For a taste of The Music Hall’s 130-year history, just look at the wallpaper adorning its newly renovated lobby. The custom paper features a collage of archival images from the Portsmouth theater’s past, including brochures, playbills and advertisements dating back to the late 19th century. There’s even a picture advertising a visit from Wild West legend William “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

Music Hall patrons will get their first glimpse of Founders Lobby on Saturday, Sept. 20 at 9:15 a.m., during a special program titled “Reimagining an American Treasure.” The symposium and open house will introduce the 2,600-square-foot lobby, which has been under construction since December 2007. At well over six times its previous size, the lobby on Chestnut Street features two concession areas, a new box office, more spacious restrooms and Beaux Art furnishings and designs. 

“It’s a really moving experience looking at the walls,” said Margaret Talcott, communications director for The Music Hall. “You walk into that space and it exudes and celebrates our history.”

But the new lobby also adds modern innovations and amenities. The challenge of perfecting the lobby’s design was to implement elements of the past into a practical and energy efficient space. Artifacts from the theater’s history and recycled materials from the construction appear as decorative pieces embedded in the walls—a wooden pulley from 1901, a chunk of stone from the lobby’s excavation, a tile fragment from the former entry.

“We have worked to incorporate many of the artifacts from the old theater into the new space,” Talcott said. “Many of the images in the wallpaper are from ephemera that we have found.”

Most of the theater’s intriguing artifacts remain under the watch of production manager Zhana Morris, who Talcott called the “archivist and keeper of all things historically connected to The Music Hall.” Some of the relics were found in the building, while others were brought there by patrons who stumbled upon them in their grandparents’ attics.

Workers discovered a new wealth of historical trinkets while excavating the old lobby. Contractors jack hammered 10 feet into the earth and removed 700 cubic yards of stone—the equivalent of an entire colonial home, Talcott said. Workers turned over their findings to Morris, who researched the items and attempted to determine where and when they came from.

The resulting spread of artifacts offers a timeline of The Music Hall’s past and, accordingly, provides a piecemeal account of Seacoast history. There’s a Sweet Caporal Cigarette pack from 1878, the year of the theater’s birth. There’s a box of Sa-Yo Mint Jujubes and a packet of Pepsin After Dinner Gum, both from 1901. A pair of tickets to “The Rose of Wicklow,” dated May 21, 1913, originally sold for 50 cents each.

From the 1950s comes an odd assortment of items, including a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, a box of 7UP matches and a brown M&M wrapper. There’s also a stained publicity photo of singer and actress Rosemary Clooney.    

The collection also includes a beaten wallet with a blue zipper, a glass Coca-Cola bottle and six-pack holder, a pack of Chiclets gum—even a U.S. military brochure from the Korean War, enticing privates with a generous salary of $75 per month. Among the more head-scratching items are a box of “electronically tested” Silver-Tex condoms and a pornographic magazine from the late 1950s. 

Certain artifacts came with their own personal histories. Workers were removing a wall in the former men’s room when they found an old wallet. Based on receipts inside, Morris determined that it was left there around 1957. A handwritten ID card indicated that it belonged to Kevin M. Guy, a teenager then living in Eliot, Maine. There were also pictures of family members, including several sisters.

Morris found Guy’s name in an obituary from 2007, but she wanted to figure out a way to reach his living relatives. “I had this sudden revelation that he might have been connected to The Music Hall in some way,” she said.

Sure enough, she discovered that Guy had been a long-time Music Hall member and that his widowed wife still was. Morris also determined that the family owned a real estate business just a block away on Fleet Street. She walked over to the office with the wallet in hand and presented it to a receptionist, who called Mr. Guy’s wife. When the receptionist explained what she had in front of her, the reaction on the other end of the line was one of disbelief.    

Morris and other Music Hall staff members have had fun speculating about how the wallet wound up in the restroom wall. Did Guy drop it, or did someone steal it from him, remove the cash and discard it there?

The locations of other finds were equally curious. Some artifacts were found inside old staircases or beneath floorboards, while others had apparently been stuffed under ceiling panels or into rafters. An entire hidden wall was uncovered in the lobby, showing turn-of-the-century fliers and promotional literature about Music Hall events.

When it came time to rebury the past and construct the new lobby, Music Hall designers confronted the challenge of updating the facility without jeopardizing the historic qualities that spurred the U.S. Senate to recognize it as an American Treasure. “There are existing conditions that you have to be creative about while honoring the past,” said executive director Patricia Lynch.

