Preservation Alliance lists landmarks to save

The Shakers quarried the stone in nearby Canaan and slid it across the frozen lake to get it to their building site in Enfield. They dug the foundation, milled the lumber and spent three years crafting cupboards, banisters and hundreds of built-in drawers before completing what's known as the Great Stone Dwelling in 1841.

Over time, this vibrant community of Shakers would fade into history, leaving the building - the largest Shaker dwelling ever constructed - behind.

Now, that building is listed among the key properties in the state in need of help.

The New Hampshire Preservation Alliance picked through dozens of nominated properties to identify "Seven to Save," a list of important state landmarks at risk - several of them on the National Register of Historic Places. The list was unveiled yesterday evening.

Among the properties is the Epsom Bible Church. Time is running out on a fundraising effort to move the 1861 landmark on Route 4 from its current site, purchased by Cumberland Farms.

"The goal of the program is to attract public attention," said Jennifer Goodman of the state Preservation Alliance. Many of the properties are the focus of local efforts at fundraising or preservation, and it's hoped that statewide attention will bring additional assistance.

The properties range from a Seacoast lighthouse and a bridge in Keene to a five-generation family inn and farm in Shelburne.

The six-story Shaker communal home, with its kitchen, worship space and rooftop bell, is on the list, coinciding with an effort by its trustees to raise $1.1 million to replace the furnace; fix the roof, electrical and plumbing systems; and install energy-efficient windows so the building can continue to be used year-round for educational programs.

Three totaling $450,000 will allow the trustees to pay off the mortgage. A remaining $660,000 needs to be raised to deal with deferred maintenance and make the building more energy efficient.

The Shaker home remains structurally sound, says Mary Ann Haagen, a former trustee who is co-chairwoman of the capital campaign. Although there is some water damage and some of the original craftwork inside was pilfered over the years, it still reflects the Shaker attention to detail.

"Everything was done well. No corners were cut," she said. "The building just speaks so powerfully. It's still a very impressive structure."

On the opposite side of the state, the Philbrook Farm Inn made the list as the nation's oldest continuously run inn remaining in a single family. It's in the hands of the fifth generation of Philbrooks, but Ann Leger says neither she nor her younger brother have children to take over the business. The many far-flung Philbrook cousins have lives of their own.

"We're it. That's the concern - what's going to happen next," she said.

Leger, her brother, her mother and her aunt, don't want to sell and watch the farmland be developed. In addition to the inn and several cottages on the property, the Philbrook family owns almost 1,000 acres of prime farmland along the Androscoggin River with a view of the Presidential Ranges.

Leger remembers the days when it still was a working farm.

"I remember churning cream and plucking chickens, and I remember being beaten soundly when I let the piglets out," she said, laughing.

The Conservation Fund is working now to raise funds for a conservation easement for the property.

"This easement project will provide financial support for continuing the family business and ensure long-term protection of this historic landmark property," Nancy Bell, of The Conservation Fund, said in a statement.

But "Seven to Save" is a misnomer since all of the state-owned historic sites - roughly 20 in all - are lumped into one category. Goodman said this was done because the properties share the same owner and many of the same issues. In this category falls the White Island lighthouse built in 1853, the Robert Frost Farm in Derry and the Weeks Estate in Lancaster, where porcupines are chewing up a wooden entryway to a tower on the property. (next page »)