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By DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer 10/13/2007

enlarge Staff photo by Jeff Pouland

ON YOUTUBE: Kerri Davis of Fairfield has produced two videos on the old Gerald Hotel in Fairfield that are on YouTube.

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The 2002 graduate of Lawrence High School has set her sights on the former Gerald Hotel on Main Street, looking to the past for inspiration and to the future for help preserving the old place.

Davis, 23, pieced together old and new photographs of the Gerald for two videos posted on the popular Internet Web site YouTube for a nostalgic look at the hotel, once the most elegant in New England.

"I think now I actually made these videos because the Gerald seems kind of like home to me," Davis said. "It feels like my sanctuary if you will. I consider it to be a proud building.

"It's really neat to be able to walk up the same stairs that my ancestors did a hundred years ago when the building was brand-new. There was a lot of love and consideration put into the building when it was being built, and people seem to forget those qualities when constructing nowadays."

Most recently home to Northern Mattress & Furniture Gallery, the building has been vacant since last year. It was sold at auction in July and is to be closed up for the winter, according to the town's development planner.

The Gerald Hotel videos on YouTube are accompanied by music. In the first version, the music from the movie "National Treasure" merges with the strains of "Mysteries of Love," a French horn solo. In the second video, 1940s singer Vera Lynn sings "Back In Your Own Back Yard."

Davis said Mark McPheters of the Fairfield Historical Society offered the vintage photographs for the video collage and Fairfield Town Council Chairman Richard Spear, her former teacher in high school, also assisted in assembling the ideas.

"Mr. McPheters told me they actually had a roof garden, believe it or not -- the original gold spires are gone and there used to be angels on the facade, which are gone now," Davis said, pointing to the pictures on the video.

She said the golden domes and spires disappeared from the building sometime after 1950.

"I don't know what happened to them; it's too bad," she said. "I'm just hoping that the new owner won't destroy it."

Ernest Vandermast of West Falmouth, a retired veterinarian who bought the building, said he has no immediate plans for the property.

Vandermast has enlisted David Gulak of Frequency Consulting Group in Fairfield to help him develop a plan for his new investment.

Gulak said he will encourage Vandermast to maintain the original aesthetic of the building.

Davis said the old steel balconies were cut from the building, leaving scars along the brick, a fate from which she said she hopes the building can be spared.

The original windows remain in place, as do other stained glass windows, carved interior woodwork and painted ceilings, Davis said.

The Gerald was an ornate building with terra cotta trimmings and figures in relief in the Renaissance style. Amos Gerald was the builder of the first electric train system in Maine and the first electric light plant in the state.

Some of the photos on the YouTube posting show new and old pictures of the same hotel rooms. Others shot incorporate a "reeling" effect, giving the yellowed frames an early, moving picture appearance.

The Gerald was listed this past summer by Maine Preservation as one of the state's most endangered historic properties. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan spoke from its balconies when it was considered the finest hotel in Maine. At the entrance to the hotel was the largest piece of granite ever quarried in the state, with the name Gerald inlaid in brass on the surface.

Davis said she learned her computer skills on her own. She also is a musician, a photographer and is finishing her first fiction novel.

Davis enrolled for a time at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield after high school, but finances prevented her from continuing in her business marketing and management courses. She intends to return to school. She now works the night shift in the receiving department at Wal-Mart.

"I think the reason why I did get interested in it is because I went in to (Northern Mattress) one time looking for a couch and I was looking at the paintings on the ceiling and I was like 'Wow' -- I think that's why I started it," she said. "If I had the money, I'd restore it to the way it was."

Davis said she hopes others will share her passion for saving historic landmarks, such as the Gerald Hotel.

Or, as Vera Lynn sings on the YouTube video: "You'll find your happiness lies, right under your eyes, back in your own back yard."

Doug Harlow -- 861-9244

dharlow@centralmaine.com

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