KINGDON House, the Pym Street building which hosts around 20 of Tavistock's leisure activities, is to get a complete facelift.
It has at last secured the grant it has been looking for, from the Devon and West Somerset Key Fund.
The fund will give £17,000, which will come from the European Union's Objective 5b fund for helping to regenerate rural economies.
That sum represents 90 per cent of the cost, with the remainder of £1,889 being provided by the Kingdon House Community Association, which owns the building.
The association aims to start work as soon as possible — the first phase has to be done by December 14 to qualify for the grant.
Office manager Carol Stones said it was hoped to finish the job by early spring. The local builder Greening and Son will carry out the work as main contractors.
The users who will benefit include a wide range of town organisations, such as the Council for Voluntary Service, the art, ballet and bridge groups, the Citizens' Advice Bureau, and the Pre-school Learning Alliance.
The place will be redecorated outside and in. There will be refurbishment of two of the three rooms for hire — the studio and the Northcott Room — as well as new furniture, curtains, kitchen fittings and equipment, toilets and storage facilities. It is hoped to instal a water supply upstairs. In the lower hall a new ceiling and floor and new lighting will be put in.
The association will aim to keep the character of the house as far as possible because it is a listed building.
Kingdon House was built in 1906 by Southcombe Parker and is referred to in Pevsner's 'Buildings of England' as an ingenious use of the corner site. In 1907 it was occupied by the Tavistock Gazette and the studio became its print shop.
It became a community centre in 1977 and the association has been trying to keep it up with inadequate money ever since.
'We have had to make do. Now we are able to bring it all up to date and we are really pleased to have got the grant we needed,' said Carol Stones.
The association hopes to be able to do all the work necessary without interrupting the programmes of its hirers.