LIVERMORE FALLS — The Judson Record House, now Maine’s Paper & Heritage Museum, has been entered in the National Register of Historic Places, according to the director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

The designation means the museum’s board of directors can seek grants to help improve the building.

“Oh my God. It is like an open door to grants,” board Vice President Sherry Judd said Thursday when she learned of the building’s new status.

One of the board’s plans is to get the 1906 building scraped, repaired and painted, she said.

The designation on the National Register of Historic Places indicates the property has been documented, evaluated and considered worthy of preservation and protection as part of the nation’s cultural heritage, Earle G. Shettleworth, commission director, said in a news release.

The commission approved the nomination earlier this year and sent it along with supporting materials on Jan. 30 to the Keeper of the Register of the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C.

Judd credits Christi Mitchell, a National Register coordinator and state architectural historian for the state commission, for doing a lot of the work to get the house recognized.

International Paper donated the building at 22 Church St. in Livermore Falls in 2007 after it sold the Androscoggin Mill in Jay to Verso Paper Corp. in 2006. The purpose was to house the museum.

The stately building atop a hill and across from the First Baptist Church was initially built for the Record Family.

“The Georgian Revival-style house was designed by the Lewiston architectural firm of Coombs and Gibbs in 1906 and constructed shortly thereafter,” the commission’s release said. “In addition, it is a significant link to the industries and men that developed the town and the area. Its first owner, Judson A. Record, owned a foundry and machine company, and was a son of Alvin A. Record, who was responsible for introducing pulp and paper manufacturing to Livermore Falls in the 1870s,” according to the release.

In 1917, then-owner William Murray signed the property over to IP, and it became the residence for IP’s paper mill managers. In the 1970s, the company turned the house into offices for its regional forest resources team, IP said in a release in 2007.

The museum contains history and preserves the culture of the state’s paper industry, including the people, tools, photos and documents.

The Maine’s Paper & Heritage Museum committee is a group of current and retired paper mill workers and business and community leaders that worked for several years, beginning in 2002, toward a dream of an actual museum along the banks of the Androscoggin River in western Maine.

“The Record House illustrates the broad patterns (of) local industrial history in the (20th) century as well as a good local example of Georgian Revival architecture,” the commission’s release said.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net

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