The Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project

Learn more about the Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project at Bailey-Center.org.

This unique project seeks financial support to purchase and restore the house and herbarium complex of Liberty Hyde Bailey and to launch The Liberty Hyde Bailey Center in Upstate New York, an institution established in close partnership with Cornell University. The Center will:

• Address the interlinked crises of climate change and democratic unravelling together, strengthening and mobilizing democratic civic action on issues related to climate in rural America through a robust Rural-Urban Dialogue Initiative and public deployment of the arts and humanities.
• Leverage the public trust held by Cornell Cooperative Extension, as well as its geographical reach in every county of New York State, to bridge rural-urban, red-blue, and other polarizing divides through interdisciplinary programming that empowers and works alongside local communities.
• Develop a model and a growing set of resources to catalyze similar work across the national land-grant university system and networks of independent rural organizations.
• Ground these initiatives in Bailey’s rich and provocative body of work by making that work both accessible and relevant to the challenges and opportunities of our moment.
• Preserve and restore the historic gardens and buildings, featuring architecture designed by William Henry Miller, Clarence A. “Pa” Martin, and Bailey himself, and open them all as a public resource and education center in Ithaca.

In its start-up phase, the Bailey Center is a project of Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County.

Last updated June 10, 2026