ENFIELD — Paul Mirski was driven, in both his personal and professional life, by a love of New Hampshire — from its wildlife and natural beauty to its communities and historic buildings.
Mirski, a highly accomplished historic preservationist and a former state legislator, was regarded by friends as “larger than life” and a “modern renaissance man,” an avid sportsman who loved the outdoors, cooking and fiddle-playing and had a penchant for storytelling.
Over his 50-year architectural career, Mirski helped restore historic landmarks across New Hampshire, including the Upper Valley, and facilitated community revitalization through preservation projects, housing development and increasing public access to outdoor recreation.
“He did absolutely nothing by half measure,” said Dimitri Gerakaris, Mirski’s friend of 50 years. “Whether spinning tales, laughing — often at his own misadventures — old-time fiddling, batching up eggnog or pots full of oysters to share. Paul took sharing to an art form.”
Mirski died on Feb. 19 at age 79 after a 15-year battle with pulmonary fibrosis.
Born in 1943, Mirski was raised in Belmont, N.H. He lived most of his life in the Granite State, leaving only for two years during childhood, to attend college and during his retirement when he spent winters in Florida.
Apart from his disdain for the cold, Mirski was perfectly matched for New Hampshire . A lifelong Republican, Mirski connected strongly with the Granite State’s mythos of liberty and individualism and its local governing traditions. Mirski loved New Hampshire’s wilderness, open fields, lakes and rivers that provided abundant opportunities to hunt for turkey or pheasant, fly fish or to just marvel the natural beauty.
And he loved the character of New Hampshire’s communities, from the historic villages and residential homes to the textile mills around which small cities were built.
His daughter Sara Mirski, who lives in Hanover, said her father’s passion for architecture influenced her own career in property development, where she spent 20 years in New York City, N.Y., before returning to New Hampshire in 2020.
“He was always looking at buildings and talking about how they could be improved or renewed or restored, and I think I just started to look at buildings that way myself,” Sara said. “And I think that led me into appreciating architecture and buildings in a way that, for me, meant going into real estate development.”
Mirski studied architecture at the University of Detroit in Michigan, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1967 and won a faculty award for excellence in design. It was also where he met his wife, Karen “Kaye” Mirski, whom he married while still at college.
His views on building preservation were partly shaped while living in Detroit, where he saw the adverse effects of the city’s mid- 20th Century urban renewal initiatives, his daughter said.
This Detroit redevelopment, while intended to make the city more livable, resulted in the razing of neighborhoods and creating new housing developments that were unaffordable to longtime city residents, particularly in the Black community, according to records at Wayne State University, a public research institute in Detroit.
“He saw firsthand the devastation caused by a lot of those efforts at urban renewal,” Sara Mirski said. “And they weren’t successful because they built those giant projects (that) really separated the people who lived there from their communities.”
Mirski was a proponent of land conservation and “adaptive reuse”, an architectural practice of renovating and repurposing existing structures for new uses, such as converting a shuttered mill building into apartments. This approach also spares open land from development that would threaten wildlife impact, which also concerned Mirski.
Mirski’s best restoration advice to his daughter was to “do no harm.”
“He would say to me, ‘If you want to restore it you have to know what was done originally’,” Sara said. “In other words, look at what they did and how they detailed it to get your inspiration. They had very simple methods then and you shouldn’t do anything that veers away from that.”
Mirski’s first major design, between 1971 and 1974, was the Belknap-Sulloway Mill in Laconia, believed to be one of the country’s oldest surviving brick textile mills. Mirski’s design, which restored and redeveloped the mill into a museum and cultural center, won an award from the National Trust of Historic Preservation for adapting an industrial structure.
In 1974, Mirski launched his own architectural firm, Paul Mirski + Associates, with offices in Enfield and Belmont. Among his New Hampshire projects, Mirski designed the rehabilitation of the Claremont Opera House, Claremont City Hall and Aspet and Little Studio, the historic home and studio of Augustus Saint-Gaudens at Saint-Gaudens National Park.
