Five years into working for the Salisbury House, her day-to-day looks nothing like her first days on the job as she bounces between event planning and administrative tasks to overseeing maintenance of the 28,000-square-foot house and nine acres of woodland and gardens.

“One of the things I love most about my job is that no two days are alike. While that can be challenging, it is also exciting and there’s always a lot of momentum of movement and activity,” she said.

The historical home is also marking its centennial. The celebration began in 2023 and continues through 2028, to mirror the time it took to build Salisbury House 100 years ago. Meissner said a few events have been held so far, but the official kickoff will be the Gatsby Gala this Saturday, when the nonprofit aims to raise $100,000 for its endowment fund. The fund is meant to be a sustainable funding source for the care and restoration of the building.

During the gala, guests will party like it's Prohibition with themed cocktails, a three-course dinner from Tangerine Food Co., live music from the Diamond Empire Band and a late-night speakeasy party with DJ Big Lare. The gala is only hosted every five years, so the next big party won’t happen again until 2030.

We sat down with Meissner to discuss her path, the Salisbury House’s role in Des Moines arts and culture community and the nonprofit’s centennial celebration.

This Q&A has been condensed. Read the full version online from the Business Record.

Funds from the Gatsby Gala will support the Salisbury House’s endowment fund. Can you share the history of the endowment fund and how it works?

It was started when the Salisbury House was raising money to purchase the house from the Iowa Education Association back in the mid to late 90s, so it’s been there over time. Our goal with the Gatsby Gala is to highlight the sustainable fundraising efforts of our endowment fund as investment dividends from that account generate unrestricted revenue for us so that we can complete vital restoration projects and or increase staffing or other specialty projects that we have going on with the organization. The main purpose is for that restoration and maintenance to actually take care of the house. The income from the endowment is to support those efforts so the expense of the restoration and maintenance lessen the burden on our general fund.

The endowment is made up of general contributions, restricted gifts. If someone gives a restricted gift to the endowment, we’re not allowed to spend that. It stays in the endowment and generates money. All of the money in the endowment is invested so we’re allowed to use the dividends or the interest. Then what we earn off of it each year, we’re able to take that out and put it into these other projects. Essentially, a gift to the endowment fund is a gift that keeps on giving. Your gift will continue to give year over year.

When you started at the Salisbury House, what were some of your goals for what you wanted to accomplish?

For me, one of the biggest challenges we have is just the footprint of Salisbury House and how very little the community actually knows about Salisbury House. As I said, I didn’t know about it for several years, and it took me attending an event to realize ‘Oh my gosh, this is here in Central Iowa?’ One of my biggest goals is to continue to educate our community. We’ve seen a significant increase in visitors and event attendees over the last five years, and I think that we are starting to make some headway in bringing awareness of what Salisbury House actually is and the fact that we are an art museum. A lot of people don’t realize that we have art pieces by some of the same artists that you would find in some of the world’s most famous museums.

What are some of the accomplishments you’ve been proud of in your five years in this role?

The last five years, we’ve undergone almost $1 million worth of restoration, renovation and upkeep to the building, including new fire and security systems, updates to our building mechanical systems and of course, a variety of different capital projects from limestone restoration and the other two capital projects I mentioned.

Do you have a favorite piece of history about the house or favorite thing you’ve learned since working here?

That’s a loaded question. The nice thing about working here is that we are constantly learning new things. Our archives are full of materials and things, so we’re constantly learning new things that happened during the building or while the family lived here. That’s something I really enjoy about this job is just getting to learn something new all the time. I don’t have one specific thing because there’s so many different, unique areas of the house and stories behind different pieces or artwork. One of the most notable things is the half-beam Tudor ceiling in our Great Hall, which came out of an inn in Salisbury and it is highly probable that Shakespeare performed under the rafters because he, along with King James I, stayed in the inn in the summer of 1603. Carl’s antique dealer in Salisbury had the opportunity to purchase it for Carl. And so Carl purchased that and it’s in the Great Hall today and gifted a section of that to his friend, Mr. Ralph Rollins from the Rollins Mansion.