Two Franklin County projects are among the recipients of a new historic preservation grant program in Massachusetts.
Preservation Massachusetts, a statewide non-profit historic preservation organization that manages grants for the 1772 Foundation, awarded $10,000 to Historic Deerfield Inc. to repair 18 windows on the Creelman House, and $10,000 for the exterior painting of the East Hawley Meetinghouse.
A total of 14 historic preservation projects received grants for building exteriors, according to a statement from Preservation Massachusetts.
Historic Deerfield applied earlier this year for the grant in search of money to help fund the renovation of the Creelman House, which the society acquired in December 2018 for $2 million, according to Philip Zea, president and CEO of Historic Deerfield.
“We purchased it a year and a half ago from the Creelman family with the idea of basically turning it into dormitory space for Historic Deerfield’s summer fellowship program … and other programs and projects like that,” he said. “Once we acquired it, then we had to think about fixing it up — renovating it — which of course has to be to code, given how we want to use it.”
The grant money will go entirely toward window repairs, he said.
Zea said Historic Deerfield hoped to have restoration of the house underway by now, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the process has been put on hold. The last time any major work was done on the home, located at 43 Old Main St., was in the early 1980s.
The Sons and Daughters of Hawley (SDH), which also received a Preservation Massachusetts grant of $10,000, plans to use the money to paint the East Hawley Meetinghouse.
“The preservation of the meetinghouse is the most important part of SDH’s mission,” President John Sears said in a statement. “The grant will be used to cover the most expensive part of the project: the painting of the base of the steeple, which will require the renting of a lift.”
Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 263. Twitter: @MaryEByrne