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A Home at Last!

On September 2, 2009 we signed an agreement with the City of Geneva to locate the Museum within a Visitors’ Center planned for construction on municipally owned property on the west shore of Seneca Lake. The Geneva Chamber of Commerce and the public boat launch are presently located on this 11.4 acre site. The City plans to replace the present Chamber building with a new Visitors’ Center comprising approximately 21,500 SF of space on the first floor. The 300-member boating museum anticipates occupying approximately 20,000 square feet of space initially, with future expansion on the lakefront and off-site eventually growing to approximately 60,000 square feet of space.

 This beautiful lakefront site is located on US Rte 5 & 20, within six miles of the NYS Thruway, and contains sufficient acreage and frontage to support future expansion of Museum facilities.

The boating museum has assembled a collection of more than 90 wooden boats built in the Finger Lakes  over the past 100 years, as well as numerous related artifacts and extensive reference material. Portions of the collection will be displayed on a rotating basis within the new facility. Also planned are interactive workshops and displays to engage visitors in the design, construction and use of the boats and an active on-water program including sailing and small boat handling.

We envision the eventual need for additional building space in the form of a combination boat house/skiff livery on the waterfront, construction of an off-site storage facility designed to permit viewing of some large Collection artifacts not currently on display in the main building, and future expansion of the main building.

The boating museum is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation and was chartered by the New York State Department of Education in 1997 to "research, document, preserve and share the boating history of the Finger Lakes region."