Friends of the Tanner House relaunches fund-raising campaign to start stabilization work

Work may be starting soon to stabilize the historic Tanner House in North Central Philadelphia.

The Friends of the Tanner House launched a new fund-raising campaign to pay for a roof and other structural work at the home of Henry O. Tanner, the first African American artist to gain international acclaim.

The organization has raised about $33,000 so far, through a limited, four-month campaign it began last year. Additional funds were raised after the first IOBY campaign closed last June. Those moneys were accepted by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, which agreed to partner with the Friends group and act as a fiduciary agent.

Now, the Friends organization says it needs to increase the fund to $70,000 to pay to stabilize the deteriorating house at 2908 W. Diamond St. in the city’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood.

“The Friends of the Tanner House are finalizing emergency stabilization plans for the Henry O. Tanner House, a National Historic Landmark. Help us eliminate the gap in funds so that we can recover the Tanner House for a brighter tomorrow! https://savethetannerhouse.org,” the organization posted on Twitter last week.

“Restarting our fundraising because we’re so close!,” FOTH said on its Facebook page.

The new fund-raising campaign is urgent because the group is close to signing a contract with G&R Contractors Group, said Christopher Rogers, co-coordinator of the Tanner House group.

“We have a funding gap,” Rogers said. “The estimate we got is for $65,000. We estimate we will need another $5,000 in terms of licenses and permits needed.”

The group also launched a new website, Save the Tanner House, and has aired public service announcements on WURD Radio that ask people to learn more about the preservation campaign and to donate to help save Tanner’s former home.

The Inquirer first published concerns about the Tanner House in December 2021 after the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections posted notices on the house citing it as “unsafe” because of its deteriorated conditions.

A contract with G&R Contractors Group was sent to be signed this week, construction company owner René Romero said.

Romero said he is excited to work on the historic house, where he will install a new roof, do framing, and construct interior walls to maintain the structure of the house.

“I started reading a little of the history of the house. It’s very interesting and I’m really glad to be part of the restoration,” Romero said.

However, Rogers noted that this is a temporary stabilization for the house that would need a significant additional investment to make it suitable for a possible art-inspired and community-centered institution.

Romero said that once he has the signed contract, it could take 21 days to get the necessary permits from the city.

In the meantime, Rogers said the Friends of the Tanner House has been making connections to individuals and organizations who are ready to help develop the house for the future.

Friends of the Tanner House will be meeting next week with Eric Pryor, president of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts — where a young Tanner began studies at age 20 — to ask about the possibility of PAFA hosting a fund-raising event there.

The group has also invited the painter and filmmaker George Anthony Morton, the subject of the recent HBO documentary film Master of Light as a participant in FOTH. Morton said he hopes to be a part of any fund-raising project in the future.

“Tanner was always a huge part of my inspiration,” said Morton, who paints in the classical, realism tradition of the Philadelphia-reared artist who moved to Paris and lived the rest of his life in France due to racism in the United States.

“Tanner is my spirit guide. He’s been backing me this whole time.”

Morton said he is now working on a documentary about Tanner’s life and works.

» READ MORE: Once ‘the center of the Black intellectual community in Philadelphia,’ the Henry O. Tanner House could be demolished

Major renovations, beyond the stabilization work, are expected to cost about $300,000 or more. Any potential donors willing to pay those costs are likely to wait until the house is transferred from private ownership by Michael Thornton, a college professor in Florida, to a nonprofit entity, Rogers said.

The house should be considered historic for more than its connection to Henry O. Tanner, the artist, the advocates said.

Tanner’s father, Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, was a minister, theologian, and editor of the Christian Recorder newspaper, who bought the house in 1872, when Henry was about 13.

Benjamin Tucker Tanner is believed to have met and discussed the issues facing Black people coming out of enslavement with such leaders and educators as Frederick Douglass, William Still, Booker T. Washington, and Carter G. Woodson.

One of the artist’s sisters, Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson, was one of the first Black women physicians in the country. She was the first woman — Black or white — to pass the Alabama medical board, the New York Times reported. Booker T. Washington had recruited her to teach and work at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute.

And Tanner’s niece, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, in 1927. She lived at the Tanner House while completing her undergraduate studies in 1918, and her doctorate in economics at Penn in 1921.