Amity and Woodbridge Historical Society Establishes Building Fund

The Amity and Woodbridge Historical Society has been busy doing lots of work on our collections and on the buildings on the grounds of the Darling House. With a matching grant from the 1772 Foundation, painting and repair work on the porch and the entire “street-facing façade” of the Museum is ongoing, as well as needed repairs to the small outbuildings.
We were awarded a Planning & Survey Grant from the State of Connecticut to assess the conditions of the three large barns and develop a preservation plan for them. We have received the first reports of the engineering surveys. The engineers found that the cow and horse barns are in good condition for their age but do need repair and preservation work, and we have already started the planning process to submit a Historic Restoration Fund matching grant to the State in the fall.
The icehouse, although the “youngest” of the buildings, is also the most lightly framed and is in need of urgent stabilization to prevent further loss of its structural integrity, and potentially the building itself if we were to experience an extreme weather event. The Society is working to take immediate action and has already informed the Woodbridge Board Of Selectman of the need to move quickly.
The estimated cost to complete the urgent icehouse stabilization is $13,900. To do this we are going to establish a building fund that will help complete all the required work on the barns that is needed over the next 5 years.
To kick off the establishment of this fund, we have a very generous Woodbridge resident who has offered to match, dollar for dollar up to $5000 of donations! We are asking for your support to help us establish this fund so that we can take full advantage of this matching offer to raise a total of $10,000.

Please visit www.woodbridgehistory.org for more information