Springfield Historical Society on the move

The landmark Miller Art Center, the longtime downtown home of the Springfield Art and Historical Society, has been sold and the society is moving to North Springfield.

Springfield Historical Society on the move By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer | July 09,2015 Email Article Print Article PHOTO BY LEN EMERY The history of Springfield is now packed in boxes and ready to be put in storage after the sale of the Miller Art Center overlooking Main Street in Springfield. SPRINGFIELD — The landmark Miller Art Center, the longtime downtown home of the Springfield Art and Historical Society, has been sold and the society is moving to North Springfield. A couple from Connecticut plans to restore the 1866 mansion and make it their home, Bunni Putnam, president of the Springfield Art and Historical Society, said Wednesday. “It’s wonderful for the house. It’s a gorgeous house,” Putnam said. “But we had no money to do the repairs and it will fall down around us.” The house had been on the market for close to two years. Putnam said the closing for the sale is slated for next week; the building sold for $220,000. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, and holds a prominent spot overlooking downtown Springfield. Putnam said the new owners like to renovate old Victorian homes. Putnam said society volunteers are busy packing up the three floors’ worth of art, artifacts and historical documents, and preparing for the move to their new home in North Springfield, the former probate court. She said the society signed a five-year lease with Cota & Cota Oil for the probate court space Tuesday. “I have the keys to the new facility and we have to start moving,” Putnam said. The probate court office is smaller than the group would have liked, she said, and there isn’t that much display space, either. But she said the smaller space means the group will have revolving displays of its many historical items, and things won’t be on permanent display as they were at the Miller Center. “Our new board, our hope is to get this stuff out and tell people about it,” Putnam said. “Springfield is not just the machine tool industry. Springfield has a really rich history.” The Miller Art Center’s tile roof needs repair, and its brick façade needs to be repointed, she said, and the wooden trim is rotting. The carriage house needs major repairs as well, she said. Putnam said that the center needs $200,000 to $300,000 in repairs — an insurmountable hurdle for the small society. The group looked for space in downtown Springfield, but couldn’t find anything that met its needs. “Downtown? We have looked everywhere,” Punam said. “The problem with Main Street and all those empty storefronts, they were all built before 1900, and they are big, old, dry, wooden buildings.” That presented a fire hazard to the society’s irreplaceable collections, she said. The new space will have an alarm system, she said. The society also looked at One Hundred River Street, the former Fellows Gear Shaper complex, but decided it was too expensive and needed too many costly renovations before they could move in. Putnam said the center would have had to pour a new concrete floor, install walls and other work, that would have cost about half of the money the society realized from the current building’s sale. And, she said, after renovating the space, the group would still have had to pay rent and other monthly building expenses. The new lease is for $1,000 a month, including heat, electricity, water and winter plowing. The move is costing the society about $10,000, she said, including moving, packing and other expenses. The Miller Art Center was left to the town by the longtime former president of Fellows Gear Shaper, Edward “Ted” Miller, and his wife Grace in 1955. The Miller family had lived in the Colonial Revival-Italian Villa style home from 1928-55. Putnam said the society needs to raise about $18,000 a year to be an active group “and not just a warehouse for Springfield’s artifacts.” She said that the group hopes to have a reopening celebration during its annual meeting Oct. 17.