SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — If you’ve driven around downtown San Angelo in the past few months, you may have noticed the new copper roof creeping its way across the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts. Well, that construction is completed now, and the results are in — and very, very shiny.

The roofing project began earlier this year on July 12, 2023, after the museum’s staff finally reached a settlement with an insurance company for an insurance claim caused by damage dealt to the building’s iconic roof during a hail storm in 2020. The hail caused extensive damage to the roof and allowed rainwater to seep through, causing cosmetic and structural damage to the museum’s interior.

“It was bad,” Eric Hunter, co-owner of Precision Construction and Roofing, said. “That’s a copper standing seam, so when big hail continuously hits any type of metal where the seams overlap — if you just imagine taking a hammer and pounding something so long — something’s got to give. It was in disarray, and it needed to be replaced.”

The roof and interior repairs forced the museum to close to the public and relocate its approximately 2,000-object art collection to a separate facility. Despite the closure, many of SAMFA’s programs continued their usual business.

Precision Construction and Roofing, the company behind the repairs, took to Facebook on Thursday, Aug. 14, to share photos of the finished project:

The company, based in North Richland Hills, Texas, has a history of using copper for roofing. It has also roofed a number of renowned or oddly-shaped buildings, including several courthouses across the nation.

“We were looking for one [roofing company] who had done a lot of projects with copper,” Laura Huckaby, interim director and curator of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, said. “We were also looking for a firm that had done bigger projects and also specialized buildings or unusually shaped roofs like ours.”

The museum’s eye-catching shine won’t last forever, though, as the elements will eventually revert the roof to its originally dark brown coloring. However, though the luster may fade, Huckaby is pleased with the construction’s quality.

“It definitely grabs your attention,” Huckaby said. “It looks beautiful. The patina will turn a darker brown like the original roof was — probably shouldn’t take too long to do that. But we’re really enjoying how shiny it is. They also did a wonderful, good-quality job on it. We’re very pleased with their work.”

Precision Construction and Roofing is also pleased with its handiwork, going as far as to make its Facebook profile picture a photo of the museum’s roof.

“I’ve got a ton of family that’s close to San Angelo or in San Angelo, and it’s personal to me because I’ve been to San Angelo, Texas, probably a thousand times in my life,” Hunter said. “There’s a sense of pride in our work. It’s beautiful if you ask me.”

The museum isn’t quite ready to reopen to the public, though. Its doors will stay closed until Jan. 19, 2024, when SAMFA’s grand re-opening will be hosted to commemorate the completion of all the planned repair and construction projects.