Pillar Spotlight: Arete S. Warren

Arete S. Warren is one of this year’s Pillar of New York honorees. Join us to celebrate Arete at the Rainbow Room in NYC for the Pillar Awards on Tuesday, April 18!

Arete S. Warren has put her heart and soul into the League for decades. She is a highly regarded garden-design expert and art historian with a love for the decorative arts and architecture.

After studying art history at Northwestern and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Arete worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, and the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. She was the founding Executive Director of the Royal Oak Foundation.

Arete has held leadership roles on the New York State Board for Historic Preservation, the Empire State Plaza Art Commission, the Metropolitan Opera, the Millbrook Garden Club, and The Garden Club of America. She is the co-author of Glasshouses: An Architectural History of Greenhouses, Conservatories, and Orangeries (Rizzoli International, 1988) and is the author of Gardening by the Book, published in 2013 to accompany the major Grolier Club exhibition she curated.

Arete served as Chair of the League’s Board of Trustees from 2009-2012 and continues to be deeply involved in the League’s work to this day. She has served on the statewide Excellence in Historic Preservation Award Jury for three decades, and her steadfast service has helped guide the League to becoming one of the most successful statewide preservation organizations in the nation. Arete is a League champion and exemplifies what it means to be a Pillar of New York.