Cupola At Town Hall Undergoes Facelift

SOUTHAMPTON, NY — Southampton Town Hall's cupola has just had a facelift to restore it to its full beauty.

The renovation project, which just wrapped up, began in May to repair damage created from age and exacerbated by recent storms, town officials said.

Town Hall was originally constructed as a school in the early 1900s and the ornate cupola on the top of the building was created out of wood, serving as a ventilation source for the original coal-heated building, town officials explained. In October, 2017, engineers noticed the columns of the cupola were deteriorating and that a recent storm had caused damage to the flooring, sending rain water into the lower levels of Town Hall, including the town board room.

Using insurance funds, the renovation work cost approximately $150,000. Improvements include the installation of scaffolding and safety measures to perform the work on the cupola; replacement of a decorative portion of the cupola columns with a fiber reinforced polymer system; scraping and painting of the remaining portions of the cupola; and repairing the interior drainage components that malfunctioned during the storm.

The town used an existing contract with RENU Restoration and Contracting to perform the repairs, a release from Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said.

Patch file photo.