NORWAY – Plans are still in the works to review the possibility of saving the Gingerbread House from the wrecking ball, but local officials don’t hold out much hope.

“It would take a monumental effort to bring that back,” said Selectman Bruce Cook, who had his first tour of the interior of the building last week. “It must have been a heck of a building in its day.”

The dilapidated 1855 Gingerbread House, owned by C’s Inc., a holding company for the newspaper company Sun Media, has been offered to the town and the Historical Society with the provision that it be moved off site. A proposal from the town must be in place by Dec. 31 or the building will be demolished.

“In its day it certainly was a masterpiece,” said Cook, who toured the building’s interior with Town Manager David Holt, Ed Snook of Sun Media and Al Hodson, a structural engineer with Resurgence Engineering and Preservation of Portland, who has been hired by the town to give a structural assessment of the Opera House.

Holt said Monday that he is attempting to get a meeting of interested people together soon to discuss what options, if any, there are to save the historic building.

“It certainly has deteriorated greatly and it presents a great challenge,” he said of the building known also as the Evans-Cummings House.

With efforts under way to save the Opera House and the Gingerbread House and to paint the Norway Grange, officials agree it’s difficult to do them all.

Holt said he did not see himself recommending the town take on the building, but other groups or individuals may be willing to do so.

“We can only do so much,” said Selectmen Chairman Bill Damon, who offered to put up $250,000 of his own money to buy and save the Opera House.

Holt said last month that he will have an informal meeting of groups such as the Historical Society and Matolcsy Arts Center, whose buildings are adjacent to the building, to see if there is any interest in moving forward with acquiring the Gingerbread House.

The Opera House and the Gingerbread House both face uncertain futures. They are located downtown within the National Historic District and have been at the center of several town-wide forums during the past few months aimed at educating and promoting discussion of historical buildings in Norway.

Anyone interested in attending the meeting or getting further information about the building should contact Holt at the Town Hall.