Nearly the whole team of people who made this happen were there, which was appropriate because HSL Executive Director Amy Catania said it’s been a community effort all along, with engineers, donors, volunteers, board members, construction groups, consultants and elected officials contributing.

The team turned over some dirt with golden shovels — a symbolic move, but the work is not far away. Project Manager Matt Viskovich said crews will start on Monday, beginning with some demolition on the inside and outside of the building, and repairing masonry in the foundation.

A crew started cleaning out the inside of the building and restoring the historically accurate windows earlier this summer.

Though the building has been modernized and was used as a medical office until 2019, almost anything added after 1915 will go away. HSL plans to keep anything that was there during Trudeau’s lifetime, while he was using the building — from its construction in 1894 to around 1915.

Historic Saranac Lake Executive Director Amy Catania speaks to dozens of community members at a groundbreaking ceremony in August. Behind them, the former site of Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau’s home and office awaits restoration. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Catania is especially excited that the building will soon have its original dark red wood clapboards, instead of the powder blue vinyl siding it is currently wrapped in.

Rehabbing a building, especially to historic specifications, is expensive. But HSL has raised $5.4 million to bring the building back to life. That includes almost $2 million through 10 grants from the state and federal governments, $1.4 million in historic preservation tax credits and includes donations.

But the fundraising hasn’t ended. Catania said they’re still raising funds for new exhibits and increased accessibility at the existing Saranac Laboratory museum next door, what is called “Phase 2” of HSL’s plans.

As journalists snapped photos, Catania remarked on how these images of the people gathered there are now in the public record, becoming part of history in the making.

She hopes that the museum will play a more integral role in the future of the community by presenting it with a more full history of the people who made Saranac Lake what it is today.