Walcott Place
“Our house with its bougainvillea trellises, the front porch gone, was a printery. In its noise I was led up the cramped stair to its offices. I saw the small window near which we slept as boys, how close the roof was. The heat of the galvanize. A desk in my mother’s room, not that bed, sunlit, with its rose quilt where we were forbidden to sit.”
~ Omeros
“I come from a place that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures; it is not inhibited by flourish; it is a rhetorical society; it is a society of physical performance; it is a society of style.”
~ Derek Walcott
The creation of Walcott Place is ambitious; it is grand; and it is long overdue. Walcott Place proposes to create a physical space to celebrate Roderick and Derek Walcott’s achievements, and to be a source of inspiration and education. It shall be the focal point for our acknowledgement of the enormity of their contribution to the arts. The Walcott Place project will restore the Walcotts’ childhood home located on Chaussee Road in Castries, and convert it, along with adjoining spaces acquired by the Government of Saint Lucia, into a museum of the brothers’ works, with studio space for art and writing workshops and a theatre. Moreover the project will lead a renaissance in the Chaussee Road-Grass Street area through the creation of economic opportunities associated with Walcott Place.
Target: Approximately EC$8.05 million (US$3.01 million) is required to meet the total funding requirements of the project.