The Terry House: Case Study about Donor Conditions

By RaeAnn Bell

Donations are the lifeblood of many museum collections. Oftentimes, donors stipulate conditions restricting how a museum may use a gift. These restrictions might prevent the sale of an item, direct how a work is to be displayed, or require the performance of regular maintenance. Museums may become burdened when donor conditions are difficult to meet. To avoid this, many museums have gift acceptance policies that reject heavily conditioned items. Museums that accept restricted gifts open themselves up to litigation if they fail to adhere to the donor’s requirements.

The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (“AMFA”) and the City of Little Rock are embroiled in litigation concerning a historic house donated in 1977. The property, called the Terry House or the Pike-Fletcher-Terry House, was the childhood home of sisters Adolphine Fletcher Terry and Mary Fletcher Drennan.^[1] Terry initially granted the home to AFMA and Little Rock in 1964.^[2] The grant stipulated that the city and the museum must maintain the house and its grounds, and that the property can only be used for the advancement of the “cultural, artistic, or educational interests of the community.”^[3] If these conditions were not met, the house would revert to the heirs of Terry and Drennan.^[4] AMFA and the City of Little Rock took title to the property after Drennan’s death in 1977.^[5]