The monumental Italian
Renaissance Revival two-story brick and brownstone building was designed by
New York City architect
Charles A. Rich, an alumnus of nearby
Dartmouth College, and built between 1895 and 1897.
Hira R. Beckwith, an architect in Claremont, was the contractor. Many of the construction materials for the building came from the surrounding region. The foundation consists of Green Mountain rock, and the base was dressed Connecticut River
brownstone from
Springfield, Massachusetts. The major part of the exterior is built from nearly one million bricks from
Lebanon, New Hampshire. The original design of the building included first floor that housed a meeting space seating 700, while the upper floor housed the "opera house" (
auditorium), which seated nearly 1,000 and included a stage adequate for mounting theatrical productions. Rich and Beckwith spent two years and $62,000 to construct the building as a regional center for entertainment, cultural, community and political events. The building was dedicated on June 22, 1897. The auditorium has a
frescoed ceiling and a decorative wall
frieze culminating with a
proscenium arch adorned with a combination of
basswood, painted cream, and a
gold leafed molded plaster-work in high relief. Much of the gold leaf is original. There is a circular multicolored fresco of the
New Hampshire state seal seated above the proscenium arch. Total seating capacity for the auditorium is 783. In 1960, the first floor of the building was partitioned to house additional city offices, and the opera house was closed in 1963 citing lack of use. A restoration committee was created in the 1970s to spearhead the opera house's restoration and modernization, and after a lengthy awareness and fundraising campaign, it was renovated and reopened in 1979. The building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1973. ==History==