It was going to be burned to the ground, and now look at it — fabulous.”

Mary Lou Krol, Friends of the Leonard Brown House

PORTSMOUTH — Just a few years ago, Mary Lou Krol said the historic Brown House at Glen Farm was in such bad shape it was in danger of being lost forever.

On Friday morning, however, she was peering outside a second-floor window at the old farmhouse, taking in the clear view down to the lower polo fields. 

“It was going to be burned to the ground, and now look at it — fabulous,” said Ms. Krol, a member of the Friends of the Leonard Brown House, an all-volunteer nonprofit that made small repairs to the home for years before handing it over to the town for a major renovation job.

“I’m so happy they saved it, because we used to come up here and take these pictures and hope they could keep this view,” she said.

The town held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday after completing the extensive renovations on the building, which will be used as a hub for the town’s Recreation Department and eventually be available for sports leagues and other community groups.

Its first tenants, however, will be inhabitants of the School Administration Building on Middle Road, which needs to undergo some renovations of its own. 

Home’s history

The yellow home on Linden Lane was first built in the mid-1800s for Leonard Brown, a wheelwright and blacksmith who earned a reputation as being one of the best farmers in Portsmouth by 1888. Henry A.C. Taylor bought the farm in 1902 and the home was used as a support residence for Glen Farm until the early 1950s, when the Taylors started renting it out as income property. It stayed that way until the late 1980s, when the Town of Portsmouth purchased the farm.

The home had long since gone into decline by then, however.

“Time took its toll on the house,” said Town Administrator Richard Rainer Jr., who credited the Friends of the Leonard Brown House for preventing the building from being demolished.

“I’d like to thank the Friends of the Brown House for their work in saving the structure for our residents and their children. Their lease was returned to the town in 2017 and we on the staff and the Town Council promptly picked up where they left off,” he said.

The administrator said it was The Friends’ dream to have the structure preserved for the community’s use.

“Welcome to the front porch of Portsmouth,” Mr. Rainer said.

Town Council President Keith Hamilton said it was a “great day for Portsmouth” to see the Brown House revitalized, and that it was back “to close” to its original glory.

“It’s not perfect; we had to make some changes because of ADA (American with Disabilities Act) requirements and building codes, but it looks beautiful,” he said.

Six offices, meeting room

Others shared that sentiment as they toured both floors of the home. There are two offices, a large meeting space and bathrooms on the first floor. The second floor holds four offices and an as-yet unfinished room that may be used for storage.

The Damon Company of Newport was the contractor on the project and Union Studio Architecture was the architect. Mr. Rainer also thanked Brian Woodhead, Public Works deputy director, and other town department heads for their work.

Ms. Krol was delighted with the results.

“By donations and sweat we kept it alive long enough, so we’re feeling real good about that,” she said. “We were down to just a couple families doing stuff. We just couldn’t continue, going the way we were going. The town needed to pick it up. We’re super-thrilled. Hopefully a lot of people can use it.”

The building will eventually serve as the headquarters for the recreation department and provide office, meeting and storage space for local sports leagues, Mr. Hamilton said.

“They’ll use the same physical address, so there’s some continuity between the leagues, which is great,” he said.

In the long run, the building will serve the wider community. “If the Garden Club wants to come here and have a meeting, they can. We’ll have this meeting space now and we’ll have more meeting space at the new police station,” Mr. Hamilton said.

Down the road, said Mr. Rainer, the plan is to keep the building open during youth sports activities at Glen Farm so that players and parents can use the facilities. The bathrooms are not open to all at this time, however.

“Right now we are focused on getting a new rec director and outfitting the building. Once a new rec director is in place, we will meet with all the sports directors to set scheduling and policy,” he said.

Schools have first dibs

Before other community groups get to use the space, it will serve as a temporary home for employees who work in the School Administration Building.

“We’re doing the windows and siding over at our building and that’s supposed to happen within the next month. What I don’t want is asking any of the folks in my building to work in the winter while we still haven’t framed up the outside of the building,” said Superintendent of Schools Ana Riley.

A separate project, to make the bottom floor of the School Administration Building ADA-accessible, may also be undertaken this fall.

Ms. Riley and town officials first discussed the idea just this week, after she realized the Brown House would be empty for a while. “Right now, they haven’t filled it up with people, so we’re not displacing anyone,” she said.

Mr. Hamilton said the idea makes since it would keep school administrators from scrambling to find temporary office space, or having to lease trailers while the work was going on.

“We figured for that in-between space, we could use this building temporarily and as soon as our building’s done we’d go back,” said Ms. Riley, who planned on meeting with Facilities Manager Matt Murphy and others to firm up a timeline in order to determine how much furniture and equipment would needed to be moved. 

It’s unclear how long school staff will be at the Brown House. Ms. Riley said the job could take anywhere from six weeks to several months. The public will be notified of the move on the school’s website and through signage at the School Administration Building, she said.