Two Foundations Give $4.5 Million to Huntington

The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino has received $4.5 million in grants to begin a $15-million Library Initiative to substantially increase the institution’s endowment for library services.

The grants--$3 million from the Ahmanson Foundation of Los Angeles and $1.5 million from New York’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation--are among the largest lump-sum grants ever received by the institution, according to museum grants spokeswoman Christine MacDonald. A $1.5-million grant was received last year from the Keck Foundation.

They bring an auspicious start to the institution’s fund-raising campaign, which will support staff positions, including the library director, a conservator and several library curators and assistant curators. It will also help pay for acquisitions, conservation of rare books and manuscripts and other capital and equipment-related expenses incurred by the Huntington Library, an internationally respected research center that serves more than 1,800 scholars and 500,000 visitors each year.

Robert F. Erburu, chairman of the Huntington’s Board of Trustees, who announced the gifts on Monday during special “Friends’ Day” ceremonies honoring the Ahmanson and Mellon foundations, called the Library Initiative “key to restoring and rebuilding the Huntington’s financial base. We are encouraged in our efforts by this strong vote of confidence from the Mellon and Ahmanson foundations.” Erburu is chairman and chief executive officer of Times Mirror Co., which owns The Times.

The initiative, which the museum is viewing as a major boost to funding of the library’s programs, is scheduled for completion in three to four years, MacDonald said.

Huntington President Robert Skotheim, in a press release accompanying the grant announcements, said: “It is absolutely essential for cultural institutions like the Huntington to increase their endowments as a way to guarantee stability of their primary missions. Thus the income from these gifts will not fund any new programs but, most importantly, will fund existing programs and services.”

Ahmanson President Robert Ahmanson, who attended Monday’s ceremonies, and whose institution previously had given the Huntington a total of $1.6 million in grants since 1976, called the works in the Huntington Library “invaluable resources” that need “not only the community’s but the nation’s attention in bringing them to a state where their true capacity can be realized.”

The Huntington was founded as an educational and cultural center in 1919 by railroad and real estate developer Henry Edwards Huntington. It is considered one of the largest and most complete research libraries in the United States.