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June 26,
2009
Grasmere Town Hall
to get new doors
Also foyer and
staircase: Company
hired to build replica doors
By JILLIAN JORGENSEN
GOFFSTOWN
- In a joint meeting Monday night, the Goffstown Board of
Selectmen and the Historic District Commission unanimously
voted to expend more than $27 thousand from the Grasmere
Town Hall Capital Reserve Fund to replace the historic
hall’s doors and refurbish the foyer and a staircase.
The contract for the work was awarded to Target New
England, a Wolfboro-based contracting company that does
historic preservation work.
Elizabeth Dubrulle, the chairwoman of the Historic
District Commission, said $27,473 would come from the
reserve fund, with an additional $10 to $11 thousand
coming from a New Hampshire Division of Historical
Resources grant.
Dubrelle told the committee that because the Division of
Historical Resources has very strict guidelines, the
project required a contractor who would be able to
accurately recreate the historic doors on the building,
which date back to when it was built in 1889.
“They have strict guidelines about what can be done and
what cannot be done with the money that they are
giving,” Dubrelle said. “It really isn’t an option
to just come in and put all new things on,” she said.
Originally, the division wanted the original doors to be
refurbished, and Dubrelle said the commission had to prove
to the division that refurbishing the door was not
possible.
“The wood is in kind of shaky condition,” she said,
and the fire department told her that the doors, which
swing in both directions, were unacceptable.
Target New England will create replicas of the original
doors, Dubrelle said.
“The doors are going to be specially made,” she said.
The commission had to move quickly to find a contractor
because the grant requires work to be finished by
September 17.
Scott Gross, chairman of the board of selectmen, asked if
because it was a specialty trade there were limited
companies that could do the work.
Mark Collins, who was on the subcommittee that reviewed
the bids for the contract, told him that of all the
companies who put bids on the project, only two appeared
to be companies who were involved with historic
preservation. Others were commercial contractors, he said.
Collins said the town received reference lists, but did
not have time to check the references. Ruth Gage, who also
served on the subcommittee, said they did a thorough job
of vetting candidates.
“We went though everything and every one of them, in the
short time we had to work on it and I really think we did
a thorough job of going over this,” Gage said,
In addition to the doors, work will also be done on the
foyer and the stairs inside, which lead to a theater that
commission plans to refurbish above the town hall’s
meeting rooms.
The work will complete a substantial part of the
building's restoration, which has been one of the
commission's highest priorities.
“A few years ago we re-did the whole front of the
Grasmere Town Hall. This will finish the restoration of
that,” Durbelle said.
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