Alton Bay bandstand will get new paint, restoration this fall

Town officials have okayed a plan to make repairs to the 80-year-old water bandstand in the middle of Alton Bay.

At a recent Board of Selectmen’s meeting, Town Administrator Russell Bailey said the annual town spending plan that voters approved on Election Day included a $9,800 appropriation in the buildings & grounds budget to repair and renovate the historic bandstand.

“We’ll be doing some leveling and putting in new support beams,” Bailey told the board, “and then we’ll be doing some new decking, and (adding) new walls and a paint job.”

The selectmen raised concerns about having the project done during the summer but Bailey said he planned to put a bid out to contractors soon with the idea of having the work done over a two-or-three week period later in the autumn.

“We’ll probably be looking at doing this (so as) to be completed no later than the late fall season, around November,” Bailey explained late last week.

He said that would work best not only because it would not interfere with the busy boating season in the bay but it is also the time when the lowest water table occurs there.

Selectman Bill Curtin asked Bailey if there could be any potential problems with pressure washing the approximately 40-square-foot bandstand and the possibility of lead paint getting into the water.

Selectmen Steve McMahon and Pat Fuller said the bandstand was last cleaned and painted about seven years ago so they did not expect there would be any problems in that regard.

Bailey added that he would make sure all possible pollution concerns were properly addressed with any prospective contractor before the bid was awarded.

Last week Bailey admitted he did not know much about the history of the bandstand.

“I know it’s built on a pile of rocks,” he laughed.

But resident Nancy Merrill is well aware of the structure’s past, partly because her father, Lester Downing, and her uncle, Edward Downing, was among the six men who built the bandstand back in the 1920s.

Documentation Merrill has indicates that the idea for building an island bandstand in the bay came from the Alton Bay Racing Association, a group of boating enthusiasts who organized speedboat and other boat races in the area.

“In 1928 the associate decide that a bandstand should be built in the Bay,” according to Merrill’s paperwork which is primarily based on a conversation with one of her mother, Aida Downing. “The bandstand would be used for two purposes: band concerts and a judging stand for races.

“The bandstand was built over a large ledge about halfway between the old railway station and Victoria Pier,” the current location of Shibley’s-at-the-Pier restaurant), according to the notes.

“During the winter months, when the ice was frozen a crib was built, filled with rocks and a foundation built over this,” it adds. “The bandstand was completed later.”

The notes indicate that “labor and materials, and the use of teams and trucks were donated by the citizens to the extent of $679.80, making the total cost of he bandstand $1,573,” the documents conclude.