THE ECHO OF OUR HISTORY

Christy Grieger has taken over operation of a small museum that enjoys an outsized presence in a community that’s steeped in history.

Christy Grieger feels Winter Park’s unique vibe and recognizes that the past still permeates this special place. She wants you to feel it, too.

BY RANDY NOLES

The Winter Park History Museum might be called “the Little Museum that Could.” The City of Culture and Heritage has plenty of culture to go around — but its heritage is squeezed into just 800 square feet.

Nonetheless, the facility — which occupies a room inside the 97-year-old building that once served as the Atlantic Coast Line’s freight depot — has for years enjoyed an outsized presence in the community with creative exhibitions and lavish events.

Now, a new executive director will be responsible for leading the small but scrappy operation and making certain that Winter Park’s storied past is remembered and celebrated.

Christy Grieger, 48, had previously worked in event sales and management at Hello! Florida and House of Blues at Disney’s Lake Buena Vista. Later, she headed human resources in a family-owned printing business before becoming executive assistant to the energetic Susan Skolfield, her predecessor at the museum.

Skolfield, who during her 10-year tenure was instrumental in raising the museum’s profile and staging some of its most popular exhibitions, left late last year to establish a Winter Park office for the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden. (She had opened a local outpost for candidate Barack Obama in 2008.)

Luckily for the 11-member board of the Winter Park Historical Association — the nonprofit that owns and operates the museum — a worthy successor was already on the payroll.

“In addition to the hard skills of being extremely well-organized, a strategic thinker and possessing a solid educational and employment background, Christy has attributes that can’t be taught,” says Betsy Owens, chairperson of the board. “She has a magnetic personality, a passion for local history and a true desire to share Winter Park’s heritage with others.”

Owens, now vice president of marketing and communications for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida, takes such matters very much to heart — which is not surprising, considering her background.

A prominent activist for historic preservation, Owens was previously executive director of Winter Park’s Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum — which was designed by her grandfather, iconic architect James Gamble Rogers II. She says the board chose Grieger from more than 100 applicants.

Linda Kulmann, the museum’s archivist and a past board chairperson, originally recruited Skolfield a decade earlier. She also cited Grieger’s “warm personality, leadership skills and, most importantly, her love of Winter Park history” as reasons why she believes the Tampa native is an ideal fit for the position.

Grieger does indeed display genuine enthusiasm about Winter Park’s historic vibe. “When people come here, they notice a feeling and an energy that you don’t find in every town,” she says. “[Original developers] Oliver Chapman and Loring Chase created something special that’s still preserved

The Winter Park History Museum occupies a corner of the old railroad station along New England Avenue, in a space that was once the freight ticketing office of the Atlantic Coast Line.

here. History has an echo, and we are its voice.”

After being hired as Skolfield’s executive assistant, she immersed herself in Winter Park’s past. She expresses particular enthusiasm for Claire Leavitt MacDowell’s 1950 Chronological History of Winter Park, a dense but oddly engrossing day-by-day account of every significant (and not-so-significant) local event covering more than a century.

Grieger, whose sociology degree is from the University of Pittsburgh, captained the school’s swim team and broke a school record in the 200-meter backstroke. “Swimming taught me discipline — getting up for practice, setting goals, working as a team member — and sociology taught me about people,” she says.

After graduating in 1995, Grieger returned to Orlando and worked as a service manager for a check verification and credit card processing company. She was then operations coordinator and sales manager at Hello! Florida, a full-service destination management company.

Then it was on to House of Blues, where she was sales manager and worked with hotels and other businesses to book events at the venue. That job ended in 2001, after the September 11 terrorist attacks crushed the tourism industry. She married in 2002 and joined Business Cards Tomorrow, a printing company where she was a partner with her now-former husband’s family.

“I wanted something more fulfilling and decided that my next move would be something I loved,” says Grieger, who has two daughters: Ada, 14, and Liv, 11. “When I saw the executive assistant ad at the museum, I loved everything about it. I started networking with friends who might have a connection.”

While she hadn’t previously worked at a museum, Grieger is a local history buff and has a passion for antiquing. She’s also an avid amateur photographer — favoring remote landscapes and vintage architecture — and says taking pictures “is when I feel most alive.”

She joined the museum’s staff as a part-timer in the summer of 2018, just in time for the opening of its newest (and, because of COVID-19, still current) exhibition: Wish You Were Here: The Hotels and Motels of Winter Park.

Next up, beginning June 10, is Rollins: The First 50 Years. The museum will be transformed into a dorm room, a library, a classroom and a student center as they would have looked in the early 1930s at Rollins College.

Previous exhibitions have included Winter Park: The War Years 1941-1945; Whistle in the Distance: The Trains of Winter Park; Growing Up Wildcat: Winter Park High School Through the Years; The Way We Were: Park Avenue in the ’60s and ’70s; and Fine Feathers: How the Peacock Came to Winter Park.

Usually, exhibitions run for about 18 months. But during that time there’s plenty of other activity. The museum records oral histories, offers a speaker series and hosts its annual Peacock Ball, a flossy fundraiser that honors a person significant to Winter Park history. “Penelope — Princess of the Peacocks” offers stories and songs for children every Monday morning.

About 15,000 people annually visit the museum, which operates on a $248,000 budget including a $76,000 contribution from the city. Although the size of the space mandates that exhibitions focus on specific topics, Grieger hopes that someday the museum will be able to mount a permanent salute to the city’s big-picture history.

The depot that houses the museum is at 200 West New England Avenue, also the site of the Winter Park Farmers’ Market. Admission is free (although donations are requested). Check wphistory.org for hours or call 407-647-2330.