Advisory Committee Applies For Funds To Restore Marks Building
Restorations for the Edward Marks Jr. building, formerly known as the Poor House, are underway, at least from an administrative standpoint.
An application for funds was recently submitted by the advisory committee dedicated to preserving the building. The money, which would come from the Community Preservation Act, would fund repairs and restoration on the exterior of the 252-year-old building.
“They’re only dealing with emergency requests right now, so we have a list of what we’re calling ‘emergency’ things, like where water damage or rot has been detected,” said Edward Haddad, chairman of the Historical Commission. “There are safety issues, like the front porch. But it’s really in pretty good condition for an old house like that.”
Under the Community Preservation Act, money is available for community projects such as historic preservation, affordable housing, recreation and open space. Once applications for funding are submitted, they’re reviewed by the Community Preservation Committee and then passed on to Town Meeting. Should the funding application for the Marks Building be approved by both the CPC and the spring 2022 Town Meeting, funds could be made available for the project as early as next summer.
The building, with nearly 6,000 square feet of space, has had various uses and occupants over its long history. When it was originally built in Hatchville in 1769, it was known as Yost’s Tavern. It was purchased by the Town of Falmouth in 1812 and moved to its current location at 744 Main Street. An addition was added to the main block of the house around 1840, giving it the appearance it has today. Later, in the 1960s, the Falmouth Artists Guild moved into the building, which they occupied for the next 30 years. Aside from a few municipal uses here and there—at one point, you could purchase beach stickers on the first floor—the building has been largely empty since.
“The town bought this building because they felt responsible for their indigent people,” Mr. Haddad said. “That’s a great story, and it’s lost. It’s been squandered.”
Since its relocation to Main Street over a century ago, the house has been a home to a wide variety of people: the poor, the sick, the widowed, the mentally ill, the elderly and the disabled. The floors of the main rooms in the house still have tape on the floor, marking how the main level was split into 24 eight-by-eight cubicles that were considered rooms for residents. The house is directly adjacent to the Old Methodist Church and Cemetery, where many of its lifelong residents were buried in mostly unmarked graves. Today, a bronze plaque by the entrance to the cemetery pays homage to Poor House residents who died there.
“This complex — this building plus the burial ground — were granted National Register Status, meaning it’s of a sufficient value historically,” said Barbara Weyand, chair of the Edward Marks Building Advisory Committee. “And part of the reason is what Ed is saying: people may have died here, even of old age, and were put there. So there’s a synergy between the two and that’s why they co-own the national register honorific.”
The restoration plans as of now look to focus on improving the exterior of the house first before moving on to the interior. Because of preservation restrictions placed on the property in accordance with its National Register Status, the advisory committee wants to restore the exterior to the full glory it once boasted. Ms. Weyand explained that in order to keep as faithful to history as possible, they are using a blown-up photograph of the house taken circa 1888 as a guide.
“We’re using this because it tells us details about the windowsills, shutters, clapboard, the whole thing at this point in the history of the building,” Ms. Weyand said. “We’re using it to make decisions because what you don’t wanna do is go around and say ‘oh, let’s keep the Federal windows with the Victorian door.’ Anybody could do that. We’re using this to be faithful to this era.”
Over the years, as attitudes toward the poor and destitute residents changed, so did the makeup of the home. It has had many names — Poor House, Alms House, Poor Farm, Work House — but the use remained the same: a space, offered by the town, for its residents in need.
“It’s authentic, and that’s wonderful,” Mr. Haddad said. “When you understand what went on here, when you understand the history and the residents that were here, you can understand. They had who knows what; they had all the outcasts. But the story that they had a place that they set up because they cared about these people is a very important story.”
It’s been nearly 20 years since any real restorative work was done on the Marks Building, but new plans are on the horizon. Interior restoration is still up in the air and while the decision is ultimately up to the town to make — as this is a municipal building — the proposed plan is to convert the main floor of the Marks Building into office space to house Falmouth Human Services. With the possibility of funds being available next year to start exterior work, both Mr. Haddad and Ms. Weyland are hopeful that once the ball gets rolling, restorations and upkeep will help turn this building into the staple it once was in the old Falmouth Village.
“We’re trying to get this to what we call suitable for 21st-century use,” Ms. Weyand said. “That term in preservation is called adaptive reuse; in other words, we’re not proposing to put poor people back in this building. What we are doing is trying to make the building relevant and sound and safe for people to have another use of the building.”