Friends of Hearthside outline completed repairs, request $35,000–$40,000 for exterior painting and repairs

Bill McManus, former member of the budget board and a representative of Friends of Hearthside, summarized recent capital work and future requests at the Lincoln Budget Board meeting. Friends of Hearthside manages the town-owned Hearthside House and the Great Road Heritage Campus, including the Pullen Corner Schoolhouse, Hanaway Blacksmith Shop, Chase Farm Visitor Center and Moffett Mill.

“The mission … is to preserve, protect and promote and interpret the history of Lincoln’s town owned Hearthside house and the Great Road Heritage Campus,” said Bill McManus, describing the group’s work and its partnership with the town. He told the board Friends of Hearthside and the town have shared funding since FY 2022 and that volunteers contributed labor and donations to recent repairs.

McManus and other presenters said recent completed projects include window and sill repairs, a new roof on the archive building, purchase of a 13-passenger van funded by a $50,000 grant, chimney repointing and roof work, restoration of several doors (including a kitchen door restored by Heritage Restoration), blacksmith-shop door repairs, stump removal and rear-porch rebuilding after a storm, and a new crosswalk. For FY 24–25 they reported total chimney and roof work cost about $21,000 (town paid $11,000; Friends contributed $10,000) and a door restoration project came in at $26,000.

For the upcoming budget year Friends of Hearthside requested funding to cover exterior painting and wood repairs, repainting of the handicap ramp, removal of old heating vents and gas pipes at the rear of the house, repairs and paint for the schoolhouse door and trim, and refinishing six visitor-center doors. The group said it has estimates of roughly $35,000 for those exterior painting and door finishes and asked that the town consider that amount in the municipal budget; the town administrator, McManus said, had put a $40,000 request forward after accounting for additional tree replacement needs.

Friends of Hearthside also listed future-year needs including interior painting (which would require temporary museum closure), replastering and wallpapering a parlor damaged by water, and an engineering study and stonemason work at Moffett Mill, with a potential mill roof replacement in 2027–28 estimated in the $40,000–$50,000 range. McManus emphasized historic-preservation restrictions: several campus buildings, he said, are covered by older federal grant terms and by the Secretary of the Interior’s standards, which guide restoration work and constrain how the buildings may be altered.

The board did not take a formal vote on the Friends’ request during the session; presenters asked the budget board and town staff to follow up on details and on ensuring the town’s capital request reflects the additional items the town administrator included.

Friends of Hearthside materials in the meeting packet showed Friends contributing roughly 46% of the group’s four-year funding total and the town contributing about 46%, with grants making up the remainder; presenters said annual expenditures averaged about $70,000 over the prior multi-year period.