OLD DEERFIELD — Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association is looking at ways to renovate the former Deerfield town hall on Memorial Street possibly to create what could be Franklin County’s first convention center.
The problem for PVMA, which owns adjacent Memorial Hall Museum as well as the former Deerfield Grammar School that’s now used as its teacher education center between the two buildings, is that it would need to partner with the larger, more visible Historic Deerfield Inc. on what would be a shared project.
The heads of both museums say they see value in a collaboration that could yield a new entry point for Old Deerfield’s thousands of visitors each year.
And while it’s likely too late to restore the 1846 town hall, with its upstairs auditorium as well as gallery space, in time for PVMA’s 150th anniversary in 2020, says the association Executive Director Tim Neumann, a large-scale collaborative project could help the future of both organizations.
“Part of its claim to importance is that it’s the last of the public buildings in town that isn’t restored,” said Neumann of the white, clapboard-sided building, which was originally a one-story structure that in 1870 was jacked up to have its first floor added below for schoolrooms and a library space. “The white church (next door) is a community center, the brick church functions as a church. But when you’re interpreting the history of New England, you’ve got to have a town hall,” said Neumann.
School functions moved to the 1925 brick Memorial Hall next door, where a dozen or so one-room schoolhouses were consolidated, Neumann says, but the town hall functioned as such until the 1970s, when it moved to South Deerfield.
PVMA was awarded a very competitive $800,000 U.S. Park Service Save America’s Treasures grant, which the association put together with other grants and money from its annual craft fairs to repair the building’s roof and foundation and to replace windows. But its lack of handicapped access and fire-protection equipment has kept the upstairs auditorium from being used.
When the Wisconsin-based Chipstone Foundation consulted with the organizations several years ago on how museums can appeal to changing audiences, one point raised was that visitors aren’t sure where the center of Old Deerfield village is.
Restoring the old town hall, for which PVMA did a feasibility study in 2014, could create a shared orientation center right off Routes 5 and 10 that would not only explain what Historic Deerfield and PVMA’s Memorial Hall Museum offer, but also put it into context and possibly include an exhibit on the village’s central 1704 French and Indian raid and other features. The project could cost $3 million or more, said architect Margo Jones, who chairs PVMA’s building study committee.
The project is planned to be among the issues raised at PVMA’s annual meeting on Sunday.
With an upstairs auditorium that could seat maybe 200 people, as well as house restrooms, and perhaps a snack bar, the restored building could also be combined with meeting space in PVMA’s teacher training center as well as Historic Deerfield’s Community Center next door and its Flynt Center exhibit hall. This could create a conference center for functions of both organizations as well as others, said the PVMA’s study, which also proposed an addition to house an elevator and a kitchen.
“Once you have several venues in one location, within a walkable distance, you can have a convention center,” added PVMA Board Chairwoman Carol Letson, noting that no conference center exists in Franklin County. “This building, I think, has been mothballed, it’s been maintained and waiting for the vision and momentum for an organization to go forward and use it. So we’re exploring all opportunities to use these buildings. One of those opportunities is to work with HD, to get perhaps a joint capital campaign going, benefiting both organizations with improving what Memorial Street looks like, being the welcoming center for both organizations.”
Philip Zea, Historic Deerfield president, said, “The door is open to form some kind of agreement, and that could very likely involve renovation of the old town hall. Right at this minute, there’s nothing really in place for us to go forward with. We continue to talk with them and vice versa, and hopefully at some time in the near future the PVMA Council will agree to go ahead.”
Zea said it could make sense to have a shared visitor’s center directly off Routes 5 and 10 “right in the middle of town. And a gallery with interpretive exhibits that present an overview of the town’s history, the raid and the different people who lived here — all stories that PVMA and Historic Deerfield share … a partnership on that kind of interpretation is certainly desired.”
On the web: www.deerfield-ma.org
www.historic-deerfield.org