Waterford — Growing up, Helen Post Curry knew very little about her family's connection to the buildings at the former Seaside tuberculosis sanatorium.

Her father, the grandson of the renowned architect and Seaside designer Cass Gilbert, died when Curry was young, so she knew little about the great-grandfather who designed the buildings in Waterford that architecture experts and historic preservationists call a "jewel of the Connecticut state park system."

"It was sort of vaguely in my consciousness, but I had no clue," Post Curry said. "I certainly had no clue how much people love his work."

Post Curry, who lives in New Canaan, said testifying against bills raised by state Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, during the last legislative session has sparked a new emotional investment in the Seaside buildings that she said led her to consider starting a group of volunteers that would be known as the Friends of Seaside State Park.

Formica supported two bills, both of which failed to pass out of legislative committees, that would have required the state to sell Seaside and called into question Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's decision four years ago to establish Seaside as a state park.

Post Curry said she supports the state's vision of Seaside as a hybrid state park and privately-run lodge in the Gilbert buildings, which have remained empty since the state residential facility for people with developmental disabilities and mental illness closed in 1996.

She will be holding an interest meeting in the group scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at Waterford Public Library. She hopes to bring together Waterford residents and historic preservation experts to keep pressure on state officials to stay committed to keeping a park at Seaside and restoring the buildings — even as Malloy, the architect of the state park idea, leaves office.

"What's the big unknown is what's going to happen when the new administration is going to come in," Post Curry said. "If there's a designated 'friends of' group that is in place ... that again adds another layer of legitimacy to it. It at least sends a message to everyone that there is a group of concerned citizens that are watching this, and that are going to be out in front ... if anything seems to be going awry."

Friends of Connecticut State Parks President Pamela Aey Adams, who runs the umbrella organization for the two dozen volunteer groups that support Connecticut state parks and forests, said she encouraged Post Curry to form the group and told her that while activity varies between groups, they can serve as a buoy to parks suffering from shrinking DEEP budgets.

The Friends of Harkness group that supports Harkness Memorial State Park, next door to Seaside, boasts hundreds of members who contribute more than 12,000 hours of volunteer work per year.

"Volunteers can do a lot of things that the state parks can't," Adams said. "They earn money and buy things that the state parks really can't afford."

The details of how a friends group at Seaside would work remain hazy, given the expected presence of a third party: the developer chosen to run the lodge on the site.

The state's request for proposals, which gives developers until July 27 to respond, calls for at least a 50-year lease of the buildings for a hotel with up to 100 rooms, and leaves the rest of the park and beach open to the public.

The ideal proposal would "offer amenities such as dining, meeting space, and a spa, and make the site an attractive destination that works in harmony with adjacent neighbors, the community, and nearby park properties," according to the request.

Post Curry said she doesn't know yet what the relationship would be between the group and the lodge developer — other friends groups work with state officials on park issues through a relationship with the park's supervisor, with no private entities involved.

For now, she is gauging interest by holding the meeting, hoping to attract Seaside neighbors — many of whom are skeptical of the state's lodge plan — preservationists and anyone interested in the future of Seaside.

"It's not just a local effort," she said. "There are a lot of Gilbert fans and architectural historians and preservationists, and people that are Gilbert scholars and authors, that care about these building. Once we have this organization, then that becomes a place for all of these people to join in the effort."

m.shanahan@theday.com

If You Go

What: Meeting on the formation of Friends of Seaside State Park

Where: Waterford Public Library

When: 6 p.m. Wednesday