ST. JOHNSBURY - The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum gave the public a sneak peek of their newly renovated historic gallery and skylights. Wednesday night supporters and art enthusiasts alike came to get the first look.

Two years ago, the Athenaeum was looking into placing screens over their skylight windows in order to preserve their 140-year-old historic gallery. When they looked further into the project they realized that their skylights' frames needed to be completely redone as well.  The "A Touch of Glass: Restoration of the Historic Gallery Skylights" Project was soon started, and two of its main focuses were blocking solar radiation that causes fading of the artwork, and re-mounting the skylights' frames.

Executive Director of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum Matthew Powers explained in his own words how the expanded project came about.

"We were looking at trying to preserve the collection and possibly trying to put in some screens or blinds, and when we looked at what sort of condition the skylights' frames were in, it looked like we actually had to completely replace them. So that established that we had to make this a larger project," he explained.

Before the project could begin the Athenaeum faced the tough task of fundraising to get enough money to turn their dream into a reality. The project was funded by nationally recognized organizations. They received a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was also supported by the USDA Rural Development Stimulus Funds, and the State of Vermont Division of Historic Preservation.

Local businesses also did their part to help fund the project; groups like Passumpsic Savings Bank and Aubuchon Hardware among many others gave generous donations.

"We had great resources through the Vermont Historic Division, the Gladys Brooks Foundation, the USDA, and several local banks... we have very generous supporters and we're grateful for their long term support, " Powers said.

When the funding came through the Athenaeum hired the Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker firm to come up with a plausible way to restore and preserve the gallery. The design phase took up the most time, as about a year was dedicated solely to pre-construction efforts. The project began on February 24th, 2011 and has just been finalized with the re-installing of the paintings.

Powers entered his position as executive director a year ago, and says that this was not an easy task and there were many tough aspects of project.

"The amount of work that had to go into the fundraising aspect of it, the construction phases and then re-installing the paintings was a considerable amount of work," Powers said.

Despite the level of difficulty of the project, the gallery is looking better than ever. The gallery's large skylight has been re-framed with new glass that will better protect the masterpieces.  The two smaller skylights have been re-mounted with their original glass, in addition to a special layer intended to keep the sun from destroying pieces on display.

Powers was very excited to give the sneak peek of the gallery and was proud of all the hard work that was done to complete it.

"The best part of the entire project is tonight... this is a great celebration tonight to see it complete," Powers exclaimed.

The gallery will officially re-open to the public around Christmastime. For more information you can visit the "A Touch of Glass" Project's website.