ENFIELD — A $5.8 million renovation of Whitney Hall is nearing completion.

The town offices on the building’s ground floor, which leads out into the parking lot, reopened this week, and the library on the first floor is set to reopen in mid-February. The second floor — which used to house Shaker Bridge Theatre — is an open room where town boards will hold meetings in the coming months once the technology is sorted out.

The reopening of the historic building marks an end to a year of conducting operations in a temporary space — the former La Salette Shrine, now owned by the Enfield Shaker Museum — and nearly two decades of planning.

The historic building has expanded by about 4,100 square feet total, essentially doubling its space.

“I think it has a really good layout for the public, it will be a little more user friendly for people,” Enfield Town Manager Ed Morris said in a phone interview. “The clerk’s area is bigger and easier for people to get to.”

The new town clerk’s office boasts an expanded sitting room. There’s also more storage and the town historian has a room for records. The elevator, which was previously sluggish, has been refurbished.

Morris is particularly excited about a new meeting room on the ground floor, which will be accessible to community members after the town offices have closed for the day. A French language group has already shown interest in using it.

“That will be really nice to have that public meeting space,” Morris said.

Nearly two decadesin the making

For a time, the library’s board of trustees wasn’t sure that the library was ever going to be renovated. In March 2007, voters rejected a request to renovate Whitney Hall and the library.

Afterward, the library board of trustees launched a fundraising campaign to raise money for a standalone library, said Shirley Green, who is co-chair of the library board of trustees. That effort also fell flat.

In 2015, the trustees considered asking town officials to place an article on the warrant asking residents for $2.5 million to fund the new library, Green said. The Selectboard and Budget Committee did not support it so the trustees withdrew the request and continued fundraising.

“We never gave up,” Green said in a phone interview.

In 2019, the town formed a Municipal Facility Advisory Committee, which recommended renovating Whitney Hall. That resulted in the 2022 bond vote where voters agreed to spend $5.8 million to renovate the town offices and library.

The roughly $500,000 the trustees raised during its fundraising campaign was put toward the library.

Two moves andan ‘incredible’ staff

In November 2023, the Enfield Public Library shuttered at Whitney Hall to prepare for a move to the former La Salette Shrine, its temporary home during the renovations.

Under the direction of town librarian and director Kate Minshall, staff packed the library’s contents into around 1,000 boxes. That included around 800 boxes of books that they sorted and carefully labeled.

Movers brought the boxes to La Salette and staff began serving patrons there in January 2024. While some books were displayed on shelves, patrons had to request others from the library’s collection that staff then retrieved from the boxes. They held an average of 15 programs a month, including book groups and children’s story times.

“We just figured it out,” Minshall said about adjusting to the temporary space.

In late December 2024, the temporary location closed and staff prepared to move back to Whitney Hall.

“To do this twice in 13 months … my staff is incredible,” Minshall said.

‘A community center’

The renovated library has new windows to keep the cold out and the heat in (and vice versa in the summer). The community’s teens will have their own room, complete with furniture that staff hope will be welcoming for those who want to stop by after school.

Patrons will be able to book private rooms to use for personal matters, such as telehealth appointments. Groups can reserve the new meeting room for activities such as knitting.

In the old space, it was hard to hold multiple programs at the same time. Patrons attending author events often had to share space with the children’s section, which made for cramped quarters.

“Now we’re more accommodating and a little less cozy in all the best possible ways,” Minshall said. “We have to all start shifting from a traditional library — which was typically a book warehouse — to a community center.”

Staff can help patrons print out forms. The library could serve as a cooling station in the summer. Residents can gather together just to chat.

“Especially coming out of COVID, people were coming here for their social interaction for the week,” library clerk Jerusha Howard said as she put together shelves earlier this month.

Staff hope that the new space will encourage even more opportunities for residents to interact with each other.

The renovated space includes a children’s area known as Willa’s Nook, which fulfills a promise the town made more than a decade ago to honor the memory Willa Shine Clark, who died in 2014 at age 4 in an accident at an Enfield day care.

“That’s been a project that’s been many years in the making,” Howard said. “To see that happen is really amazing.”

In the weeks after Willa’s death, community members launched a fundraiser that raised about $78,000 to create Willa’s Nook, which had originally been planned for the standalone library that never materialized.

“It really helped me because I knew that it was something more permanent. People weren’t going to forget Willa,” Willa’s mother, Cara DeLura, of Lebanon, said in a phone interview. “That’s a fear when you lose somebody. This was a way to memorialize her.”

After the money sat dormant for years, DeLura was thrilled when the project was approved in 2022. Library staff and trustees reached out to her to get her thoughts on how Willa’s Nook should be designed.

“Willa came into the world just like sparkling and she loved to dress up. She loved pinks and purple and outrageous colors,” DeLura said. “I said the more colorful the better.”

Willa’s Nook is at the front of the library and faces Main Street. A warm light comes through the stained glass windows, painting the area in color.

Cubbies in shades of blue, pink, orange and green will hold toys. There’s also a play kitchen and a canopy where children can play, or read a book.

That’s fitting for the 4 year old who loved bright colors, reading and the Enfield Public Library.

“We went all the time,” DeLura said. “Just knowing that there’s a place where kids will be tumbling around, and doing arts and crafts, and doing story time is heartwarming.”

DeLura is looking forward to visiting the space with her daughter, Ellie Clark, now 17 and a senior at Lebanon High School, and her 8-year-old son, Charlie DeLura, Willa’s half brother.

“I think this will be really special for him to go and hang out in this space,” DeLura said.

Also expected to be completed this year is a new public safety facility, for which voters approved a $7.26 million bond in 2022, Morris said.

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.