Workers from Casella Waste Systems prepare on Friday for demolition of the back portion of the former Lawry Brothers Funeral Home scheduled for Monday. Hannah Kaufman/Morning Sentinel

FAIRFIELD — Casella Waste Systems is set to begin demolition of the back portion of the former Lawry Brothers Funeral Home on Monday as part of its plan to develop office space in the iconic building.

The building’s original portion will be preserved and restored for use as administrative office space for Casella Waste Systems, said Jeff Weld, Casella’s vice president of communications.

“That’s one of the things that we really take great pride in, is making sure that if we have a building that’s historic and part of the unique nature of any community, we’re able to keep that and make sure that we’re good stewards of that property,” Weld said. “So for us, we really feel like this is something that we can sort of give back to the town of Fairfield, and really feel like we’re keeping that property at its original state, making it better simply by being there and improving it and maintaining it.”

The former funeral home, located at 107 Main St., dates back to the early 1900s and is recognizable by its concrete, turreted exterior that envelopes the front section of building. The back portion, a 3,022-square-foot addition to the original structure, estimated to have been built around 1980, will be demolished, according to the demolition permit.

Casella Waste Systems, with headquarters in Vermont, provides waste and recycling collection, construction waste removal, landfill services, septic tank pumping and portable toilets in Fairfield. Its current property at 6 Gerald Terrace, located in the lot west of the funeral home, is at a premium for space, Weld said.

The waste management company plans to use the space cleared by demolishing the back portion to build a driveway and parking area in its place.

All asbestos found in a November survey has been removed from the building, Weld said.

The front portion of the building, originally coined the Amos Gerald House or “The Castle,” is on the National Register of Historic Places for its unique architecture and significant history between 1900 and 1924. The Lawry Brothers moved into the property in the mid-1930s, beginning a long tenure of funeral services at the building.

Earlier this year, Casella demolished three houses in the lot next to Lawry Brothers Funeral Home to expand employee parking.

While that expansion was somewhat controversial at the time, those buildings had been vacant for years and were in poor condition, said Michelle Flewelling, Fairfield’s town manager.

Flewelling said that Casella Waste Systems is a big taxpayer, and keeping them in Fairfield helps the municipality financially.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is the trash trucks, as well as the septage removal trucks that they have, provide an awful lot of excise tax to the municipality,” Flewelling said. “So it’s not just property taxes, but it’s also a substantial amount of excise tax because of the volume of vehicles that they have.”

In the lot behind the funeral home, the company plans to build a maintenance facility for trucks, Weld said.

“A state of the art maintenance facility is always beneficial to our customers to know that trucks are regularly maintained,” Weld said. “It improves the working conditions for our maintenance technicians to make sure that they have the upgraded facilities to deliver that maintenance on those vehicles and make sure that they’re road-worthy and ready to service our customers.”

Casella’s expansion in Fairfield is a positive sign for the company’s future as well as an economic boon to the town, Weld said.

“We always want to be driving positive economic development in the towns that we operate in, and I think it sort of signals that we are invested in the community or invested in that area as a location,” Weld said. “We’ve had a really good relationship with towns; it’s exciting for everybody.”

The Lawry Brothers have offered funeral services in Fairfield since 1887, purchasing the 107 Main St. building, then known as “Keyes Mansion,” in the 1930s. When the brothers retired in 1964, the funeral home sold and changed hands a couple of times, but the company has retained its name to the present day.

This year, Lawry Brothers merged with Veilleux and Redington Funeral Home in Waterville, based in another historic building dating back to 1880 with a long legacy of funeral services.

Flewelling said she hopes residents understand that Casella’s expansion into the former funeral home is not intended to take away from the building’s historical value.

“It’s been a long time coming, but we also know that there’s been some scuttle about the fact that, ‘We’re destroying all of our history,’ and that is not their intent,” Flewelling said. “We do not want this to get ugly. This is something that is happening to help preserve the building that’s there and allow the existing new business — it’s a compromise between the old and the new.”