The Mill Renovation Begins

We have a dream. And now, thanks to the generous support of the friends of the Chester Historical Society, we are fulfilling that dream.

Our dream is to create a museum of Chester history — the Chester Museum at the Mill — which will house our rich collection of Chester historical artifacts. The Chester Museum at the Mill will offer exhibits open to the public that will tell the story of Chester, from the Native Americans who first inhabited the area and the farmers and traders who moved up from Saybrook. The museum will trace how the Industrial Revolution changed Chester and the rest of the world, and will conclude with the present evolution of our serene, bucolic town that has become a haven for families, artists and professionals who see Chester as a refreshing escape from their hectic urban lives.

The building, the former home of the Chester Masons and most recently the National Theatre of the Deaf, was purchased by the Chester Historical Society in 2001. We are already using The Mill to host lectures and other events that help residents and visitors understand more of Chester's past.

But before we can fully realize our dream, the building needs updating. Our Building Committee, along with our able architect, Steve Lloyd, himself a longtime Chester resident and avid architectural historian, has completed the building renovation plans. The renovation is a massive effort that will take some years and much money to complete. But we are very excited that work has begun and we are now beginning to see the fruits of several years' work. We have already replaced the gutters and built a handicapped access ramp. We have constructed an emergency exit stairway that replaced the unsafe and unsightly iron fire escape on the front of the building. The stairway provides an internal secondary egress from the second floor and code-compliant exit door.

In 2004 we began the replacement of an antiquated heating system with an energy-efficient environmental control system. The new system is being installed in stages. When fully installed, it will not only heat the building, it will cool it and keep temperature and humidity within the tight tolerances demanded for the storage and display of the fragile textiles, paper, and wood items in our collection. We also replaced the antiquated restrooms, building two ADA-compliant restrooms that meet current building codes for servicing a building of our size.

Thanks to the generous contributions of early donors, in 2005 we were able to install a kitchen and an elevator. Last year we replaced almost all of the windows in the building, providing a much more heat-efficient environment and UV protection for our sensitive archives. We also refinished the main room upstairs, the room which will become our main display area. Finally, over the summer we repainted the entire exterior of the building, repairing our prized cupola in the process.

During the winter of 2007/2008, the building will be closed to the public as we complete a very important phase of the renovations: construction of three archival storage areas. We are particularly excited about this work because it will allow us to realize our vision of "Bringing History Home" to the Mill. We will be replacing the main stairway and doing other infrastructure work at the same time.

Once the building re-opens in the spring of 2008, come by and check the work that has been completed to date; come to our events to get a glimpse of what your Chester Museum at The Mill will eventually become; and please give generously to Bringing History Home, the Campaign for the Chester Museum at The Mill