Community Comes Together for Milesburg Public Art Project

When he received the permit deadline of March 2017, local artist and architect Benjamin Fehl began to worry that his decade of planning and work on Milesburg’s community art project would come to an abrupt end. Fehl is creating a large concrete sculpture of a historic 1850s Milesburg home and dedicating space for a park at 204 Market Street.

“I started this journey back in 2006 as an artist with an idea — over the years I’ve had the good fortune of gathering a team of volunteers and supporters, known as Friends of The Crooked House, “ says Fehl, a Penn State alumnus. “These friends have joined me in thousands of hours of work—dismantling the house, preserving the facade, repointing a 160 year-old fireplace and excavating the foundation. They’ve donated their expertise, hard work, money, materials, and equipment to bring The Crooked House to this point.”

Fortunately, Fehl is not the only one dedicated to bringing public art to Milesburg.

The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a long time supporter of the project, has awarded annual grants since 2011. Joined by Friends of the Crooked House, including Ben Scott, owner of Marathon Landscaping in Milesburg, Stormstown artist William Snyder III and State College writer, Christine Robinson. Fehl is on his way to raising the final $40,000 to complete the project.  “Plans, permitting and engineering are complete, it is just a matter of raising funds to cover the cost of materials. We’ve kept costs down by doing as much as possible ourselves. For a project of this size, just the molding materials alone are close to $10,000,” says Fehl.

Local businesses are lending a hand too, Dave and Kathy Spicer of Spicer Welding in Julian, recently fabricated and donated a critical steel component for the foundation. Webster’s Bookstore held an event to promote the project and Appalachian Outdoors on South Allen Street in State College will host an event to support and promote The Crooked House from 5-9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 7, in conjunction with Downtown State College First Friday.

To meet the March deadline, Friends of The Crooked House launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign on September 8. You can join Friends of the Crooked House to make a tax-deductible donation for materials and construction costs at https://igg.me/at/thecrookedhouse.