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Old Saybrook Chamber Cupola Restored to More Than its Former Glory

The Chamber of Commerce building in Old Saybrook was (mostly) restored to its former glory last week when it was crowned with its renovated cupola, complete with shining golden dome. Work continues on roof replacement, and will likely wrap up by the end of May, according to Brandon Macri of Macri Roofing, the contractor on the job.

“We have a 5,000-square-foot sheet metal facility on our property here,” said Macri of his Meriden-based roofing company. “We took the cupola off in the fall and it’s been in our shop ever since. We stripped it down to the studs, essentially, to the framework, and we rebuilt it pretty much from scratch, matching up as much as we could from the original. We kind of improved some of the designs that I think were kind of flawed from before.”

The convergence of several factors was causing the original cupola to leak, Macri explained.

“There was substantial deterioration at the base of the cupola. That could have been a combination of the seals around the windows and at [the place] where the dome connected to the top of the cupola. We found some entry points in those areas that we tightened up and put additional flashing in to seal it up tight.”

In addition, a piece of roofing was installed between the dome and the cupola.

“It will last,” said Macri.

The company has moved on to installing a new roof, using a synthetic slate material and adding half-round copper gutters, Macri explained.

The roofing shingles have “all the characteristics of slate but [with] a fraction of the weight, so it will be a nice, durable roof system for the building,” he said.

The town owns the building and has funded the renovations. First Selectman Carl P. Fortuna, Jr., fielded ideas with Macri about switching out the white LED lights on the old cupola to various colors. The new light system, operated via remote control from within the building, can now be set to occasion-specific colors, such as blue and white for the high school graduation, or green and red for Christmas, Macri said. The lighting patterns can also be varied.

Macri said he realizes that 1 Main Street is an important building that holds a special place in the town—at the corner of Main Street and Route 1, it’s “the first building you see when you come into the downtown area.”