World-Class Art Museum
World-Class museums don't happen overnight; they emerge. They evolve like "cream rising to the top." Usually they are the combination of a lifetime of gathering, building, selecting, choosing, and perhaps "being in the right place at the right time."
This is what has created The Citadelle in Canadian, Texas. It has been a combination of creativity, the ability to make instant decisions, the keeping of one's "ear to the ground" and decades of searching for "pick of the show." No "also rans" have ever been admitted to the collection.
Although Malouf & Therese Abraham fly in the cheap seats on the airplane and drive old cars, they have spent over forty years in a passionate search for objects that represent human effort in its finest moments, objects that clearly were inspired. Being "pretty" is not enough to get in to this collection.
Malouf & Therese have viewed this exciting journey as "spending money and growing richer." It has been a joy for them to put the house, the gardens, and the collection together. They say it's been a dream come true to live in its presence and to be continually surrounded by such beauty. The time has come to turn the page and begin the next chapter.
Our Earthly lives are transient. Night cometh. Rather than having a three-day auction in New York City, the Abrahams want to keep the collection together at The Citadelle and establish it as a place where future generations can come to be inspired and find themselves surrounded by extraordinary beauty and peacefulness. Then, as they leave, perhaps they will have been somehow changed.
The Proposed Art Wing
As of 2007, the Abrahams have decided it is time to "pass it on." Plans have been drawn for an elaborate three-story art wing including a gift & coffee shop as well as a five-story observation tower. The addition will double the size of the existing mansion creating ample space to properly display the ever growing collection. They are moving out, yet leaving all the beautiful furnishings and art intact.
The expansion of the existing complex will be an elaborate addition built of solid masonry and will cover an entire city block. The heating and cooling will be done using the latest geo-thermal technology, and its timeless design will be unlike anything ever seen before. Being in a small, beautiful Texas town will make it all the more intriguing.
The new wing and tower will cost roughly five million dollars to build, and an initial endowment of four million dollars will be needed to appropriately fund its operation. In addition to their donation of the home, the gardens, and the art collection, the Abrahams have also set aside two million dollars of their own personal funds for the endowment. The Abraham Art Foundation will be dissolved and The Citadelle Art Foundation established. The doors are now being opened for other philanthropists to fund named spaces. Large donor families will have a seat on the board in perpetuity. The board will also be open to others as well.
If you catch the vision of what this will be and want to be a part of it, do contact us. Malouf and Therese have dipped deeply into their retirement funds to get it to this point. Now they welcome other generous families who want to leave a legacy, rather than have their estate hauled away by the IRS, to come aboard. Malouf chuckles, "Death is a real thing and so is the Death Tax. Ya better make a plan."
