Planned giving will help us meet our current and long-term commitments to historic preservation & education, including maintenance and restoration of the Winter Street Center.
Name Sagadahoc Preservation Inc. as an IRA designated beneficiary. You can set a dollar amount or a percentage, use SPI’s 501c3 EIN: 23-7117044.
IRA Transfers, in the year you turn 73, you can give SPI up to $108,000 per year without paying income taxes on the money, use SPI’s 501c3 EIN: 23-7117044.
Donations of stock can reduce your tax burden by reducing capital gains tax. The value of stocks donated are tax deductible based on the full fair market value.
Contact Tom Whelan at Bath Savings Trust Company (207) 443-6296 to help SPI.
The Winter Street Center is worthy of your support.
Winter Street Center, formerly the Winter Street Congregational Church. When the building was slated for demolition in 1971, Sagadahoc Preservation, Inc. (SPI) was formed to save it. The Sanctuary, a Gothic Revival structure with Greek Revival overtones, was designed and built in 1843 by Anthony Coombs Raymond, a native of Brunswick. John Calvin Stevens designed the interior alterations in 1890 and 1913. The Italianate style parish hall, designed by Francis Fassett, another renowned Maine architect and Bath native, was added in 1864.
Since its restoration in 2000, the parish hall provides a pleasant setting for lectures, meetings, wedding receptions and other community activities. As part of SPI’s restoration plan, the steeple has all new Mahogany finials, the weather vane was re-gilded and a lightening rod system installed. We are currently scraping and repainting the exterior of the building and restoring some windows thanks to a gift we recently received. Donations maintain and restore the buildings.
In August of 2015, a freak wind storm shook the building and caused the old plaster supports, laths and plaster in the ceiling of the sanctuary to crash to the floor. The settling dust was compounded by 1940 era rock wool insulation. Having tested for asbestos and found none, plus minimal lead paint, we raised funds to clean up the sanctuary and pull down the rest of the ceiling. Before that, with the help of grants, we hired preservation specialists to study the remaining walls to make sure that we had a record of all the previous stenciling which had been covered up in the early to mid 1900s. Currently we are developing a business plan, a codes compliance plan, a five-year strategic plan, updating our bylaws & mission statement.
The building sits surrounded by the City Park, the Spirit of the Sea sculpture by William Zorach, the Romanesque style Patten Free Library and three Greek Revival houses to the north. Just imagine Bath without this beautiful building!