Aspen Institute Announces Major Gifts for Renovation of Paepcke Memorial Building
Aspen, CO, June 27, 2007––The Aspen Institute is pleased to announce two major gifts as part of a campaign to renovate the Walter Paepcke Memorial Building. The two gifts, of $3 million each, are from Stewart and Lynda Resnick and from Leonard and Evelyn Lauder.
The Institute hopes to raise another $2 million to complete the project. A local advisory committee has been formed that includes Melva Bucksbaum, Toni Du Brul, Merrill Ford, Bill Kane, Howie Mallory, George Stranahan, and Paula Zurcher.
The bulk of the money will go for renovating the 44-year-old Paepcke Building, making it energy efficient and environmentally friendly, and creating overflow rooms for events in the building’s auditorium that are open to the Aspen community.
Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson said: “I am particularly pleased by the wonderful generosity and grace of the Resnick family. When they offered this gift last year, I proposed that we would name the auditorium in the Paepcke building in their honor. That aroused controversy, and our plans were put on hold. When the Resnicks said they wished to go ahead with their gift anyway, without the naming, I was deeply appreciative. So was Leonard Lauder, now the acting chairman of the Institute, and he offered that his family would match the gift.”
“I am happy to join with the Resnicks in their gracious offering, in order to make this much-needed renovation happen,” said Lauder.
The Resnicks and the Lauders, along with other donors, will be recognized on a plaque in the lobby of the Paepcke Building. Neither the building nor any of the rooms will be given new names or renamed.
Over the years, the Resnicks have generously supported many aspects of the Aspen Institute, including funding for its Communications and Society Program and for the Health, Biomedical Science and Society Initiative. They have been major donors for the new Doerr-Hosier Center and the renovation of the campus health club that serves both participants in Institute programs and members of the Aspen community. Lynda Resnick has also funded, organized, and loaned many of the pieces for the Herbert Bayer art exhibition that opens at the Institute this month.
Likewise, Leonard Lauder and members of his family have been significant supporters of the Aspen Institute for 30 years. They were major donors to the last major renovation of Institute buildings in 1994 and to the recent landscape and patio renovations surrounding the Paepcke building. They have also helped to fund, among other things, the Socrates Program and the Aspen Executive Seminar, which has long been the core public offering of the Aspen Institute.
“I am deeply grateful for the generosity of the Resnicks and Lauders, and I am confident we can raise the rest of the money to restore the beautiful but aging Paepcke Building so that it will serve both the Institute and the Aspen community for another 44 years,” Isaacson said.
The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. Through seminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development initiatives, the Institute and its international partners seek to promote nonpartisan inquiry and an appreciation for timeless values. The Institute is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Its international network includes partner Aspen Institutes in Berlin, Rome, Lyon, Tokyo, New Delhi, and Bucharest, and leadership programs in Africa, Central America and India.
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