"One of the hopes is that it... [becomes an] if you build it and they will come type thing," Stephens City Mayor Mike Diaz told the Northern Virginia Daily on a council tour of the renovated schoolhouse at 5516 Main St. He was talking about the community kitchen, the room he pictures the Lions Club and the fire department using for their pancake dinners.
On paper, the town is moving its offices out of a cramped building on Locust Street. In the plans, a large part of the old school becomes space residents can use for themselves: a kitchen to borrow, third-floor rooms to reserve, and a museum room about the trade that put Stephens City on the map. Hundreds of people spent three decades saving this building, and it is coming back as a public room for the town.
A Council Room That Has to Clear Itself Out
Start with the building the town is leaving. Municipal offices have been at 1033 Locust St., which officials began trying to replace in 2021 because it had become cramped. The council's meeting room is so small that when members go into closed session, the audience has to leave.
The audience is small to begin with. "I mean you've been at the meetings... if we get five people it's a miracle," council member Regina Swygert-Smith told the Northern Virginia Daily. Town officials have said they hope larger offices will get more residents involved in town government.
The schoolhouse has 11,300 square feet, nearly three times the space of the current municipal offices. The floor plan shows where the extra room went.
Floor by Floor, Bottom to Top
The lower level, in the new rear addition
Behind the school, a new addition with its own stairwell and entrance will hold the town police department and the community kitchen. According to the tour coverage, the idea for the kitchen came up during planning for the office space. Diaz sees it as a place where local groups can hold pancake breakfasts and potlucks.
The second floor, offices and wagons
The main municipal offices go on the second floor. One side of that floor will hold a covered wagon exhibit that the Stone House Foundation is setting up as a transportation display. Earlier reporting on the renovation also listed a transportation museum among the building's rooms.
Wagons belong here. Stephens City sits on the Great Wagon Road, which is now U.S. 11, the Valley Pike. According to the Newtown History Center, wagon making was a major local trade by the early 1800s. In the 1820 census, 13 of the 27 wagon-shop owners in Frederick County were tied to Stephensburg. An 1835 account described local wagons being shipped widely across Virginia. The Stone House Foundation, founded in 1990, runs the History Center and already has wagon-making displays in its other buildings. The new room puts that story on Main Street, inside a building residents will visit to pay a bill or attend a meeting.
The third floor, the council room and the view
The top floor goes mostly to Town Council meetings. It also has a separate room for closed sessions, so the public no longer has to step out. Other rooms on this floor will be open for the public to reserve. Town staff have not decided whether to charge a fee.
Its south-facing windows look toward the start of Skyline Drive near Front Royal. Buzzard Rock, Richardson Knob and Signal Knob are visible in the distance.
What Stays From 1916
The plan keeps the new uses in the new addition so the old classrooms can stay close to how they were. "We want to preserve the schoolhouse feel. We're keeping all the original windows. Where we can, we're keeping chalkboards, we're keeping the old radiators," Town Manager Mike Majher said during the tour. He described the addition as "architecturally cohesive but visually distinct." The exterior brick and stucco will be restored to how they looked when the school opened, and the 10-foot ceilings stay. Early in construction, carpenters pulled off the trim molding and removed the nails so the wood could be reused.
SAH Archipedia, the Society of Architectural Historians' building guide, dates the two-story, hipped-roof brick school to 1916 and tentatively credits Richmond architect Charles M. Robinson. It notes the slate roof, the banks of multipane windows and the large semicircular arched window over the recessed entrance. The same entry lists other buildings on the site: an agriculture and home economics classroom building from about 1927, an elementary school from about 1928, and a cafeteria from about 1942 that was built as a canning factory to encourage local residents to preserve food during World War II.
Frederick County opened Stephens City High School in 1913 and closed it in 1950, when the county consolidated its high schools. According to Handley Regional Library's archives, 670 students were enrolled when it closed. The building was then used as an elementary school, and Northern Virginia Daily coverage dates its closing to 1977.
Thirty-Four Years From Surplus to Drywall
The long empty stretch explains why officials keep stressing public use. Over the decades, fires, flooding from burst pipes and graffiti damaged the building. Council member Pete Fravel remembers kids knocking away the plywood and crawling in to explore. The project moved forward in these steps.
- 1992. Frederick County declared the building surplus. According to the Northern Virginia Daily's report on the start of construction, the town later bought it for $100,000 to keep it from being torn down.
- The fundraising years. Town Attorney David Griffin recalled barbecue dinners and other efforts to raise preservation money. For years, the Peter B. Stickley Foundation raised funds to remove asbestos and replace the roof. "This is due to the efforts of literally hundreds of people over the years," Griffin said.
- 2021. Officials began looking at moving the town offices from Locust Street into the school.
- 2022. Voters approved a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan of up to $2.46 million for the project, with 76.4% of ballots in favor.
- Construction contract. The town awarded a $3.6 million renovation contract to Kee Construction Services Inc. of Winchester, and work began at 5516 Main St. after building permits were issued.
The loan cap and the contract amount come from different stages of the project, so neither one is the final total.
Where the Work Stands This Fall
At the council's July 7, 2026 meeting, staff reported that the generator pad had been poured and the generator was waiting to be placed. They also planned about $40,000 in sewer repairs on the school property, and bids for the parking lot were still out. By the August 11, 2026 meeting, Majher reported "major progress" since the council's last tour. Drywall was up, more electrical and plumbing work was finished, and the elevator was due to be installed within a two-week window. He also expected a proposal that week from the engineering firm Pennoni for the town hall parking lot and for a second planned lot across from the Stephens City Outlet.
At the council tour the Northern Virginia Daily covered, the building was on schedule to open in December, and Majher left open the possibility of holding council meetings there in October or November. The town's September and October 2026 newsletter still lists the Town Office at 1033 Locust St., so for now that is where to go for water bills and permits.
The Groups the Building Was Planned Around
The town's own fall calendar shows who is likely to use the new rooms. The Newtown Heritage Festival committee meets at 7 p.m. on October 29. Trick-or-treating runs from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 31. Town leaf collection runs every Monday in November and through the first week of December, with bagged leaves at the curb by 8 a.m. In his August report, Majher thanked the Stephens City Lions Club for cleaning up the Newtown Commons after the Yard Crawl. The Lions Club is also one of the groups Diaz named for the new kitchen.
Festival committees, service clubs and fire-company pancake dinners are already part of the town's calendar. Once the schoolhouse opens, they will have a kitchen, reservable rooms and a council chamber that no longer clears out its audience.
If you own a home near Main Street and want to know how the town hall project might figure into your plans, Legacy Real Estate Group is glad to talk it through with you. Start Building Your Legacy: Get a Free Home Valuation.
