wfn.org | O'Keeffe Property Negotiations Are Deadlocked

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28-August-1998 
98287 
 
    O'Keeffe Property Negotiations Are Deadlocked 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-Despite weeks of public speculation and intense negotiating 
between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a Texas foundation in a 
dispute about a 12-acre parcel of land once owned by the late artist 
Georgia O'Keeffe, there is still no deal. 
 
    Last week, the church offered to relinquish the denomination's option 
to buy the land in exchange for $350,000 from The Burnett Foundation, a 
family enterprise chaired by John and Anne Marion of Fort Worth, Texas, 
that has invested heavily in preserving the O'Keeffe legacy in the 
Southwest, according to sources close to the negotiations.  Earlier in the 
summer, the Foundation offered $3 million for the property, which includes 
the U-shaped adobe summer house where O'Keeffe once lived. 
 
    The five-person PC(USA) negotiating team also reportedly offered to 
provide an easement for a private road for access to the property. 
 
    Although the "Santa Fe New Mexican" reported Aug. 22 that the 
Foundation and the denomination had reached agreement, a dispute about land 
use restrictions is apparently stalling the deal. 
 
    "We have received various verbal assurances from the Marions that the 
O'Keeffe property would be used in a limited manner that would not disturb 
the church's use of its Ghost Ranch lands.  But to date, they have been 
unwilling to put those assurances in writing," PC(USA) general counsel Eric 
Graninger told the Presbyterian News Service Aug. 27.  "Such assurances are 
necessary to ensure long-term protection of the church's ongoing program at 
Ghost Ranch." 
 
    The O'Keeffe property sits entirely within the boundaries of the 
denomination's 21,000-acre Ghost Ranch Conference Center.  O'Keeffe 
bequeathed the land to her companion, Juan Hamilton.  Hamilton granted 
first-refusal rights to the church - should the property ever be sold - for 
an additional four acres of land in 1987. 
 
    Currently appraised at $735,000, the property's actual value is higher 
since it was owned by a well-known figure. 
 
    The Marions initially offered the denomination $250,000 to waive its 
first-refusal rights in order for the Foundation to buy the property from 
Hamilton for $3 million.   That offer was declined while church officials 
examined other options, including 
 
   *   matching the $3 million offer with a loan from the Presbyterian 
Investment and Loan Program (PILP), retaining control of the use of the 
land for program or being able to lease it to another entity 
   *   agreeing that another buyer control the property with strict terms 
on its use that do not interfere with Ghost Ranch's  program or landscape 
   *   buying the property and developing a new donor base that is 
interested in perpetuating the O'Keeffe legacy, repairing the fragile adobe 
and helping upgrade the increasingly dilapidated facilities at the 
financially struggling conference center. 
 
    The Marions have said they intend to restore the house for use only by 
O'Keeffe scholars.  It would become part of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and 
Study Center in Santa Fe, which the Marions financed.  Since 1994, the 
couple has pumped more than $55 million into arts projects within the city 
itself, according to an article in the "Santa Fe Reporter." 
 
    No spokesperson from the Foundation or the Marion family was available 
for comment at press time. 
 
    "If there are no restrictions on how the property might be used in the 
future, that could have a severe impact on our property," said the Rev. Ed 
Craxton, associate director for Christian education and a member of the 
church's negotiating team.  He said both Hamilton and the church proposed 
guidelines for future use of the site. 
 
    Besides Craxton, the church's negotiators include Paul Biderman of 
Santa Fe, chair of the Ghost Ranch Governing Board; the Rev. John McFayden 
of Arlington Heights, Ill., chair of the Congregational Ministries Division 
Committee; Gene Shannon of Bradenton, Fla., vice chair of the Mission 
Support Services Committee; and Diane Wheeler of Palmyra, N.Y., a member of 
the General Assembly Council Executive Committee. 

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