NORWAY — Preliminary work has begun to put a foundation under the Gingerbread House at its new location on Main Street.
Scott Roberts, owner of a local excavation business, has been moving dirt around the site to prepare the foundation. The cribbing used by James G. Merry Building Movers of Scarborough to get the expansive house to the new site has been kept under it until the foundation is done.
“The foundation work will begin when that crew is able to get to our job,” Patricia Shearman of the Friends of the Gingerbread House said. It has been two and a half years in the planning “and we are taking the time to have it done properly.”
Once the foundation is in place, the bricks from the old foundation will be used to face the new one, Shearman said.
The Friends of the Gingerbread House continues to raise money to keep the restoration work going.
“We are raffling off a beautiful paper tole picture of the house that was made and presented to us by Richard Varney using a photo from Sid Gordon,” Shearman said. The picture will be displayed in front of the Norway Historical Society on Main Street during the sidewalk art festival on July 9.
“We have to reach our goal of $3,633.83 in order to receive the $20,000 promised to us by the Davis Family Foundation. We were given two years to reach the overall goal of $150,000 by this September, so we have a short time left to raise the final monies,” Shearman said.
Donations may be sent to Friends of the Gingerbread House, P.O. Box 525, Norway, ME, 04268.
“We have received many comments about how wonderful the house looks even in its current state. Imagine what it will be like when it is transformed,” she said.
Once the house is stabilized, Shearman said the group will concentrate on procuring a preservation plan.
C’s Inc. which is a real estate holding company affiliated with Sun Media Group, publishers of the Sun Journal and Advertiser-Democrat, agreed in 2008 to delay demolition of the 1851 home if anyone could successfully figure out a way to move the massive house off site.
The volunteer group is hoping to restore the house and will eventually decide how to use it.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- Dirt is stockpiled behind the Gingerbread House on Main Street in Norway as workers prepare to build a foundation for the historic home.
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