The New Hampshire Preservation Alliance presented a preservation award Aug. 11 to the town trustees who have overseen a multi-year restoration of the Smith Memorial Building, Select Board members heard.

The award recognizes the trustees’ work to assess and stabilize the historic building, including restoring original windows and other character-defining features, Jennifer Goodman, executive director of the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, told the Select Board.

Goodman said the awards committee was impressed by the town’s ‘‘model of effective planning and incremental high-quality stewardship’’ and noted the trustees’ long-term evaluation of the building after the town library moved out more than two decades ago.

Trustees’ chair Carla Penfield credited sustained voter support for annual budgets as critical to the project’s success. Penfield said the building had been empty for a decade after the library moved, and she described a roughly 12-year program of repairs the trustees carried out after they were appointed to care for the property in 2014.

Another trustee who spoke at the meeting described specific conservation work: reglazing and repairing windows (a multi-year effort she said cut the heating bill by about two-thirds), removal of mold-damaged carpeting, replacement of trim and ceiling work in an upstairs room, and restoration of the Bangs Room fireplace and chandelier that helped drive interest in preservation.

Trustees and the Select Board staged a short ceremony and photo with the award during the meeting; Goodman said the Preservation Alliance had already honored the project at the Alliance’s central ceremony in June.

The Select Board did not take a separate formal action on the award at the meeting; trustees and guests were invited to the meeting and recognized publicly.

For more information: the trustees encouraged residents to visit the restored Smith Memorial Building and noted the trustees continue to have work planned for the property.