Work on old Bath High School to resume

Published 1:20 am Wednesday, May 4, 2011

BATH — Major restoration of exteriors of the former Bath High School building starts this summer, a result of successful fall and winter fundraising campaigns to raise funds to fix up the historic facility, said Jimmy Edwards, president of Bath High School Preservation.

Edwards said the exterior work includes replacing the roof, restoring the original entrance to the auditorium and restoring windows facing the flagpole courtyard, N.C. Highway 92 and King Street.

Edwards said the fundraising campaign gained momentum with receipt of a $50,000 grant from the Historic Bath Foundation and a $20,000 challenge grant from the Marion Stedman Covington Foundation of Greensboro. The foundations works for the preservation of historic structures in North Carolina.

“The Covington grant touched off a flurry of fundraising activity,” he said. “Not only did we raise the $20,000 for the match, but the Covington grant inspired an anonymous gift of $35,000 to be used for the exterior.”

Edwards noted that Claudia Alligood, who is charge of BHSP’s fundraising efforts, organized an oyster roast that netted more than $8,000 for BHSP. She is making plans for fundraisers this summer and fall, he said.

The high school, which graduated its last class in 1989, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as “an excellent and intact example of an early 20th Century Consolidated School executed in the Colonial Revival style with a high degree of integrity.”

Edwards said that pedigree alone makes the school worth saving.

“But there is an even more compelling reason,” he said. “The high school is the largest structure by far in Bath’s six-square-block historic district, and the architectural personality of the town would change dramatically for the worse if the building were torn down or put to an inappropriate use.”

When the Beaufort County Board of Education began seeking bids to demolish the building six years ago, a handful of people formed Bath High School Preservation, obtained a tax-free status for the organization from the Internal Revenue Service and began negotiations to save the school as BHSP’s membership grew to 236 dues-payers. The group took ownership  of the school last summer.

“Getting possession of the building last summer was a real breakthrough,” Edwards said. “After that, foundations and donors began responding in a major way. They agreed with us that the largest building in the state’s oldest town simply has to be restored.”

So far, BHSP has restored the exterior of one wing of the school. Now, it is focused on restoring the exteriors of the other two wings.

This summer’s restoration work will be supervised by Greenville and Bath resident Sandra Harrison, chairwoman of BHSP’s building committee, and Ken Friedlein, an architect from Bath and Carrboro.

After the exterior of the south wing is restored, BHSP plans to convert it into an expanded Bath library and put the rest of the building to use as a civic center and, ultimately, a museum and performing-arts center.