| JUNE 21, 2010 -- Walking up a flight of stairs hardly seems an obstacle for most, but a flight of stairs was all that stood in the way of many would-be visitors to the Vernon Grange Hall and Historical Society's museum - until now.
On Saturday, state and local leaders met at the Historical Society's museum at 734 Hartford Turnpike to dedicate a new addition to the circa 1929 Grange building that has made Vernon's history accessible to all.
A narrow, dogleg staircase was formerly the only connection between the building's first and second floors, and a small set of concrete steps blocked wheelchair access to the second floor entirely.
This building design, envisioned about 60 years prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act, prevented many residents with mobility problems from attending lectures and meetings in the building's second-floor auditorium and made it difficult to peruse the society's collections freely.
Founded in 1967, the Historical Society has sought a solution to this staircase dilemma for several years, but finding funding for such a large renovation project was ambitious at best.
"Initially they thought they could raise the money but that's a lot of money to be raising," Rep. Claire L. Janowski, D-Vernon, said.
After trying unsuccessfully to raise the funds, Janowski said, Town Historian Ardis Abbott approached her about five or six years ago: "She said to me, ‘You know, we need to put an elevator in.'"
Janowski said Abbott told her the elevator was not a luxury, but a vital improvement needed to make the building handicapped accessible.
"I said, let me go for it, let me see what we can do, because that's a very, very legitimate reason for going after funding," Janowski said. She secured a $283,000 state grant for the renovations in 2008.
"It took awhile, it took about a year to solidify all of that, but I couldn't think of a better way to have spent state dollars," Janowski said, calling the project, "well worth it.
"To me, now that building is going to have greater use, you're going to have more meetings there, and best of all you're going to have more people that are able to attend," Janowski said.
The renovation work hasn't been easy, however. Construction on the project started about a year ago, Janowski said, and during that time Abbott and others had to protect the collection from dust and debris and still try to do normal cataloguing and other tasks amid all the noise and commotion.
The end result is an outer, vertical addition that houses the new elevator, as well as a larger, handicapped-accessible bathroom and additional storage. Handicapped-accessible ramps also have been added to help mobility-challenged residents make the giant leap across stairs.
"They did it right, they did it perfectly," Janowski said of the improvements, which did not affect the main structure of the historic building in any major way. "You're looking at it and you'd never know that it's an addition, to me it just looks like it was always there."
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