Tracy Tilson Plans Open House At East Hebron Schoolhouse
HEBRON — Tracy Tilson considers the Newfound Region home.
Although she grew up in Wentworth, Tilson recalls taking field trips to Wellington State Park as a child, and now she and her husband have a home at Newfound Lake. Soon, she will open a satellite office in Hebron, as well.
Tilson purchased the East Hebron Schoolhouse on Route 3-A a year and a half ago, and, after doing some restoration and renovation work, she is ready to hold an open house this weekend to reintroduce the former one-room schoolhouse to the public.
Joining her will be cultural historian Steve Taylor, a popular speaker on the New Hampshire Humanities Council lecture circuit and the former state agriculture commissioner. He will talk about “the romance and the reality” of one-room schoolhouses, with descriptions of Christmas pageants, games for recess, and nature walks.
Tilson recalls passing by the schoolhouse on her trips to Wellington, and said that, although in recent years, it has been used as a children’s bookstore, the characteristics of the building have been preserved, along with some of the school desks and the slate chalkboards. Old photographs illustrate what the school was like when it was in session, and she has had Northern Exposures Photography of Plymouth frame some of those old photos.
“The schoolhouse is just adorable, so well-preserved,” she said.
It has the original 1888 floorboards, and outside, separate boys’ and girls’ outhouses — which she has preserved, even though she updated the building so it would have running water and septic. She converted the woodshed on the back into a room that she said “looks like it had been there 100 years.”
The ringing of the school bell will announce the open house, which will run from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 11.
While she has preserved the look of the old schoolhouse and replaced the front steps, Tilson did not have a museum in mind. The building will serve as a satellite office for her public relations firm, which is based in Boca Raton, Florida.
After attending Plymouth schools, she went to the University of New Hampshire, where she majored in Communications. When it was time to go to work, she moved to southern Florida and established Tilson PR. She landed some major clients, many of them in New England, which gave her a chance to make return trips to the Granite State.
“It’s part of a balanced life,” she said. “I love this area. It’s an area where I can be creative, and feel this is where my roots are.”
Finding the East Hebron Schoolhouse on the market, she felt that “it fit into the plan.” With clients like the RiverWalk Resort at Loon Mountain and the Western White Mountains Chamber of Commerce, as well as Boston clients such as Safeco, having a satellite office makes sense, and she believes it will be a welcoming spot for business discussions.
It will mean continuing to travel between South Florida, where her team is based, and Central New Hampshire, but that is not a problem for Tilson.
She is looking forward to the open house to hear more stories from people familiar with the schoolhouse, which operated from 1882 to 1942. At least one former student plans to attend, and she expects to see the children and grandchildren of those who attended the school, who she hopes will share their own experiences and memories of the building.
The East Hebron Schoolhouse is located at 33 Mayhew Turnpike (Route 3-A) in Hebron.