Thanks to a $1 million donation from the late Charmaine Burdell, descendant of Novato pioneers James Black and Joseph Sweetser, the Novato History Museum will be getting a new home.

On Sept. 17, the Novato Historical Guild announced the donation to their capital campaign to renovate the Scott House at 917 Sherman Ave. on the city center square, near City Hall. The museum’s former location was 815 DeLong Ave.

“Charmaine’s bequest advances the Guild’s long-held dream to move the Novato History Museum to the city’s Civic Center,” said Jeanne MacLeamy, chair of the guild’s new museum committee, in an announcement. “We envision it becoming a gathering place for increased civic engagement through lectures, performances, and other events.”

Under an agreement reached last year with the city, which owns the property and museum artifacts, the guild promised to cover 100% of the costs of renovating the Scott House in return for the right to operate the history museum for 50 years. Guild volunteers curate and operate the museum, and entrance is free.

A rendering shows the finished renovation of the historic Scott House on Sherman Avenue in the city center of Novato. The house will be the future location of the Novato History Museum with a 2027 planned opening. (Novato Historical Guild via Bay City News)

Guild president Susan Magnone said the $3.2 million renovation will include a seismic retrofit that involves raising the building and rebuilding its foundation to withstand earthquakes, as well as the replacement of all plumbing and electrical systems. An elevator will be installed to make the attraction accessible.

“The most significant artifact in the archive is an original document from the U.S Supreme Court signed in 1866 by President Andrew Johnson rendering a court decision that granted the Rancho de Novato land to Bezar Simmons, ” Magnone said.

California became a state through a series of challenges by the federal government over the ownership of land grants given by Mexico to the early settlers, including those who settled in Novato, she said.

The renovation will begin next summer, and the new museum is expected to open in 2027.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.