Volunteers, community tackle town hall restoration

ANDOVER – Six years and counting, but real progress is taking shape.

The nearly 150-year-old Andover Town Hall is undergoing restoration and repair, thanks to the combined efforts of several volunteers and about $70,000 so far from the town.

“This is a great building,” said Elissa Thibodeau, chairwoman of the Town Hall Restoration Committee. She was covered in paint Monday as she covered some of the trim.

Across the way, Freeman Farrington and Jere Melzar were also rather paint-covered as they covered what was once the small room where Andover residents voted. Now, that room will be used for meetings, and voters will have lots more space in the hall's large, bright dining room.

The project began when more than three dozen windows on the first and second floors were redone and repainted. Since then, a core of about five volunteers with help from many others every so often, have painted, repaired and painted more.

In the second floor hall is one of the most well-preserved canvas murals in the state, believed to be created nearly 100 years ago. The velvet curtains on either side of the 12- by 21-foot artwork have been cleaned and repaired by one volunteer, and the ropes that roll it up and down have been replaced by another.

Farrington and Melzar, among other things, have also brought the oil tank up to code.

Farrington, Melzar and Thibodeau, along with Kathy Richardson and Bradford Thibodeau, have given hundreds of hours to the project.

“The community support has been amazing,” Selectman Trudy Akers said.

So far, between $70,000 and $80,000 has been appropriated at annual town meetings to fix up the town hall,  Thibodeau said.

“We hope to allocate some money every year,” Akers said.

The hall is loved, she said. One year, someone made a motion to close it during the winter months. That motion was soundly defeated.

A major project, to repair the cupola and clock at the top of the building, is currently under way. It is one of the few projects that is not being done by volunteers. Steeplejacks of Biddeford are working on it.

The town and the Restoration Committee expect it to be done by Nov. 11. Then, a townwide celebration will be held to honor the clock tower and bell during its 100th birthday.

Another project is replacement of the boiler in the near future.

Over the years, the town hall has been used by the now defunct Lone Mountain Grange, as a library, for art shows and performances, as a meeting place for the Knights of Pythias, and for a multitude of other events.

“We'd like to see it used more,” Thibodeau said. She said a town resident is interested in searching for greater uses for the building. A committee with that goal may be formed in the future.

Melzar said he enjoys working on the building and giving something back to the town.

Thibodeau said the committee is taking steps to get the town hall on the National Register of Historic Places. A representative from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission is expected to visit the hall, and several surrounding historic structures, sometime within the next few days.

Thibodeau said the commission's representative has indicated that the hall may likely not qualify on its own because of the vinyl siding on the exterior, but a historic district that would include the nearby Congregational Church, gazebo and Andover Historical Society building as well as the town hall may qualify.

Replacement of the siding is one of the committee's many long-term projects Thibodeau said.

“This is a lifelong project,” she said.

eadams@sunjournal.com