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Seventy-four-year-old Richard Smith knows a good thing when he sees it.
“I moved here with my wife three weeks ago, and I love the whole place,” said the New Hampshire native in the common space of two renovated pre-Civil War buildings at Harper Acres, an elderly and disabled housing facility run by the Keene Housing Authority (KHA).
In 2001, the historic brick buildings, once housing for millworkers in the 1800s, were on the brink of demolition to make way for a shopping center. Supported by citizens, the Keene Housing Authority had to quickly line up financing to move the 350-ton buildings two blocks from their original foundations to Harper Acres and then to rehab them.
“Without access to the $150,000 loan from the Loan Fund, we would have been unable to make the project happen,” said Curtis Hiebert, chief executive officer of the Keene Housing Authority. “This was the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle.”
The housing group wanted a comfortable indoor place for residents to go.
“A lot of residents live in single rooms and don’t have space to entertain,” said Lola Grab of KHA. “Our idea was that it would be an extension of their home, like a living room.”
Today, the once-dilapidated quarters are spacious and bright, overlooking the Ashuelot River, and complete with laundry facilities. Families and residents have taken note.
“My kids are going to put on a big party right here for my75th birthday this fall,” said Smith. “I’m lucky. I’m a lucky man.”
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