As an example, Lynch noted that the theater’s foundation was built on large brick pillars that date back to 1878. Those pillars had to be maintained, but incorporating them into the new lobby meant replacing them with cast-iron steel structures that could be treated to make them aesthetically pleasing. The finished products are gilded Corinthian columns that echo the opera boxes in the theater above.

Unlike typical restoration projects, The Music Hall had some freedom to envision what the new lobby would look like. “We did not have an exact template of what should be done,” Talcott said.

The Music Hall’s Facilities and Restoration Committee, along with selected Board members, divided into task forces to address various issues. In the end, 31 national and regional vendors provided services for the renovation. The project even got a write-up in The New York Times in July.

“It’s been a regional undertaking, if not a national undertaking,” Talcott said. “Everyone has had some input into this lobby.”

The final design includes curved walls and ramps, vintage mermaid sconces in the ladies room, plush crimson banquettes, decorative ironwork on the columns and cabinetry and intricate stone, brick and tile work.

A number of donors footed the project’s $2 million bill. The lobby is named for The Music Hall’s founding board members and is dedicated in memory of local entrepreneur Jay Smith, former owner of The Press Room and other area businesses. Smith’s $200,000 loan, which remained anonymous until his death in 2002, helped save The Music Hall when it faced financial crisis in the 1990s.

“He was just incredibly dedicated to The Music Hall,” Morris said.

The lobby project did encounter some bumps in the road. A sold-out appearance by journalist Barbara Walters in May was evacuated when a column supporting the balcony shifted slightly, causing the floor to move beneath many seats. 

The construction also created challenges for the theater’s staff, who had to put up with constant noise in the building. Lynch said people sometimes had to yell in her office to be heard over the incessant jack hammering. “It’s been a real adventure,” she said.

The Music Hall has now completed a major project during the onset of fall for each of the last three years. In 2006, the Hall restored the proscenium arch that forms a threshold to the stage. Around this time last year, the Hall finished restoring its interior dome, replicating the ornate artwork that originally crowned the theater. The Hall also purchased office space on Congress Street this year, enabling it to consolidate staff in a central location and expand its educational programs.

With the introduction of Founders Lobby, the Hall has taken another step forward. Staff members admit that waiting to use the ladies room in the old lobby was an unpleasant ordeal. “It was almost like camping out compared to what we’ve got now,” Talcott said.

Modern design techniques, such as airlock vestibules, LED lighting fixtures and greener products, make the new lobby more energy friendly. “We have gone much more efficient,” Morris said. 

Lynch said she is both excited and relieved to have the project almost finished. She looks forward to welcoming guests into the new lobby. “The beauty and the fantasy of the upper auditorium finally continues into the lobby and public social space,” she said.

But The Music Hall’s work is not done yet. A number of projects are still on the horizon, including renovations to the upper lobby, critical repairs to the stage, and improvements to a show curtain, chandelier, lights and sconces in the auditorium. “The journey certainly continues,” Lynch said.

The Hall must also make improvements backstage, where much of the technology is long outdated. “We’re using 19th century technology in a 20th century world,” Lynch said.

But for now, it’s time to celebrate. The symposium on Saturday will take place in the theater at 10 a.m. Panelists include Lynch, designer Jason McLean of McLean Designs, architect John Merkle of TMS Architects and construction manager John DeStefano of DeStefano & Associates. The symposium will be moderated by Eve Kahn, an architecture and design writer and critic whose work has been published in The New York Times, Art & Auction, I.D. and The Wall Street Journal.

Reimaging an America Treasure takes place during The Music Hall’s Telluride by the Sea weekend, which will feature six foreign films between Friday and Sunday, Sept. 19 and 21. The first live performance to take place with the new lobby completed will be the Yard Dogs Roadshow, a Moulin Rouge rock concert circus, which will be in town for two shows on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 26 and 27.

Lynch expects the depth of the lobby renovations to stun Music Hall patrons. “Look for some jaws to drop, some eyes to pop out of their heads and a general sense of, I think, amazement,” Lynch said. “It’s a theater. It is dramatic!”

Tickets for the event on Saturday, which runs from 9:15 to 11 a.m., are free but must be reserved by calling the box office at 603-436-2400 or visiting www.themusichall.org.