Foundation gets grant for renovation of Little Red Schoolhouse in Palm Beach

Palm Beach Daily News Staff
·4 min read

The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach has received a state grant to help underwrite the cost of renovating and relocating the Little Red Schoolhouse, which is planned as part of an overall improvement project for Phipps Ocean Park in the town's South End.

Word of the $442,195 Special Category Historic Preservation Grant from the Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, came Monday in a release from the foundation. The schoolhouse project will begin once grant funds become available and is expected to be completed within six months, the foundation said. Phipps Ocean Park sits just north of the Par 3 golf course.

The Preservation Foundation is required to match every grant dollar spent on the renovation and redesign of Phipps Ocean Park, the organization said.

Founded in 1886, Palm Beach’s one-room school ceased operation in 1901, after which it became a tool shed on John Shaffer Phipps’s property. After the Phipps family subdivided the property, the Gardener’s Society of Palm Beach refurbished the schoolhouse and the town moved the structure to Phipps Ocean Park, whose land was donated by the Phipps family in 1948.

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As shown in this rendering, The Little Red Schoolhouse at Phipps Ocean Park will be moved to a more visible spot as part of redesign plans. The area will include a large outdoor space that can be utilized for meetings, classes, and activities for small and medium-size groups.
As shown in this rendering, The Little Red Schoolhouse at Phipps Ocean Park will be moved to a more visible spot as part of redesign plans. The area will include a large outdoor space that can be utilized for meetings, classes, and activities for small and medium-size groups.

Since 1990, the Little Red Schoolhouse has been home to the Preservation Foundation’s ‘'living history'' program, which takes fourth-grade children back in time to experience what it would have been like to study at the schoolhouse in the late 1800s. Thousands of fourth-grade students from Palm Beach, Broward and Martin Counties participate in the program at the schoolhouse each school year.

“The Little Red Schoolhouse is emblematic of the Preservation Foundation’s dedication to preserving the architectural and cultural sites that make Palm Beach special. The schoolhouse’s next chapter will marry two radical approaches to coastal resilience: avoiding flooding by seeking higher ground and establishing a resilient coastline by introducing indigenous plant life through all 20 acres of the park. This kind of work constitutes a lot of the foundation’s preservation effort; we think of our architectural heritage in holistic terms, and in order to protect the structures that represent our history, we can’t view them as separate from the environment in which they exist,” Preservation Foundation President & CEO Amanda Skier said in a prepared statement.

The foundation’s proposal includes moving the schoolhouse to a higher elevation — near the base of a 22-foot beach dune — which will alleviate flooding; create a new, stronger foundation; and offer increased wind protection. The project also includes the restoration of the windows and doors, a new roof, siding and trim repairs, new mechanical and electrical systems, accessible building access, and interior restoration as needed.

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“The story of the schoolhouse has always foregrounded community and resilience, once serving all of the children in the Lake Worth area and continuing to educate students to this day through our Living History program. Palm Beach is often thought of in terms of palatial residential homes, but the reality is that our history extends beyond that, and we’re excited for this project to lend our vernacular architecture more visibility,” Director of Programming Katie Jacob said in a statement.

The schoolhouse project is among the first in the plans for the Phipps Ocean Park project, which was redesigned by Miami-based landscape architect Raymond Jungles.

"Jungles’ bold new master plan transforms a landscape currently characterized by aging infrastructure, invasive plant species, and underutilized beachfront, articulating a vision in which sustainable plantings, unobstructed ocean views, and immersive educational opportunities create an eco-park alive with promise," the foundation said.

The schoolhouse will anchor the great Great Lawn and wildflower garden to the west, both of which will offer view of the schoolhouse.

A new feature to the north of the schoolhouse will be an outdoor classroom, which was designed in collaboration with the Garden Club of Palm Beach.

Another educational centerpiece of the park will be the Coastal Restoration Center, a nursery and propagation area for native plants that will support healthy beach dune ecosystems within the park and throughout the island.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: State gives grant for redo of Little Red Schoolhouse in Palm Beach