The plaque reads:
1998-99
In Appreciation of the late
Howard Gilman & White Oak Plantation
for donating
The Archway, Rest Room Building
Landscaping
Board Members
Chris Johnson
Lester Mason
Dorothy Peeples
W. W. Reynolds
Hubert Vanzant
The following information about Howard Gilman is from a March 21, 2013 Florida Times-Union news article:
Howard Gilman, the man who turned White Oak Plantation into a dance center, a conservation center and a conference center, was a third-generation paper baron.
His grandfather, Isaac Gilman, an immigrant from Belarus, started the family business in the 1884 by acquiring a paper company in Fitzdale, Vt., which was later renamed Gilman.
Howard’s father, Charles Gilman, moved the company operations south in 1939, building a mill in St. Marys, Ga., and acquiring extensive timberlands in Florida and Georgia, including the 7,400 acres in Nassau County near Yulee that became White Oak Plantation.
After Charles Gilman died in 1967, Howard and his younger brother Charles Jr., known as Chris, took over the company. According to a 2003 article in Forbes Magazine, their “relationship became strained, riven by jealousy and bitterness over control of the company.”
After Chris Gilman died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 51, Howard purchased the company from his widow, Sondra. She told Forbes she sold because she didn’t want to leave her financial future “in irresponsible hands.”
After gaining control of the company, Howard Gilman set out to transform White Oak Plantation, creating a dance studio for his friend Mikhail Baryshnikov, the 600-acre Conservation Center, which houses and breeds more than 20 threatened species, and a 70-building conference center.
Although Gilman entertained celebrity guests including presidents at White Oak, it was never his primary residence. He was born and raised on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1943, he served in the Navy during World War II, then returned to New York City. During his years as chairman of the Gilman Paper Co., the company headquarters were in Manhattan although most of its operations were in Georgia and Florida.
In 1981, Gilman, who never married and had no children, established the Howard Gilman Foundation. He gave millions to his favorite causes: the arts, wildlife conservation and medical research into HIV/AIDS and cardiology.
He “felt a particularly strong passion” for dance, according to The Howard Gilman Foundation website, and supported classical ballet companies like the American Ballet Theater as well as many smaller dance companies in New York. There is a Howard Gilman Performance Space in the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York.
He supported the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera and funded the Howard Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
There is a Howard Gilman Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the museum’s first gallery dedicated to photography. It houses the photography collection of the Gilman Paper Co.
Gilman had a history of heart problems and was visiting White Oak Plantation when he suffered a fatal heart attack on Jan. 3, 1998. He was 73.
At the time of his death, he had $1.1 billion in assets and $550 million of debt, Forbes reported. The Gilman Paper Co. lost $55 million in the last two years of his life.
Almost all of his assets, including the paper company, were left to the Howard Gilman Foundation. In December 1999, the paper company was purchased by the Mexico-based Durango Paper Co. In 2002, Durango closed the plant, costing 900 people their jobs."