A metamorphosis of sorts is complete in Clay County, North Carolina. The courthouse, originally built in 1888 in the Italianate Vernacular style, has been transformed into a brand new event center catering to weddings, gala dinners, business meetings, high school formals, concerts—you name it.
County officials abandoned the building in 2007 after a new courthouse came on the scene. It sat empty for a few years before the Clay County Revitalization Association (CCRA) took charge of renovating the building in 2015. It reopened as an event center in July, 2018.
The process to restore the building proved challenging. The CCRA had to have the building drained, along with professional mold remediation. They had to pour concrete because one side of the building was listing, and they had to replace all of the windows, doors, ceilings and floor joists.
“Basically, these 8-inch thick brick walls remain and everything else has been redone,” says Kirsten Gleaves, executive director of the Historic Clay County Courthouse Beal Center in Hayesville, North Carolina. “This building has long been known as the heart of Clay County. New locals and originals, as we’ll call them, feel very attached to this building. There’s a lot of history here. Kids used to sit on the wall outside and the girls would put on roller skates. It was a big game to skate right through the middle of the courthouse without getting caught by all the different county officers.”
The new Historic Clay County Courthouse Beal Center is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for tours and visits to the gift shop, as well as by appointment to schedule special events. cccra-nc.org
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The story above appears in our March/April 2019 issue.
