Marble Museum Open House

The Vermont Marble Museum and the Preservation Trust of Vermont [PTV] invite the public to an open house and exhibition at the historic home of the Vermont Marble Company, 52 Main Street in Proctor, on October 15 from 4-7 p.m.

The public can enjoy films, artifacts, and food before the Museum moves and refines the collection into a new space within the historic marble complex in the coming months.

For many in the Marble Valley, the Vermont Marble Company’s plant and the exhibition has been well-visited cultural, historical, and industrial landmarks.

In 2012, when the building and museum collections were at risk of being sold piecemeal, the Preservation Trust of Vermont stepped in to purchase the building and its collections and moved to secure the museum’s future. With their successful purchase of much of the collection and the historic marble exhibit, PTV helped usher in the non-profit Vermont Marble Museum to advocate for the collection and the building’s long-term preservation.

With careful management and plans to respect the site’s historic buildings, Zion Growers will begin the reuse of the building as part of their fiber-based hemp processing. This new use is a compatible one that honors and continues the industrial use of this historic mill complex.

The Preservation Trust of Vermont will continue to own the collections, maintain a 99-year lease for the museum’s benefit, and co-hold a protective historic preservation easement on the entire building in partnership with the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board.

At the October 15 event and moving forward, the Vermont Marble Museum welcomes the community to share its thoughts and insights about the direction that the retooled museum and its future programming should take and how it can become a more meaningful community cultural institution; one that recognizes both the past and present roles of marble in the valley, and works to tell the stories of the people who have labored here for centuries in the marble trades.