Demolition of historic Norris House in downtown Concord to make way for new development

Time has run out for the historic Norris House in downtown Concord, which will be demolished next week after attempts to save it.

Time has run out for the historic Norris House in downtown Concord, which will be demolished next week after attempts to save it. Geoff Forester—Monitor staff

By DAVID BROOKS

Monitor staff

Published: 05-16-2024 10:42 AM

Modified: 05-16-2024 3:38 PM


The historic Norris House on South Main Street will be torn down next week to make way for a commercial development after years of failed efforts to get somebody to cover the six-figure cost to move it to safety.

“We have removed the transom over the door, the fireplace fronts, the chandelier and are taking a couple of fireplace surrounds” to preserve them, developer Steve Duprey wrote Wednesday in response to a Monitor query. “We have had two different photographers take photos. Demolition will start next week.”

The green Norris House, between Concord Co-Op and the Bank of NH Stage, dates to 1860 and has been associated with a Civil War bakery, the nation’s first woman-run independent movie theater and Concord’s first YMCA. Its history and appearance, and the fact that it is in good condition for its age, have prodded multiple efforts to save it.

Duprey bought the house in 2018 as part of renovations that created the Bank of NH Stage, which shares an alleyway with the building. It was owned by Families in Transition, which used it to sell secondhand clothing and furniture. He says he has long planned to develop the site but that it would be too expensive to turn the house into condominiums or apartments – he wrote it would take roughly $300,000 to create each 900-square-foot living area – and it wouldn’t work for commercial use.

Shifting the house to another property is the only way to save it but the expense has always been the big stumbling block. Just getting companies to move wires off utility poles so the three-story building would pass down Main Street, for example, would cost at least $75,000.

Duprey said he repeatedly delayed his plans in hopes that the building would find a savior. The most recent effort came from Sarah Mathieu, a Concord resident and owner of historic property who wrote in the Monitor on May 10 how she spent time trying to save the house: “I dug into financing, zoning, moving utilities, and everything else needed to move a building of that size. Unfortunately, the relocation costs were much higher than originally estimated,” she wrote.

Duprey plans to replace the Norris House with a two-story building that would hold a Friendly Toast restaurant, with a live-music-focused bar and restaurant in a converted carriage house at the back of the property. The alleyway would be spruced up, to pull pedestrian traffic into a courtyard.

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