Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, this was the “professional” opinion that the town’s highly paid consultant, Freddie Gillespie, delivered to the the Community Preservation Commission last month in response to the Society ‘s request to utilize town CPC funds at Fayville Hall to finish the site-work mandated by the Planning Board. “There is nothing historical left at Fayville Hall,” she repeated. “It’s all been ripped out.” Another equally knowledgeable member, who also had never visited the site, opined: “It’s been totally altered… There will be nothing historical to see inside!” (Ah, nothing but the town museum…) “Plus, people will have to pay to get in!” (Also wrong. ) But my favorite was when a third member, Kristen LeVault cried “Why are we even bothering with this? Just say no! It’s our money!” (Note to Kristen: its not your money, dearie; its our tax payer dollars.)
And on and on the nonsense went over several meetings and dozens of unreasonable demands , despite three written clarifications to the CPC and multiple attempts by our board members to correct the spoken record. (We were actually shut out of the virtual meeting at one point, unable to reply for over an hour, and talked over by Ms. Gillespie throughout.) In total disgust with these blatantly partisan antics, the Society withdrew its application after it became apparent that various CPC members were abusing their positions to prevent our request from reaching the town meeting floor, where it probably would have passed.
Some battles are just not worth the cost, and this was clearly one.
We are now in the process of securing other funding, never fear.
But for the record, and just to show reasonable folks like you that there IS in fact a lot of historical fabric left at Fayville, we wanted to share with you a brand new picture of the grand staircase, above, freshly hand-sanded, and showing off its beautiful oak grain for the first time in 100 years. Thanks to new SHS board member Jon Delli Priscoli, who donated a supply of rare period 1″ thick oak boards, we’ll be able to restore the oak trim in the entry hall that was ripped out during the town’s tenancy. Returning too will be the wonderful wrought-iron art nouveau ticket window that once graced this space. And of course, the upstairs assembly room, with original floors and ceiling height restored.
But of course, there’s nothing historic about any of that!
On a happier note, we are still anticipating a soft opening for the History and Arts Center this fall, with the facility fully operational by winter 2025. At lot remains to be done, not only inside the building (which now has inside walls for the first time in 5 years) but also the site work outside— in addition, of course, to the herculean process of moving our collections from the Flagg School to Fayville.
However, that worry is for another day.
