The 2024 SAPFM Mid-Year Conference will be held at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA from June 28th to July 2nd. Ursinus is a small Liberal Arts College founded in 1869 with a beautiful campus and excellent facilities for our conference.

Ursinus College

In this write up you will see references to optional side trips on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday; optional, additional presentations on Sunday afternoon; and spouse activities on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

The original SAPFM “Mid-Year Conference" started with a Friday night banquet, Saturday presentations, a Saturday night banquet and it ended Sunday at noon. We have kept that same format over the years and that is still included in the basic conference price.

However, in response to requests from our members, we have added optional side trips on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday as well as additional presentations Sunday afternoon. Attendees may stick with just the basic conference or add, at an additional price, some or all of these optional events. This keeps the conference price low for those who wish to attend just the basic conference, while allowing additional opportunities for those who choose them.

So why did we pick Southeastern Pennsylvania and select Ursinus College as our venue? The Southeastern Pennsylvania area has a rich culture of making Period American Furniture and other decorative arts, primarily from the Germanic peoples who settled the fertile lands that reminded them of home.  They incorporated their own old-world furniture traditions and craftsmanship with influences from their British neighbors. 

Ursinus College presented a unique opportunity for attendees to view the presentations in stadium-type classrooms, so your ability to “see” the presentation will be much better than past years. The main conference room, where we start off Saturday morning and spend all day Sunday, was the conference room used for the TV show “How to Get Away with Murder.” Actress Viola Davis wrote that on the same blackboard at the beginning of the show; Overall, this is an excellent facility for our conference.

Lecture Hall

Hotels

We have reserved a block of rooms with special rates at two hotels in the Collegeville area; The Residence Inn Collegeville and The Courtyard by Marriott, both conveniently near to Ursinus College. More information about hotel rooms will be shared on the conference registration page.

Our Friday 28 June, Monday 1 July, and Tuesday 2 July optional tours will highlight some of the very best antique furniture that is either in private collections or first-rate antique shops, or found in important public collections that may be often overlooked. There is so much to see in this immediate area of Southeastern Pennsylvania that for the first time ever, we decided to add additional tours on Tuesday 2 July.

On Friday we will visit a very special private collection in the Collegeville, PA area: the home of our keynote speaker, Lisa Minardi, which features a significant collection of early Pennsylvania furniture and decorative arts, set within a meticulously restored period house, that also includes significant built-in furniture from when it was constructed in 1757. https://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/living-with-antiques-a-labor-of-love/  

Following the house tour, we will also have a chance to explore more early Pennsylvania furniture in the adjacent shop of Philip Bradley Antiques.

Then, we will tour Historic Trappe's Center for Pennsylvania German Studies and historic houses, with extensive furniture displays featuring carved, inlaid, and painted decoration as well as pre-1800 Philadelphia furniture, organized by Executive Director, Lisa Minardi. https://historictrappe.org/. 

We are still working on scheduling all these wonderful visit opportunities, as there is so much to see, but if time permits we will visit the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center https://www.schwenkfelder.org/ that chronicles the settlement in the Perkiomen area of six families of Protestants fleeing religious persecution in Silesia in the 1730s. Longtime curator Candace Perry will display numerous blanket chests in the center of the open gallery specifically so woodworkers can study the construction from all sides.

The Monday bus trip will leave from the lobby of the Residence Inn in Collegeville at 7:30 AM. An early departure is necessary because our two locations are about 1 hour away.

We are planning for two full-sized busses. Each will go to one of the two locations in the morning and switch in the afternoon. We’ll all be together for a box lunch (included in the tour price) and then head off for our afternoon location. We are currently scheduled to return to the hotel by 5:00 PM.

One of our two Monday locations will be Historic Rock Ford which will provide private tours of its relatively new gallery of more than 230 objects of Lancaster County decorative arts from c1765 – 1810 https://www.historicrockford.org/.  As with the Landis Valley Museum shown below, Rock Ford is normally closed on Monday but will be open to us for our exclusive tours.

The other location will be the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum, a nationally significant living history museum that collects, conserves, exhibits and interprets Pennsylvania German material culture and heritage between 1750-1940.  The staff plans to move representative furniture examples from storage and arrange them for our examination while the curators provide rotating tours to groups of 10 of the furniture collection and antique tools.  Published staff experts will provide a lecture on Pennsylvania German culture.

The museum staff will provide a special visit for spouses that includes a behind the scenes discussion in the heritage seed house and a tour of the special exhibit on Pennsylvania Germans:  Their Lives Through Color.

Here are a couple of photos from the Landis Valley collection:

We are planning additional tours on TUESDAY, particularly a return to the Chester County History Center for the first time since the 2016 Mid-Year.  Here are a couple of the spice boxes we examined in 2016.

SPOUSE EVENTS

The 2024 SAPFM conference will be in a great area!  There is SO much to see of Historic, Cultural, and Crafting that it is impossible to see it all! We encourage members to add one or more extra days to explore some of these riches. There are great homes and historic sites to visit.  We have planned 2 days of Spouse/Guest events that should be sure to please.  In addition, Spouse/Guests will be permitted (space available) to sign up and attend the main side trips scheduled for Friday.

SATURDAY:  Lancaster County is about an hour from Collegeville and home to the Amish/Mennonite population of Pennsylvania, known for their Farms, Quilting, Crafts and Cooking.  We are planning an 8-hour bus tour to well-known Quilting Shops, such as Riehl’s and The Country Shoppe, with a stop at an Amish Family Restaurant.  We will depart the Residence Inn at 8:30 AM and return in time to attend the Conference dinner.  Minimum participation requirements will be noted on registration.

 On SUNDAY, 30 June, while we are not visiting nearby Winterthur and its Magnificent (!!!) grounds, it is certainly worth a trip.  However, we will be visiting Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square!  This is also a DuPont Property and is known for its Conservatories, Arboretum, Water Gardens and Fountains. There will be a lot of walking.  Cost will be for a bus and an entry Ticket. This trip will also require minimum participation.

We will also provide a listing of links for self-driving activities, shops, museums and collections in the area that can be seen.

There are too many area attractions of interest to our members and spouses to include as part of the conference side trips.  We encourage members to add extra time to explore some of these riches. We will provide links for self-driving activities.  Here is a small sampling of interesting venues to visit within 45 minutes of our hotels. 

• Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Winterthur Museum
• Hagley Museum
• Warton Esherick Museum
• Hearne Hardwood and Goff & Goff Lumber
• Peter Wentz Farmstead
• Valley Forge National Historical Park and Washington’s Headquarters
• Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle
• Baldwin’s Book Barn

Still have questions? Please contact Keith Smith (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)