When Maine Art Gallery manager Michele Roberge drives over the Sheepscot River into Wiscasset, she's been looking to see if the gallery's cupola is still on the roof.

Roberge got into the habit as the cupola deteriorated. It houses a bronze bell, up there since the building opened as a school in 1807.

She still instinctively looks to the rooftop at the corner of Warren and Hodge Streets on her way in to work, but she doesn't have to worry anymore about what she'll see.

With a $20,000 grant that also funded other work on the building, the gallery recently finished the cupola's first major repairs in roughly half a century.

On May 3, the bell was once again hung inside it. The bell had sat on the cupola's deck since October 2012 when the repairs got underway.

Three of the six wooden posts that help form the cupola's hexagon shape were extremely rotted, said Ken Thompson, who did the repairs; in addition, the 75-pound bell was hanging from a beam that was not only rotting, but was inadequate for the bell's weight, the South Bristol man said.

“Why it didn't come through the ceiling, I have no idea,” Thompson said.

The new parts should better serve the structure and the bell. Thompson used hemlock to replace the rotted posts, which he said appeared to be pine. Hemlock is hardy, sort of nature's own version of pressure-treated wood, he said.

He used pressure-treated wood in replacing the cupola's handrails and in making a set of beams from which the bell now hangs.

Thompson's mother Maude Olsen is a member artist with the nonprofit gallery that leases the 206-year-old building from the town. Although the gallery's grant from the Davis Family Foundation paid for his work on the cupola, Thompson also puts in a lot of volunteer time at the gallery.

 In addition to the cupola's makeover, the grant funded a new roof by Les Fossel's Restoration Resources of Alna.

Some free help came from inmates at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset. They reglazed windows and helped with ceiling work, Roberge said.

The gallery was founded in 1954. It has leased its current home from the town of Wiscasset since 1957, Roberge said.

Area painters including Virginia Forrest of Wiscasset, Sandra Griffin of Edgecomb and John Butke of Boothbay are among about 30 artists with works currently on exhibit through May 26 in the gallery's annual members-only show.

May hours are Thursday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.