Title problems have delayed plans to turn these former mill worker homes into a museum.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Plans for the Hodge Mill Museum on Houghton Street have hit a wall.

The four buildings, dating to between 1840 and 1870, were facing the wrecking ball until Alan Horbal pushed to turn them into a walk-up museum of mill-worker housing.

But legal obstacles have prevented the newly created Hodge Mill House Museum Inc. from entering or taking possession of the property.

"We're in a quagmire," Horbal, an officer of the museum and Historical Commission member, told the commission at its meeting Friday.

The two-unit dwellings, and an adjacent storefront at the corner of Houghton and Liberty streets, are part of the estate of the late William Romeo, which includes more than a dozen properties in North Adams and more on Cape Cod, where the family had moved. The estate has indicated a willingness to transfer the buildings rather than raze them.

Horbal said two legal teams had researched the deeds to determine if the titles were clean — both had come up with different results. A third attorney has been hired to do another search.

In the meantime, the estate trust and the nonprofit museum association are unable to come to terms. Nor can the museum get insurance to cover anyone working on the property or inside the buildings.

"I talked with an insurance agent to get a use permit from the estate," Horbal said. "But they do not have clear title to the property."

The museum group had hoped to begin an architectural survey and at least do some conservation and cleanup of the exteriors on the small homes, including removing the deteriorated shingle siding and restoring the original wood exterior.

Historical Commission Chairman Justyna Carlson said she and Horbal had attended sessions with the Massachusetts Historical Commission on applying for funding.

Horbal said one of the questions was if the buildings had been placed on the state historical register. It had been thought since they were included on the city's historical survey they were, but that was not the case.

"So we are working on getting that property listed as a state historical place, which is a long, extremely complicated matter," Horbal said, waving a sheaf of forms.

Carlson said the process for review can be lengthy: "Eighteen months in a sense we do not have."

The commission ran into opposition last August when it decided to impose a year's delay on its initial approval to demolish the buildings. Neighbors had been lobbying to remove the blighted buildings that had been empty for decades.

Mayor Richard Alcombright has supported the effort - as long as it doesn't cost the city any money. Horbal joked that he'd gotten a new handle for his sledgehammer if the funding doesn't come together.

But he's not giving up hope just yet. Horbal said he is attending a meeting with the Massachusetts Cultural Commission in March to learn about funding options and will continue working with estate's executor to explore options. The museum group is also pursuing non-profit status.

"It's the government regulations overlapping that are just driving me crazy," he said.  

Horbal and the commissioners envision a simple museum that will demonstrate how workers lived in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Historical researcher Joe Manning has offered to dig up information on the families that lived there and they have met with local architect Stephen Stenson for preliminary ideas.

Horbal hopes the museum will become among the walking attractions to draw visitors from the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. North Adams Tire, recently purchased by John Wadsworth, is expected to be razed for greenspace, which may make the trek up Houghton more appealing.

But the museum first has to navigate the forms, and codes and regulations, and pursuit of funding with no property or documents in hand.

"We're not trying to preserve those as houses, we're trying to preserve them as museums," Horbal said.

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