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Photo by Jim Craven Carpenter Hall in Ashland sits quietly amid controversy over whether it should be moved to a new home near Lithia Park, making way for a new, larger Black Swan Theatre. Carpenter Hall's fate irks some OSF building plans mandates a move By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune ASHLAND -- While local historic preservationists are dismayed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's plan to move historic Carpenter Hall, festival officials say they're out of options. And Ashland's mayor says the city ordinances have little power to prevent it. The city is still considering the festival's offer to move the hall to the site of the Hillah Temple next to Lithia Park, where it could be used as a public building. The move is part of the festival's plan to make room for a new Black Swan Theatre, replacing the small theater on East Main Street. An architect's report on the move is expected at the end of the month, after which the city will decide whether to take the building. Moving and refurbishing costs would be about $50,000, Mayor Cathy Shaw said. Local historian and author Kay Atwood said the hall, a former Christian Science church designed by noted architect Frank C. Clark, is "a critical component of the streetscape and the neighborhood ... if you move it out of context, you lose a great deal." The 1923 colonial revival structure is part of a historic neighborhood, she said, which includes Lithia Park, the former First National Bank (now OSF offices), the A.C. Nininger house (the stone house across from the Elizabethan Theater) and the Lithia Springs Hotel, now the Mark Antony Hotel. Atwood said she hoped festival officials might leave Carpenter Hall where it is and build the new theater next to it, perhaps integrating Carpenter as a lobby. However, OSF Executive Director Paul Nicholson said the Festival had spent "a lot of time" studying that idea and decided it would overly compromise both the Carpenter and the new theater. The building was bought by OSF in 1973 and named for the Carpenter family of Medford, prominent donors going back to the 1950s, he said. Ashland contractor and former city councilman Russell Dale, who has restored several historic structures in the Rogue Valley, called Carpenter "one of our community's historic crown jewels" and said the move would "alienate the festival's supporters, who will question their failure to be responsible stewards of a public resource entrusted to them." Dale said he plans to help organize a crusade against the move, and he appeared before the City Council Tuesday night to urge an ordinance regulating historic buildings. Local musician Brian Freeman, who has performed and produced acts in Carpenter for 20 years, also opposes the move, saying if the hall became a meeting place, it would be little different than the nearby Community Center, which has bad acoustics and sightlines. "Carpenter Hall has been a much-needed and treasured art center for music, dance and small theater. Acoustics are warm and resonant. It has a homelike, yet professional ambience," he said. The issue has prompted an Ashland Daily Tidings editorial and has been debated through letters to the editor, with writers opposing the move and faulting city officials for discussing the subject in private. Nicholson said he brought the idea up to city officials last year and had met in executive session with the City Council only once, in February for 20 minutes. The state Open Meetings Law allows such private sessions for personnel and real estate matters, said Shaw. Everyone involved does agree Carpenter Hall should be saved, though not necessarily where it is. "It's a beautiful building," said Shaw, "and I like it where it is. If I had my druthers I'd maintain Carpenter and put the new theater on the back. But the Festival owns it and I'm not going to tell them what to do with what they own." Present city ordinances cannot prevent the move, she said. "It's important," said Nicholson, "that Carpenter Hall be saved and we're committed to that. Is it any less of a building if it's in a different setting? I don't think so. Many historic buildings have been moved in order to save them." Festival officials have looked at many other sites for the new theater, he added, and the Carpenter is the only one that allows the festival to build the theater it envisions. The city is preparing to nominate its historic downtown district, including Carpenter Hall, to the National Register of Historic Places. Ashland Historic Commission chair Jim Lewis said Ashland has a "long history of moving historic buildings," including the Winchester House, which once stood on East Main. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA