The Friends of the Gingerbread House say to make and install windows to match what’s there would cost between $2,500 and $3,500 for each window.  

The First Universalist Church on Main Street is reflected in a window of the Gingerbread House in Norway.

NORWAY — Friends of the Gingerbread House must raise $100,000 by Nov. 15 to move the ornate, three-story building onto a new foundation and secure it, or it will be demolished.

The announcement came with the news Wednesday that the Davis Family Foundation had agreed to give $20,000 toward the effort to save the historic house on Main Street if Friends of the Gingerbread House can raise $150,000 within a specified time, said Norway Downtown President Andrea Burns.

“It validates that the work that is being done is critical and worthy of supporting,” Burns said of the foundation grant. The grant application was written by Ellen Gibson with oversight by Friends of the Gingerbread House.

The major fundraising effort for the first phase of a three-phase plan to save the building was announced by Pat Shearman, chairman of Friends of the Gingerbread House, in a Sept. 15 letter to businesses and individuals.

“You have driven by the house for years, watching as it slowly deteriorated and began to look haunted,” Shearman wrote.  “Built in the days when buildings were meant to last, this elegant house has not given up its dignity easily. A slow fall from grace has been its fate. Now imagine a restored house, glowing in the late afternoon sun at the gateway to Norway. The windows are lighted, the gingerbread adornments are gleaming and the house is a hub of activity.” 

Shearman wrote, “Everything is in place for the house to be saved.” 

Preservation experts say the building appears to be solid except for
the entrance and rear ell. Les Fossel of Restoration Resources in Alna,
who viewed the building in 2006 at the request of the Norway Downtown
and Maine Preservation, said the building could be moved in one piece. 

The proposed new site of the building, which sits between the Sun Media Group building and the Matolcsy Arts Center, is a nearby lot on Main Street opposite the entrance to Pleasant Street by Bob Butters Park. It is considered the gateway to downtown Norway from Lake Pennesseewassee. It includes other historic buildings: the First Universalist Church, a former one-room schoolhouse that houses the Matolcsy Arts Center, a carriage house with a distinctive cupola and several other historically and architecturally significant buildings.

“Norway Downtown continues to support the project because the Gingerbread House is a piece of our architectural and social history,” Burns said. “It’s a prime building for adaptive and new use.”

Monetary support for the project began early when Board of Selectman Chairman Bill Damon offered his chairman’s stipend of $1,800 in March toward the cause and called on others to help. Others, including Barry Allen of Main-Lain Development Consultants in Livermore Falls and Rob Prue of Pine Tree Engineering in Bath, have offered their services for free, according to the group.

In addition to the Davis Family Foundation, a number of local and statewide individuals and groups have voiced support for the project.

According to the plan, the first phase will involve getting bids for electrical, plumbing, surveying and foundation excavation work. Phase 2, which is expected to be completed by December, will involve moving the house. That cost has been estimated at about $25,000 plus another $20,000 to build a foundation.

During Phase 1 the building will remain under present ownership. The Norway Historical Society will oversee the beginning stages of the preservation process.

The Norway Landmarks Preservation Society has been formed and has a nonprofit status to allow tax-exempt donations. It is hoped that $200,000 will be raised over the next two years to rehabilitate the building. Donations will include money, land and free services.

Ideas such as using the house for commercial space or activities with a focus on art, history or preservation have been bandied about by the committee.

The house is about 40 feet wide and 85 feet long with a four-story
turret and a side porch. Noted for its elaborate gingerbread style, it
was built by Richard Evans in 1855 and later bought by the founder of
C.B. Cummings & Sons wood mill, according to the Norway Historical
Society.

The elaborate filigree that adorns the outside of the
house was added between 1885 and 1892 after Cummings bought it. The
house was made into a museum in the 1940s by the last Cummings family
to live in it. Later, it was converted into apartments until the
Advertiser-Democrat acquired it. C’s Inc., which owns the Sun Journal
and Advertiser-Democrat newspapers, purchased it in 2006.

It has been vacant for perhaps 15 to 20 years, one historical society member said.

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