Now the city is poised to undertake a major restoration of the red brick-and-wood structure, located near Madison Avenue in the Prospect Hill neighborhood.
Provided the City Council approves a $35,000 supplemental funding request, contractors next spring are set to begin repairing the building’s interior and exterior brickwork, including its dome, as well as repairing the wooden door and restoring the wood-shingled roof.
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“The Beverly Powder House is a unique structure, and its restoration will provide the community with opportunities to celebrate and learn about Beverly’s history,” Mayor Michael Cahill said in e-mailed comments.
In addition to preserving a valued historical asset, city officials said the restoration — designed by architect Richard Smith — will enable the Powder House to serve as a site for the public to learn about Beverly’s past and how powder houses once contributed to the nation’s defense.
“We are very excited about it,” said Emily Hutchings, the city’s associate planner. “This is such a unique structure and it tells a story of a part of Beverly’s history. Beverly is a coastal city and the Powder House in its time played an important role in protecting it.”
The city’s second oldest municipal building, the Powder House was listed in August on the National Register of Historic Places. The 240-square-foot structure is the only surviving octagonal-shaped powder house in New England.
The restoration is part of an overall $220,000 initiative the city launched in 2016 that has also included a study of the building’s history and condition, and the National Register application, said Hutchings, citing the role of former Beverly resident Lance Daly in championing the effort
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The City Council appropriated $102,000 from Beverly’s Community Preservation Act revenues for the initiative. Beverly also received grants of $55,000 from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, $25,000 from Beverly Crossing — a local development company — and $2,000 from the Essex National Heritage Commission.
Hutchings said the additional $35,000 appropriation — also from CPA funds — is needed because construction bids came in higher than expected.
The Powder House was erected on land the city purchased for $30 in 1809 from Nathan Dane, a local attorney who over the years served as a state representative, state senator, and Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress.
The building replaced an existing 1767 powder house Beverly maintained near its common. That structure had become impractical “because people were building houses around the common,” said Bill Finch, chair of the Beverly Historical Commission.
State law at the time required all municipalities to maintain powder houses or other facilities to provide a dry and safe place for storing gunpowder. The structures went into disuse in the 1840s when local militias were dissolved.
A historic preservation consultant who has been involved in projects to restore or rehabilitate powder houses in Newburyport, Kingston, and Harvard, and a powder magazine in Cambridge, Finch estimated roughly 15 to 20 such structures survive in Massachusetts. He said Beverly’s is particularly distinct because it retains portions of its original wooden interior.
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Finch, an active volunteer on the Beverly project, said he had been concerned about the condition of the Powder House for many years.
“I’m glad we’re finally finding a way to go forward and restore it,” he said.
John Laidler can be reached at laidler@globe.com.
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