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Odd Fellows Hall
A landmark 1896 hall in Brooklin, Maine, restored over three years into a wood boat building shop with loft apartments above, heated throughout with Ecowarm RadiantBoard.
Renovation of a Brooklin historical building with Ecowarm radiant floor heating
The first floor was lifted and its underpinnings shored up, a new radiant heat floor laid, and a 40-foot steel beam run down the center to straighten the building, allowing the centerline wall and two supporting walls to come out.
The result is a commercial wood boat building facility on the ground floor with apartments above, warmed by a low-mass radiant system that responds quickly in a building of this age.
“My interest was the first floor for boatbuilding, which we have been utilizing for more than a year now, after lifting the floor and shoring up the underpinnings, installing a new radiant heat floor and installing a big I-beam down the center to straighten the building and allowing us to remove the centerline wall and two supporting walls,” the boat builder said. “Now it is essentially an open-floor plan and the big windows let in great light for working.”
Robert Baird
About Odd Fellows Hall
Designed and constructed by Ralph Bent, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall is a three-story balloon framed Italianate structure built in 1896 and listed in the National Register in 1990. The largest and most architecturally significant building in Brooklin, Odd Fellows Hall commands a view over Eggemoggin Reach on Penobscot Bay. It housed the IOOF Lodge on the top level, community functions on the second floor and commercial space on the first, serving that purpose into the 1990s before standing largely vacant.
By the time 120 Reach Road LLC bought it, roughly 30 percent of the first-floor joists and main support beams were rotten, the roof leaked, a major truss had broken, and the knob-and-tube wiring had to go.
The restoration
The roof was stripped to the boards and re-shingled, and the broken truss jacked back into place and repaired. Third-floor lath and plaster was re-plastered and finished in lime wash. Monumental double-hung windows were removed and restored with their old glass intact, then backed with preservation storm windows. Historic bead board on the first two floors was carefully taken down and reinstalled so insulation and fireproofing could go in behind it.
Outside, proper drainage, sump pumps, 60 yards of crushed stone and a vapor barrier ended decades of water damage in the crawl space. The clapboards were preserved where possible and the building repainted to its original color scheme.
Funded entirely by the owners with federal and state tax credits, the three-year project saved a significant resource for the Brooklin community: a continuing connection to its history and a working contributor to its present.
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