It took Bay Chamber Concerts and Music School, which began as a summer chamber music concert series and has since grown to offer world-class concerts and music education, nearly six decades to find its permanent home in Camden. “We’ve always rented different spaces for our office, our school, and our concerts,” says Josie Davis, executive director of Bay Chamber. “As we’ve grown, we identified an acute need for a single space that could accommodate studio spaces, larger ensemble rooms for group classes, and a concert hall for music school recitals and our professional concert series. When we saw this building go up for sale in Camden, we felt it was an opportunity we couldn’t turn down.”

Bay Chamber partnered with Portland-based Barba and Wheelock Architects and Tamarack Builders to renovate and rehabilitate the structure—part medical office, part yoga studio, and part former historic church—sitting at 5 Mountain Street, just one block from Camden Harbor. “Initially, Bay Chamber thought they’d be able to move in without doing much work,” explains Nancy Barba, principal at Barba and Wheelock Architects. “The more we got into it, the more dubious I was. We found out that the floor system of the church was never addressed, and there was major damage to the structure. The back of the building was a mess and needed to be totally reconstructed—and that’s coming from someone who works in historic buildings and would never take anything down unless they absolutely had to,” she adds.

The building’s interior was entirely reconfigured, and a new, modern section was built to make the structure suitable for Bay Chamber’s growing concerts and educational programs. Barba worked with an acoustical engineer to minimize noise distractions, which meant introducing an extra-large, exposed mechanical system that had to be woven through the existing trusses. A new entry features shou sugi ban siding and rough-hewn granite blocks supporting two wood columns. The modern addition, which houses offices, a music library, studios, and classroom space, features a flat, streamlined roof and thermally modified wood siding that will weather to gray. “The modern aesthetic ties in really nicely with the way we’ve been thinking about our concert programming,” says Davis. “Traditionally, we’ve focused on presenting classical music, and we’re excited to consider what that means when we look at it through a modern lens.”

Stephen Earle, a Bay Chamber board member and interior designer, took Barba and Wheelock’s interior layout and developed a lively, welcoming aesthetic with pops of bright red. The existing curved linear staircase, designed by Camden architect Chris Glass during a previous renovation 15 years ago, was augmented and opened up to the new lobby. “Glass was my mentor—the first person I worked for when I came to Maine—so it was very meaningful to incorporate his work,” says Barba. A collection of artworks by Bernard Langlais, secured by Bay Chamber’s former director, Monica Kelly, before her passing two months before the building’s completion, hangs on the walls on prominent display. “Monica Kelly was such a wonderful, gentle force as an artist and a leader—she was a real creative mind behind the whole project,” Barba adds.

Despite the history of the church structure, which Barba estimates may date back to 1848, the building does not sit in Camden’s historic district, nor was it funded by historic tax credits, so the rules for its rehabilitation were not strict. “There wasn’t much left from a preservation standpoint on the inside, but on the outside, we tried to retain as much of the original trim and siding as we could.” The not-so-subtle ochre color of the original structure’s exterior was a concerted choice: “We wanted something that would be a beacon for the arts—something that someone would drive by and see the color and say, ‘What’s that? It doesn’t look like a house; it doesn’t look like a church. Something creative must be happening there,’” says Davis. “The color inspires a lot of curiosity.”

Portland-born poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote, “Music is the universal language of mankind.” Bay Chamber’s new and improved home allows the organization to continue uplifting this philosophy through accessible events and first-class instruction. “There are professional musicians coming in from New York City and students from just up the street who are our next generation of music lovers and listeners,” says Davis. “We’re all in the same space sharing music in different ways, and that feels really powerful.”