NORWAY – Work has begun to replace the roof on the historic Gingerbread House.
Above and Beyond of Lewiston was awarded the bid to repair the gabled roof and its elaborate millwork on the 80- by 20-foot, two-story house on Main Street. The company’s bid of $54,370 was accepted by the Norway Landmarks Preservation Society earlier this month.
Ryan Bois of Auburn and David Austin of Turner are working on the gable eves and decking of the roof this week, replacing rotted wood and metal trim. The overall project will include replacing shingles on the main house and turret roofs, structural repairs where necessary and flashing.
“It’s not structural,” Bois said of the limited wood rot and metal drip edge trim rot he was replacing on the side of the building facing Pennesseewassee Stream.
Above and Beyond will have a team of carpenters, roofers and sheet metal workers on the project.
The work will include the four-story turret. The iron fence around the top of it is built in sections about 3 feet long and 12 inches tall. It has to be removed, restored, painted and reattached.
Mike Mathieu of Above and Beyond Roofing said earlier that workers will remove the old shingles and install a new layer of plywood on the roof before reshingling it with a brownish shingle that will give the appearance of wood shingles.
The Norway Landmarks Preservation Society has been raising money for several years to rehabilitate the downtown landmark built in 1851. The house became commonly known as the Gingerbread House for its elaborate trim added in the late 19th century.
In 2008, C’s Inc., a real estate holding company affiliated with Sun Media Group, publishers of the Sun Journal and Advertiser-Democrat, agreed to delay demolition of the house if someone could move it. Friends of the Gingerbread House, who later formed the nonprofit Norway Landmarks Preservation Society, banded together to save it. In 2011, the house was moved about 950 feet up the street near Butters Park.
The society has a $20,000 grant from the Davis Family Foundation and $8,400 from its Buy-A-Bundle campaign. That campaign will start again next month to raise another $10,000.
Donations can be made to Friends of the Gingerbread House, P.O. Box 525 Norway, ME 04268 or on the website www.gingerbreadhousenorway.org.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- Ryan Boies of Auburn replaces some of the decking on the back side of the Gingerbread House roof Thursday. The work is part of the preservation of the Main Street landmark.
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