WILTON – A small dilapidated cottage next to the future home of the Western Maine Play Museum was torn down to make way for a parking lot.
On Friday, the two-story cottage on the museum’s property was torn down in a donation of labor and equipment by D. Scott Taylor of Taylor Made Homes of Wilton. On Saturday morning, the Wilton Fire Department conducted a controlled burn of the debris piled safely away from nearby structures.
In March, the York family donated the century-old home and its property on Main Street for use as a children’s museum. Since then the museum’s 13-member board of directors have drawn up plans, cost estimates, launched a new website, complete with logo and slogan, and named co-chairs Lori Lewis and Michael Cormier to lead the capital campaign through the next year of fund raising.
The museum’s organizers hope in the next year to raise $750,000 for building renovations, furnishings, and exhibit creation to the former home at 561 Main Street in order to open the new children’s museum doors next summer.
The museum’s board president, Angela McLeod of Wilton, said Taylor’s and the Wilton Fire Department’s donations of leveling the house saved them more than 18,000 in estimated costs.
“Taylor Made Homes and the Wilton Fire Department did a great job and we’re so thankful for it,” she said. Plans are in the works to recognize the donations by putting up their station emblem and business logo inside the museum. Other businesses and groups supporting the museum with in-kind donations of more than $5,000 will be recognized in a similar way.
McLeod added the museum board plans on getting the lot cleaned up and covered with with fill in time for the Blueberry Festival set for Aug. 1 & 2.
Western Maine Play Museum is a registered non-profit that incorporated in November of 2013 and is led by a 13-member board of directors. Community members interested in supporting this project should see their website for donation options or email them at: westernmaineplay@gmail.com. Project updates can be found at: www.facebook.com/WesternMainePlayMuseum and on their website: www.westernmaineplay.org
Thank you to the members of our community for your gifts of labor and materials to help start up this worthwhile project. The town of Wilton and all of Franklin County will benefit from these efforts.