photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Joshua Millstein, co-owner of Liberty Hall, comes down from the ladder after setting the building's marquee on Friday, June 19, 2026.

The repairs are almost done and the scaffolding is all gone outside of Liberty Hall, and co-owner Joshua Millstein is glad that its historic facade is back to normal.

“We’re happy to have shed all of our scaffolding, all of our exoskeleton, you know?” Millstein said Friday outside of Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St.

Millstein said the scaffolding had been in place for four to five months, but the project as a whole had taken longer, including some initial deconstruction work and then applying for grants and planning the repairs. “It’s two years from start to finish,” he said.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Liberty Hall is pictured on June 17, 2026, in downtown Lawrence.

The issue that prompted the repairs had to do with the triangular structure at the top of Liberty Hall, which is called a breaking cornice.

“There was iron underneath there that was supporting all this stuff coming out, iron rods. And it had gotten wet, and it had started to rust and expand, and so it was popping all of these pieces of stone and making it unsafe,” Millstein said. Some pieces were even falling off the building and onto the ledge above the entrance, he said.

All of the major construction work is done now, Millstein said, but there are still some little things left to work on, like the windows and a downspout. “We’re getting really close to being done with it,” he said.

Liberty Hall is back to normal just in time for World Cup watch parties, but Millstein mentioned another special event it’s just in time for: a couple’s wedding this weekend. He said it’s great to have the building in shape so that people can take their photos out front again.

The building is more than a century old; it was constructed in 1912 as the Bowersock Opera House, and became Liberty Hall after Charlie Oldfather and Millstein’s father, David, purchased it in the 1980s. Millstein said that the repairs took not just construction crews, but the local historic preservation community, too.

“We got together with a bunch of local peeps that did a great job,” he said.

He wanted to recognize a couple of people involved in the reconstruction in particular: engineer Josh Davis; Tracy Green, who led the construction work; and architects Mike Myers and Stan Hernly.

“They’re the ones who really made it happen,” Millstein said.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Co-owner Joshua Millstein stands out front of Liberty Hall in downtown Lawrence on Friday, June 19, 2026.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Liberty Hall is pictured on June 17, 2026, in downtown Lawrence.