A Passion for the PAST Funds a Plan for the FUTURE by KEN TURINO Manager of Community Partnerships and Resource Development
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nnabella Gualdoni and Vito Cavallo of Newton, Massachusetts, share a love of history, architecture, decorative arts, and travel, which led them to join Historic New England. A typical weekend for the couple involves selecting a property to tour or a special event to attend, finding surrounding sites and restaurants, and trying to catch a rummage or estate sale to find new things to add to their home. Recognizing that it is because of the generosity of past donors that they are able to enjoy Historic New England’s sites, they wanted to give back to the organization through a planned gift and became members of the Otis Society. Named for Harrison Gray Otis, the Boston lawyer and politician whose 1796 home is a Historic New England museum, the Otis Society honors individuals who include Historic New England in their estate plans. Annabella has been a fan of historic architecture since her childhood in California. Her uncle owned a classic Los Angeles bungalow with pocket doors, builtins, a porch swing, and an Art Deco tiled bathroom. A neighbor also had a bungalow; she would open up her cabinets and teach Annabella about the treasures she kept inside. Annabella and her parents shopped at yard sales and acquired items like vintage jewelry and American art pottery, which she still collects. Her love of architecture continued when her family moved to a MidCentury Modern house with a renowned cactus garden. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, Annabella had a concentration in city planning and marveled at the campus as well as buildings designed by architects like Julia Morgan and Greene & Greene. Annabella moved to Boston to attend law school. She and Vito met in the city; he had relocated to help start an information technology business. Vito grew up in the Italian neighborhood of Town Plot in Waterbury, Connecticut, and worked in his father’s Italian specialty foods store and bakery. Vito’s love of art and design grew
from his passion for classic cars, masterpieces of both engineering and aesthetics. A few months before marrying, Annabella and Vito bought and started renovating their current home, a 1920s Craftsman in Newton’s Nonantum neighborhood. They were drawn to the woodwork in the house as well as the neighborhood’s Italian-American history. Annabella works as a real estate program manager at Fresenius Medical Care in Waltham and is a Guberman Fellow in Legal Studies at Brandeis University. Vito has worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratories for more than twenty years. Through their planned gift they hope that “generations to come will be able to enjoy historic homes and their landscapes and also be able to learn about the New England region through the collections and archives of Historic New England.” While planned gifts are most often made in the form of a bequest, other options include transferring assets to Historic New England or another legal entity, such as a trust, to provide tax benefits and income to donors during their lifetime. For further information, contact Ken Turino at Kturino@historicnewengland.org or 617994-5958. HistoricNewEngland.org
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