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	WHSPC Preservation Handbook (The Wellesley Townsman – 10/18/07) This week the Wellesley High School Preservation Committee will be launching its Preservation Handbook, a guide to the restoration and preservation of the High School. This eighty-eight page document is being sent to town officials and other people who are involved in the building project. It is also available to the public. The Handbook sets forth the rationale for adopting a preservation approach and how to implement it. Since Wellesley has always taken the lead in education, the question of how the community can best accommodate increasing enrollment and expanding programs at the High School is naturally at the top of the town’s agenda. However, what began as an inquiry into planning for a peak enrollment of 1500 students by the year 2015 has been diverted. In the process, the structurally sound, educationally functional Wellesley High School building has been discredited. In proposing a “gut-rehab” of the 1938 Wellesley High School or its complete demolition as the only courses of action, the Wellesley High School Building Committee has not given the town a say as to what direction the project should take or what it should cost. The SBC has limited its range of options to those costing as much as $150,000,000. Already $1.7 million has been spent on various studies. During the past year, the Wellesley High School Preservation Committee has been examining all aspects of the High School building project. In the Handbook, we have explained the reasons for preserving the entire 1938 Wellesley High School with its Wilbury Crockett Library: - The High School is structurally sound and educationally functional. It is serving the community today and, with certain improvements, can continue to do so for the foreseeable future. - Preservation is the fiscally responsible approach, more cost-effective than wasteful “gut-rehab” or building new by up to 60% and more. - The High School building is architecturally significant, and it is historically important to the Town of Wellesley. - A preservation approach, properly executed, would be the least disruptive to the daily operation of the High School, since the summer months would allow the project to be undertaken in carefully planned stages. To meet Wellesley High School’s particular requirements, we have developed a series of recommendations as part of a practical and definitive master plan. Its implementation would foster a unique and imaginative architectural approach that incorporates the entire 1938 Wellesley High School with its Wilbury Crockett Library into an improved and expanded institution that fulfills the needs of the educational program. Rather than promote myopic and costly proposals, the Handbook offers a deeper insight into the qualities of the High School that townspeople have long appreciated but that elected and appointed officials need to recognize. The value of both the building and the site are considered. Background material on the building project is provided as well as a complete compendium of articles relating to it. We invite townspeople to obtain a copy of the Handbook by e-mailing us at whspreservation@yahoo.com. Copies are also available at the Wellesley Free Library.

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