"The college needed help," Ryerson said, sitting in her newly refurbished, wood-paneled office.
It was college president Lisa Marsh Ryerson, a Wells graduate herself, who first reached out to Rowland in the mid-1990s. Along with MacKenzie-Childs, the college is the main employer in the area and dominates village life. Wells College was established in 1868 by Henry Wells, founder of the Wells Fargo and American Express companies.
Was this woman's vision the right one for them? But she took no questions either, so as villagers wandered home that evening, they were left to ponder. Rowland promised not to seek - or take - any return on her investment. So wealthy.Įveryone knew how Rowland and her husband, Jerome Frautschi, had supported artistic and cultural endeavors in Madison, including donating $200 million for the Overture Center for the Arts.īut even as Rowland declared "a new day for Aurora, a second sunrise for this dear place," there were ripples of unease. The 60-year-old businesswoman cut a striking figure, with her cropped white hair, steely blue eyes and commanding voice. In a final gesture, Rowland would take over the town's biggest business, MacKenzie-Childs Ltd., a sprawling pottery and home furnishings center on the outskirts of the village, buying it out of bankruptcy to save 240 jobs.Īll this would be done through a new company, The Aurora Foundation, in partnership with the college, which owned many of the historic properties. She would restore the Queen Anne-style Abbott House and the Federal-style Leffingwell house. She would replace the village market and the old ice cream parlor with more upscale versions.
She would restore the inn to its 19th-century glory, recapturing the era when the Morgan and Wells families dominated village life. On May 17, 2001, she stood before villagers crammed into the 109-year old Morgan Opera House on Main Street and shared that dream. for $700 million, Pleasant Thiele Rowland would return to Aurora, bringing those memories - and a dream. Years later, after selling her company to Mattel Inc. "It was beautiful, it was timeless and it became a part of me like no place in the world ever has." "For me it had to do with the tall, ancient trees, the ravines, and sparkling lake and the lovely historic homes and campus buildings," she has said. Her love affair with Aurora began her first day. The 140-year-old tradition has changed little since the white-gloved era of the 1960s, when Pleasant Thiele was student at this small liberal arts college for women. On a sweltering August night at the start of the college year, gowned Wells seniors process beneath the pillars of MacMillan Hall for a candlelit opening convocation. Or in attempting to restore and recreate it, did she transform the village into a glossy historical caricature that somehow lost its soul? The savior was Pleasant Rowland of Madison, Wis., who made her fortune creating The American Girl doll - pricey toys with homespun historical biographies (Kirsten, a pioneer girl of strength and spirit Addy, a courageous girl during the Civil War and others.) "It was like this great white Arabian horse came walking through our village and little houseflies jumped on it - sad, diminished people who didn't understand that this place was going to dust and she saved it." Randi Zabriskie, owner of Jane Morgan's Little House clothing store, says it unleashed nothing short of a war.
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