Lake Minnewaska Visitor Center

October 2020Minnewaska State Park Preserve, Kerhonkson, NY

What calls us into nature?

Lake Minnewaska is the centerpiece sky lake of Minnewaska State Park Preserve, one of New York’s premier parks. Its preserve designation entrusts the park to protect the area’s globally unique ecology, and its history reaches back to a hotel era that predates the establishment of the state park system itself. Much of the existence of the park, at 24,000 acres and counting, is thanks to the Open Space Institute, which helped secure the land over decades and preserve its features, including its historic carriage roads. OSI shepherded the visitor center project. Inside, visitors find everything they need to become inspired by, and go see, Minnewaska’s beauty and significance. A mix of traditional, hands-on, and multimedia engagements invite visitors across generations to find their love of the land.

How to build a display wall

There are two large display walls at Minnewaska with backlit object cases, specially placed graphics and other features. The space in our fabrication studio allowed us to build the walls before transporting and installing them, thus removing any guesswork on the day of install.

How to get kids outside

Throughout the Minenwaska exhibit, kids find six embossers that imprint illustrations of leaves and needles they can look for on a hike. The impressions are made in a booklet available at a staff desk. In addition to pages for impressions, the booklet also includes activity pages that help kids focus on the trails while building skills of natural observation.


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