Maine building at N.E. agricultural expo gets extensive face-lift

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – For the past 75 years, the most talked-about food offerings at the Big E, the premier New England agricultural exposition held annually in West Springfield, Mass., were the baked potatoes available at the Maine building on the Avenue of States. Hundreds of people a day would stand in line for more than an hour for the tasty spuds.

This year, it is likely the Maine building itself that will be getting all the attention. A spectacular renovation is under way at the brick structure, which was built in 1925 with a $25,000 state appropriation and a matching amount of donated funds.

At a cost of about $1.7 million, the interior of the historic brick structure has been gutted, the roof removed, and hundreds of stone masons, carpenters and electricians are swarming over the site, working to ready the building for its Sept. 15 unveiling.

The building was formerly a dark, uninviting structure broken up into small, windowless areas that had never been renovated beyond putting up partitions and slapping on a coat of paint. “It certainly didn’t provide a good picture of Maine,” Maine Department of Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear said recently.

The Big E, or Eastern States Exposition, is the only fair in North America that encompasses more than one state. It was founded in 1919, and during the annual 17-day festival in mid-September more than 800,000 visitors come from throughout New England to the fair, according to Noreen Tassinari, marketing director for the Big E.

It is located in West Springfield, Mass., on 175 acres that contain villages, coliseums, a midway, a Better Living Center, livestock arenas and the crown jewel of the fair, the Avenue of States, said Tassinari. Each New England state maintains a building on the avenue, allowing visitors to experience the sights, sounds and tastes of the region.

The Big E’s founder, Joshua Brooks, moved to Augusta, Maine, where he lived for three years in the early 1920s, to persuade legislators to build a Maine embassy. Tassarini said that at the time, Gov. Percival Baxter vowed that no Maine dollars would be spent in Massachusetts, preferring to concentrate his efforts on the creation of Baxter State Park. Even after the Legislature approved the $25,000 used to construct the building, Baxter refused to attend the grand-opening celebration.

Since then, millions of visitors have visited the building, getting a whiff of Maine Christmas trees, a taste of Maine maple sugar or eating one of the famous baked potatoes.

Although the state Department of Agriculture had requested renovation funds for years, it wasn’t until several state legislators visited the Big E two years ago that the degree of the building’s disrepair got some attention.

The visiting lawmakers took one look at Maine’s building, compared it to those of the other New England states and immediately began talking to their fellow legislators about renovation.

In response to that pressure, the Legislature appropriated $1.2 million in 1999 for renovation funding. Private donors kicked in another half-million dollars, and the Big E paid for the architect’s design.

Work began this spring when the structure was gutted. This week, the project is about half completed, according to clerk of the works Skip Valencik, who is working for the Portland architectural firm Winton Scott. The roof has been removed and granite work is under way, and Valencik said it will be “a close call” but the building should be completed by July 31.

Valencik said some interesting situations arose when construction began.

“We found first that we were actually on Maine soil,” the construction official said. “The land had been purchased by the state of Maine.

“There was some concern about whether our contractors needed to be licensed in Maine,” he continued. “There was also real concern that Maine’s prevailing wages would apply. Our contractors were very happy when it was decided they would get Massachusetts prevailing wages.”

He said the difference was clear when dealing with painting contractors. The going rate in Maine is $9.37 an hour. It is more than $20 an hour in Massachusetts.

The contractors also found that the building was 10 inches longer on one side, and the existing crossbeams had rolled a bit. “Whenever you are dealing with an older, historical building, there are bound to be some of these idiosyncrasies,” he said.

“But this is going to be spectacular,” Valencik said, sweeping his arm around the great hall in progress. “The granite, the wood, the light.”

Maine became the second state to erect a building on the Avenue of States, after Massachusetts.

The structure is a dignified colonial reproduction of Maine’s original State House. Jane Aiudi of the marketing division of the Maine Department of Agriculture, said nothing has been done to compromise the original design by John Calvin Stevens of Portland. Stevens, one of the country’s most distinguished architects of the early 20th century, completed more than 500 works in his lifetime, including Winslow Homer’s cottages in Scarborough, Brown Memorial Library in Clinton and the State Street Church in Portland.

The exterior of the structure, a graceful brick facade with a copper-clad cupola holding a four-masted schooner weather vane, will remain virtually the same. The interior, however, has been opened up, lighted up and will be filled with Maine materials.

Visitors will walk across a Deer Isle granite foyer into a great hall trimmed with tongue-in-groove Maine pine. The roof of the structure has been removed and will be replaced by two massive walls of windows flanking an open rafter-style roof.

“It is going to be spectacular,” said Aiudi. “It will look like the great Maine woods.”

Another change visitors will see when the building opens this fall will be the addition of commercial exhibits in the Maine hall.

“We had people coming into the building and saying, ‘Can’t you buy anything in here?’ And when the Legislature gave us the renovation money, they asked us to make the building more self-sufficient,” said Aiudi.

The agriculture department sent out 35,000 letters to Maine producers. “I was incredibly pleased with the responses,” she said. There was an independent, juried process, and exhibitors were chosen based on their representation of Maine, quality and uniqueness. Each exhibitor selected will pay a fee based on square footage, said Aiudi, and all facets of Maine will be represented.

“We’ll have someone from the wood-products industry, from food production, from the maple sugar industry,” she said. “We’ll have a country store with Maine goods, a coppersmith, a flag maker. So many different and unique vendors and exhibits.”

Aiudi said the other states’ buildings are all commercialized to varying degrees. “It is interesting that the New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine buildings are run by those state’s agriculture departments, while the Connecticut and Rhode Island buildings are run by the economic and business departments,” she said. “Boy, you can really tell the difference.”

Valencik said the three-month project is on a tight schedule, but he is certain it will be ready for the first visitors on Sept. 15.

For more information about the Big E, log on to www.thebige.com.