Kitchen Restored In Clinton House

STAFF PHOTO ANDY SHUPE 
Kate Johnson, Clinton House Museum director, shows the newly remodeled kitchen in the museum Wednesday that has been returned to the way it was in 1975 when the Clintons lived in the Fayetteville house.
STAFF PHOTO ANDY SHUPE Kate Johnson, Clinton House Museum director, shows the newly remodeled kitchen in the museum Wednesday that has been returned to the way it was in 1975 when the Clintons lived in the Fayetteville house.

— When Bill and Hillary Clinton moved into their first home in 1975, Hillary Clinton said the kitchen was the first thing that needed to be remodeled.

“She wrote about it in her autobiography,” said Kate Johnson, director of the Clinton House Museum on Clinton Drive. “It was obviously retro.”

Though Hillary Clinton never remodeled the kitchen that was built in 1934, it was eventually updated by later owners.

A recently completed renovation helped restore the kitchen to its original state.

The Arkansas Humanities Council awarded the project a $2,500 small museum grant.

“It paid for the materials, but we performed all the labor,” Johnson said.

At a Glance

The Clinton House Museum

Location: 930 W. Clinton Drive

Hours of Operation: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Admission: $8

Source: Staff Report

“We just had one picture to go off of,” Johnson said. “We painted the cabinets orange, took off the doors and painted the inside yellow. It scarily looks like it did in 1975.”

The council seeks to promote understanding, appreciation and use of the humanities in Arkansas, according to the organization’s website.

The grant also paid for a flat-screen television that plays political ads from Bill Clinton’s campaigns for governor and president. The Clintons left their first home in 1976 to move to Little Rock after Bill Clinton was elected attorney general.

Centerton resident Gina Ravelo visited the museum for the first time Saturday. She described herself as a “huge Clinton fan.”

“I think it’s very informative,” she said of the exhibits. “I think they did a great job restoring the kitchen.”

Johnson said she’s reorganizing the museum’s exhibit to include a room dedicated to Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and first lady.

She said C-SPAN recently filmed a special at the Clinton House Museum called “First Ladies: Influence & Image.”

“This is the only place they filmed for Hillary,” Johnson said. “There’s nothing that tells her story, and people really want to know about her. I think they would be surprised to learn about her humble beginnings.”

Julie Pennington, group tour manager for the Fayetteville Visitor’s Bureau, said the new exhibits and updates are a welcome change in the 1,800-square-foot house.

Pennington leads a tour called “Cooking with the Clintons” where visitors tour the museum and dine on the Clintons’ favorite Southern food.

“I think when Hillary runs for the presidency, the Clinton House will be a number one attraction in Fayetteville,” Pennington said. Hillary Clinton has not announced if she is running for president.

Pennington said she’s noticed an obvious uptick in Clinton House Museum visitors during the past eight years.

“I was doing about 11 tours a year in 2006 and now I do 60 to 65 tours a year,” Pennington said. “Of those 65 tours, 40 percent go to the Clinton House.”

Johnson said 3,760 people visited the museum in 2013.

In addition to the “Hillary Room,” Johnson said she’s working on a room dedicated to Bill Clinton, who visited Fayetteville on Saturday.

Both rooms feature various family photos, campaign memorabilia and newspaper articles.

“When I started working here in 2009, we had 200 items in our archives,” she said. “Now, we have thousands.”

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