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Contact: For more information on Troy-Hayner Cultural Center and the celebration, go online to www.troyhayner.org or call 937-339-0457.
The only visitors to the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center during the past few weeks have been workers making repairs and renovations to the 102-year-old mansion.
That’s about to change as the finishing touches are added before a Grand Re-Opening Celebration scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 9, from 2-4 p.m.
“With a building this size, this age, something needs to be done all of the time,” said Linda Lee Jolly, Hayner’s executive director. “There is always a list, always a project ahead of us.”
These renovations come during the cultural center’s 40th anniversary year.
The Hayner mansion was built for Mary Jane Hayner, whose husband was part of the Hayner Distilling Company family. She willed the home to the Troy City Schools Board of Education on her death in 1942. The structure served as the public library before the new library was built next door and the cultural center approved by the community.
The center spends an average of $25,000 to $33,000 a year on upgrades or repair to the physical parts of the house.
This year’s work will cost around $55,000 and was possible thanks to a grant from The Troy Foundation and donations to the Friends of Hayner organization, Jolly said.
The mansion had to be closed for this project because it included redoing some of its hardwood floors.
“A good portion of them are the original hardwood floors,” Jolly said. The floors are well cared for by the maintenance staff but take a beating with 40,000 visitors a year. “That is a lot of people walking across a floor,” she said.
The process includes sanding noise and smells of solvents and waxes. “It is just not something we can do with the building open,” Jolly said.
Among other pieces of the project were the refinishing of weathered doors at the front and west entries; relocation of the exhibit tracks; changing lighting fixtures to LED for both energy savings and better display; and repairs to the paver drive.
Before the doors reopen, the mansion will get a good cleaning.
“We are trying to protect all furnishings, enclosing them in rooms. But, every square inch of the Hayner and everything in it will have to be cleaned and dusted because of the sanding of the floor,” Jolly said.
The Oct. 9 activities are centered on the opening reception for the center’s next exhibit, “Vessels, Vistas & Visions.” The fine-art exhibit features the works of three local artists, Pamela Ridenour, Donna Pierce-Clark and Shirley DeLaet.
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