The Meeting House, located on the New Marlborough Village Green, is a classic Greek revival structure. It was designed by the Connecticut architect Henry A. Sykes and completed in 1839. The present structure was preceded by two earlier eighteenth-century buildings on the same site, a simple building dating back to the late 1740s when the town was first settled and a more elaborate replacement to 1793. Just over forty years later, New Marlborough had become a prosperous farming community, and the congregation wanted (and were willing to pay for) a new building in the fashionable ecclesiastical style of the day.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, a slow decline in the fortunes of New Marlborough village began as the focus of the town’s economic activity swung from farming to manufacturing centered in Mill River and, to a lesser extent, Southfield. There followed a long-term decline in both population and religious enthusiasm, which ultimately left the Meeting House congregation struggling to survive. By the middle of the twentieth century, religious services were held in the building only during the summer months, and in 1976 the Massachusetts Conference of Congregational Churches transferred responsibility and in 1995 clear title to the building to the New Marlborough Village Association.

From the standpoint of historical preservation, the good news is that scarcity of funds had prevented the Meeting House congregation from making any fundamental alterations to the building. Thus the building we inherited, and work hard to maintain, remains an almost pristine example of the Greek revival style. Our ongoing challenge is to steward that responsibility, while utilizing the building in the best interest of the community.

MEETING HOUSE RENOVATION