Politics & Government
Historic Sites Get Big Boost for Much-Needed Repairs
As one of the state's oldest towns, Barnstable prides itself on its deep and precious place in American history. Of that sense of pride, few things remind its citizens more of a storied past than its historic buildings.
Community Preservation Committee chairman Lindsey Counsell detailed three renovation-repair projects totalling $382,772 for historic sites in town at Thursday's Barnstable Town Council Meeting.
Most notably is the "Trayser Museum" site that first served as a U.S. Customs House in 1856 until 1913 and then a U.S. Post Office until 1958. The federal government deeded the building and its property to the Town of Barnstable in 1963 and today it serves in large part as the The Coast Guard Heritage Museum.
According to Counsell, the museum is protected with its designation on the National Register of Historic Places, the Old Kings Highway Regional Historic District but most critically, a designation as a "protected place" by the Massachusetts Historical Commission.
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Counsell said his committee recommended the town appropriate $217,894 for critical repairs, which ultimately could be offset by a $100,000 grant from the state historical commission.
Town Councilor Ann Canedy detailed that some of the windows in the building are in such poor shape they "have been boarded up," some windows are literally "taped to the frame" and rainwater pours through cracks in the basement walls "as if someone were holding a hose to it."
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The building will get much-needed window replacements, masonry cracks will be repaired and much more.
The vote to appropriate the funds was unanimous.
As was the vote to appropriate $59,078 to build a new foundation at the Old Selectmen's Building on Route 149 in West Barnstable, the second project the CPA recommended.
Built in 1889 and last used for selectmen's meetings in 1929, the building is currently used as an artist's gallery. Artists, it was detailed, have been chipping into a "Gift Fund" for over 20 years to help offset the expense of the project which totals over $107,000.
Planners explained that the four-foot high foundation beneath the building - basically constructed of a thin wall of brick stacked upon "rubble" - had deteriorated to the point of near-danger, and Counsell added that piers in the current basement were in poor shape as well.
The plan is to lift the entire building, rebuild its foundation, and then re-attach the building to the new foundation. Again, the vote to expend $59,078 was unanimous.
A subsequent request to appropriate $107,000 for repairs at the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum on Main Street, the site of what's known as "the Old Town Hall," and currently the home the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame as one of its tenants, is the third CPA project.
Hyannis Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors President Warren Rutherford spoke up in favor of the proposed expenditure, citing that the building currently generates some $60,000 annually in lease revenue from tenants therein.
The vote to appropriate the funds for roof repairs, among many other items, was 11-1. Councilor Canedy cast the dissenting vote.
