New York’s Favorite Sculpture Park Is Getting a Massive Renovation—With a Focus on Accessibility

Storm King has always had a lot going for it. Just outside the town of Cornwall in New York’s historic Hudson Valley, the renowned outdoor sculpture park is just an hour’s drive (or a slightly longer train-to-cab) from Manhattan, putting it within easy reach of the country’s highest concentration of culture vultures. It has size: occupying the former estate of industrialist Ralph E. Ogden, the grounds comprise some 500 acres of rolling hills and forest, with stunning views of the Hudson Highlands in the distance. It has a fast-growing stream of visitors (nearly a quarter million last year), and seminal works by modernist masters (Alexander Calder, Mark di Suvero, Henry Moore). And perhaps best of all, it has its name, borrowed from the nearby mountain and the seasonal thunder bursts that occasionally roll down the river, sounding (according to famed author Washington Irving) like ancient ghosts playing nine-pins in the valley.

But there are things the now 63-year-old institution has never had. "The only flush toilet is at the top of the hill, where the museum is," says Amy Weisser, Storm King’s Deputy Director of Strategic Planning. "At peak times in the fall, it can be difficult to get on site." Since the park’s inception, the guest experience has been remarkably lacking in formal structure: entering via the parking lot, visitors embarked on a more or less self-guided tour with little assistance in terms of wayfinding or armatures to help them along route; at a physical level, the situation is obviously daunting for older visitors and those with limited mobility, but it also presents a conceptual obstacle for those unfamiliar with contemporary art. As Storm King gears up for some of its most ambitious programming to date, its leaders are eager "to make sure our audience is comfortable and confident," says Weisser. And they’re now underway with a plan to meet that objective.

Pulling in a design team that includes New York-based firm WXY Architects, Ireland’s Heneghan Peng Architects, and landscape practices Reed Hilderbrand and Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Weisser and her colleagues at Storm King have embarked on an extensive capital program that will transform the facility into a user-friendly environment capable of keeping pace with an ever-larger audience while making it "a place of comfort and ease for all sorts of different people," as Hildebrand principal Beka Sturges puts it. Comprising a "welcome sequence" with enhanced and expanded visitor amenities, as well as an all-new Construction, Fabrication, and Maintenance Building, the renovation is expected to be complete next year at a total cost of $45 million—a fair chunk of that figure being picked up by the State of New York, who chipped in $11.3 million in grant money and even sent Governor Kathy Hochul to the groundbreaking this June.