Belknap Mill enters new era, Part 2

Second of two parts

LACONIA — S. Peter Karagianis was a kid when his father, Peter S., championed the successful effort to save the Belknap Mill from the wrecking ball. Many of the city’s older downtown structures were torn down as part of the Urban Renewal plan adopted in 1965, but the Belknap Mill was seen as too important to the city’s history, and it is due to the efforts of many community leaders that the mill still stands today.

When Peter S. died, the Karagianis family honored his memory by offering a $25,000 matching challenge to help put a new roof on the mill. His son has picked up where he left off.

“Recently, in the past three, four years, I’ve picked up the torch,” Karagianis said.

Karagianis is part of the new generation of leaders who have responded to breathe new life into the mill. Five years ago, the nonprofit that owns and operates the circa-1823 structure was in such dire straits that they concocted a plan to sell the building to the city.

That plan was scrapped when the mill’s membership objected, and, since then, things have turned around for the mill.

Allison Ambrose, managing partner at Wescott Law, joined the board of directors at its nadir. She’s been credited as being part of the new batch of leadership that stepped forward to return the mill to financial stability.

“What we did was bring on our now-executive director, Karen Prior,” Ambrose said. Prior was originally contracted to help find funding for a new roof. Since then, they’ve given Prior a much more ambitious to-do list, and the organization is more than two-thirds of the way to completing a $1.5-million capital campaign.

“I think that it was a lot of teamwork from the community, a very vibrant board,” Ambrose said about the turn-around. “The staff, the board, really had a turnaround in the 2014-2015 time frame. We got a lot of younger, motivated individuals to step up.”

The $1.5 million will be used for exterior maintenance, beginning this summer, and a renovation of the third floor, which is made available for public events. Some of the money raised will also be set aside for long-term stability, both in terms of finances and personnel.

The mill’s leadership has another task, more difficult to achieve: make the Belknap Mill as integral to the future of the city as it was to its past.

For more than a century, the Belknap Mill was a place where textiles were manufactured. Many families in Laconia have an ancestor who found employment there.

“There’s just such a history there, it is the roots of Laconia back in the 1800s, so many people established their lives here, it’s important to honor that,” Ambrose said.

That, on its own, won’t be enough, Prior said.

“We want to be a living museum, we don’t want it to be stagnant,” Prior said.

Renovating the third floor will allow the mill to modestly raise the fee to rent the space. However, she stressed that the price will remain affordable to the average Laconia resident.

After the first phase of work is done, attention will turn to the first floor, which will be be given an open-concept treatment. Prior said that will enhance the programming possibilities.

“If you open up this space, it allows us to be truly hands-on,” she said.

For many years, the Belknap Mill has welcomed 4th graders to spend a day at the mill, where they would experience what it was like to be a textile worker in the late 1800s. More recently, the mill has offered programs steeped in science, engineering, technology and math – for young people who want to engage in the future of industry.

Larry Frates has been the mill’s artist-in-residence recently, and has brought more art creation into the mill. That sort of engagement, which encourages art for all ages and abilities, is part of the vision for the mill's future.

Economist Russ Thibeault, one of the mill’s ardent supporters, said communities such as Concord and Manchester have found that a revitalized mill can have broad benefit.

“Fundamentally, cultural centers like the mill are the new anchors of downtowns,” he said. While they once brought people for work, they now attract people looking for educational or cultural experiences. “They draw people into the downtown, they give the downtown a unique fingerprint… Someplace like the mill, in connection with the Colonial Theater, gives an anchor to draw people downtown, without which you really don’t have much to work with,” Thibeault said.

He also has a personal connection to the building. He’s a watercolorist, and has twice exhibited his work there. He has also been to community meetings at the mill, has attended a memorial service there, and when his firm threw a party to celebrate its tenth anniversary, it was at the Belknap Mill.

“For me, it’s a place to go that’s unique and beautiful,” Thibeault said. “It was just the right size and had the right atmosphere.”