Connie Forester

Staff Photo by John Rawlston Kenny Reeves of Pointe General Contractors, left, and Steve Bain of Ana Woodworks replace a pane of vintage glass at Gordon Hall, a brick building in downtown LaFayette that was built in 1836.

LAFAYETTE, Ga. — The oldest brick schoolhouse in Georgia becomes home to the state’s newest museum next week.

Opened in 1836 as the Chattooga Academy and renamed Gordon Hall in 1925, the federal-style structure, already on the National Register of Historic Places, has been undergoing renovation for about five years, according to local officials.

“When I started here four years ago, termites had eaten the floorboards and joists,” said Catherine Edgemon, head of LaFayette’s MainStreet, a program dedicated to development and revitalization of downtown. “You would open the front door and step down three feet to the ground.”

A combination of donations, grants and Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue made the restoration project possible.

Today, the two-story, 20x40-foot building’s exterior has been restored to its appearance of more than 170 years ago. Bricks, handmade in Rock Spring and three rows thick in the walls, have been cleaned and new mortar put in. Gutters and downspouts have been added and walkways redone.

The only readily visible change to the symmetry of the four-window wide facade is in the back, where a door opening onto a handicap ramp has replaced one of four windows.

Inside, workers have spruced up the building with fresh paint and plaster, new wood floors and repaired vintage-glass window panes.

Wellworn windowsills and casework with carved initials and dates from the early 1900s, though cleaned and wearing a new coat of paint, attest to the building’s former use as a school. Windowpanes of vintage “rippled” glass are set in refurbished frames.

Indoor plumbing, central heat and air and a security system have unobtrusively been added as part of the renovation.

“Downstairs will be an historic schoolhouse museum with information about John Gordon and the building as well as rotating exhibits,” said Ms. Edgemon, whose office will be located on the second floor. “We don’t want this to be a building that people will only visit once.”

The academy was used as a school until 1921 and renamed Gordon Hall to honor John B. Gordon, a former Chattooga Academy pupil who went on to serve as a Confederate general and as Georgia’s governor and presided over the U.S. Senate.

“LaFayette has not had a visitors’ center for years,” said Connie Forester, president of the LaFayette Historic Preservation Commission. “We are very fortunate to have the Marsh House and Gordon Hall to serve that purpose.”

The spruced-up schoolhouse should serve as tourist attraction, according to Jim Cole, chairman of the downtown development authority board.

“That one square block with Joe Stock Park, the Marsh House and the Chattooga Academy will make downtown LaFayette a viable destination,” he said.