Concerned about the impact of rapid growth on New Hampshire’s cultural landscape, Mirski also co-founded the New Hampshire’s Preservation Task Force, which led to the creation of Inherit New Hampshire, now named New Hampshire Preservation Alliance. Formed in 1985, this nonprofit provides resources and education to individuals and communities across the state to support their preservation projects.
“He was at the forefront of what I would call the ‘modern preservation movement’, noting the importance of all kinds of resources, including industrial resources like the mills in Laconia, and really finding creative solutions for their reuse,” said Jennifer Goodman, executive director of the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance.
Mirski also valued affordable housing access for seniors. With partners, Mirski completed three housing projects totaling 64 apartment units for seniors with moderate to low income — Prospect Pines in Enfield, Indian River Apartments in Canaan and Bristol Town Square Apartments in Bristol, N.H.
Mirski also designed the restoration and redevelopment plan of the historic Hewitt House in Enfield, an 1871 home that now provides nine affordable apartments for seniors.
“Paul’s design was so creative and innovative,” said Francine Lozeau, whose husband Tony Lozeau partnered with Mirski on the Hewitt rehabilitation. “Everything was preserved: wooden board walls, beams, marble sinks, the two-holer, sliding barn doors. The carriage house doors became a huge window, a barn door opening became a mirror. No shortcuts were allowed.”
Historical preservations and affordable housing, while not high-paying, were “his passion”, Sara Mirski said, noting that her father would design high-end private homes for his primary income.
“He wanted to do good through projects that were important or had value,” she said.
Mirski’s final project, which he did pro bono, was the design and planning of the Mascoma Lakeside Park and pavilion, a public recreation area in Enfield on 3.1 acres of land with over 1,200 feet of shoreline and adjoining the Northern Rail Trail.
“I estimate that he donated at least $40,000 of design work, all pro bono,” said Smith,who chairs the Mascoma Lake Park Committee.
Mirski wanted people to enjoy and appreciate New Hampshire’s natural resources. Each autumn Mirski would offer his employees a day off, along with a $100 bill, so they could drive to the White Mountains to see the foliage. The $100 was Mirski’s device to ensure that employees stayed true. Each employee was required to make a purchase in a northern town and to return with the receipt.
“They didn’t have to spend the full $100 but they had to show that they made the effort to see the leaves,” Sara Mirski said.
Mirski served six terms as a Republican state legislator between 1994 and 2012. He represented communities that included Enfield, Canaan, Grafton, Orange and Dorchester. As a legislator he supported low taxes, limited government and local control of public education spending and curriculum. He objected strongly to the state Supreme Court’s Claremont decision of 1997, which found that the state’s school funding system was unconstitutional and directed the legislature and governor to define the components of a constitutionally adequate education and fund it equitably. In a 2010 campaign letter Mirski said this ruling stripped parents of control over their children’s public education and drove him to travel around the state to build public opposition to the ruling.
Though often strong and vocal in his opinions — which didn’t always mesh with his liberal or moderate friends or colleagues — Mirski never let politics get in the way of his relationships, said Gerakaris.
While Mirski and Gerakaris had very contrasting political views, Gerakaris said that Miriski respected people with opposing views who were passionate and put thought into their positions.
“He knew in the classic sense how to agree to disagree without being disagreeable and he never let such differences sully a friendship,” Gerakaris said.
Mirski was equally passionate about his recreational pursuits, of which he had many. He loved bird hunting and fishing. He regularly brought friends to his cabin in New Brunswick to fish for salmon on the Miramichi River and took annual drives with his dogs to Iowa for two-week bird hunting excursions.
He bred champion Brittany bird dogs, enjoyed cooking and eating and threw 4th of July galas with enough fanfare and pyrotechnics to impress John Phillips Souza.
Mirski sold his Enfield home after his wife’s death in 2019, and spent much of his retirement in Florida, where he hoped to catch a giant tuna. Despite residing in Enfield for 50 years, he retained his childhood home in Belmont as his permanent residence.
In January, Mirski’s Belmont home, built in 1780, was placed on the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places and is currently being considered for addition to the national register.
“He was a visionary in many ways,” Smith said. “He was multi-faceted and had a great sense of humor. He was an amazing guy.”
Patrick Adrian may be reached at 603-727-3216 or at padrian@vnews.com.