Chumash Museum Receives Silver LEED Designation

Local history buffs eagerly awaiting the opening of the Chumash Museum going up along State Route 246 near Santa Ynez will have to wait a bit longer for the official curtain-raiser, but the years-in-the-making project received a LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, recognizing its “environmentally sound design, construction, and operational practices.”

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating comes out of nine measures of building processes, and the museum — officially named the Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center — scored particularly well for water and energy efficiency, materials and resources, and innovative design.

“This achievement underscores our tribe’s commitment to the environment and conservation efforts as we prepare to introduce the community to a one-of-a-kind facility that showcases our history and culture,” said Kenneth Kahn, tribal chair of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. Kahn praised the project architects who designed the museum — Jones & Jones, Architects, Landscape Architects, Planners, of Seattle — and the contractors who run the yet-to-be-complete project — Bernards of San Fernando Valley and Summit Project Management of Culver City — for making “our aspirations for LEED certification a reality.”

The museum is the 15th in California to receive a LEED Silver, sharing the distinction with the Getty Center and California’s Statewide Museum Collection Center, among others. Once completed, the unique structure and the nearby park will hold cultural, language, village, and native plant elements representative of the Chumash people’s history and ongoing endeavors.