Grand piano, antique furniture, Tiffany glass, etc.; Sunday's Music Festival auction will clean the house

CENTER HARBOR — To clean house in anticipation of leaving its home on Symphony Lane, the New Hampshire Music Festival is selling the entire contents of the house and barn at auction on Sunday, July 24, beginning at 10 a.m.

Alida Millham, a director of the festival, said yesterday that "a lot of stuff has accumulated, some of it since the days of Belknap College and the Red Hill Inn." She said that the directors did not expect the auction to raise a lot of money.

The items include a Steinway grand piano, antique furniture, original artwork, sterling silver, Tiffany glass, oriental rugs, pottery and glassware.

Last year, the board of directors decided to sell the 60-acre property at 52 Symphony Lane and informed incorporators of their decision at the annual meeting in Gilford in the fall. However, the board withheld the property from the market until this spring in hopes that real estate values would rebound. In April, Ronald I. Sibley, chairman of the board of the festival, announced that the property would be listed at $1,695,000.

The Festival purchased the property in 2000, with the intention of building a concert hall. In spite of initial strong support from major donors, the plan ran afoul of the economic slump in 2008 and 2009 and was ultimately abandoned in 2010.

F.D. Peverly & Sons of Northfield is handling the auction for the Festival. Detailed information is available online at auctionziip.com (ID #10745).