd House a National Historic Landmark. For more information, please see www.chaselloydhouse.org
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