Originally named The American Craftsman Museum, Ciccarello presented his plans for a permanent home for his personal collection of American Arts and Crafts furniture and artwork to the city of
Tampa in 2012. The 75,000 square-foot (7,000 m2) museum and adjoining restaurant was proposed for a site at the edge of
Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, along the
Hillsborough River and across from the
Tampa Museum of Art and
Glazer Children's Museum. When he and the city were unable to agree on financial terms, Ciccarello chose to forgo government assistance in favor of a privately-funded facility. Ciccarello, who founded a pharmaceutical distribution business, became interested in the Arts and Crafts movement in 1997 after seeing a reproduction of a bookcase in the style of
Gustav Stickley, a furniture manufacturer and major influence on
American Craftsman architecture. Later that year, Ciccarello purchased an original Stickley bookcase on auction in Boston, Massachusetts, marking the start of what would become the Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement's collection. In recent years, Ciccarello has begun to collect the work of early 20th century photographers from the
Pictorialism and
Photo-Secession movements, including
Alvin Langdon Coburn,
Edward S. Curtis, and
Alfred Stieglitz. Kevin W. Tucker, the former Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design with the
Dallas Museum of Art was appointed the inaugural Director of the MAACM in 2015. == Building ==