A Morgantown contractor yesterday was the successful bidder at a public auction on the Lewis County, W.Va., Courthouse steps for the former Weston State Hospital.

Once known as the Trans-Allegheny Asylum for the Insane, the sprawling 307-acre complex was sold for a high bid of $1.5 million to Joe Jordan, an asbestos contractor, Weston Mayor Julia Howes Spelsberg said.

A North Hills psychologist, Dr. Karla C.D. McNamara, was the second-highest bidder at $1.4 million. Dr. McNamara lives in Marshall and has an office in Ross.

Mr. Jordan, who could not be reached, promised to keep intact the centerpiece of the former mental institution, a 455,725-square-foot sandstone main building that has been part of Weston's downtown for 191 years. A historical marker at the hospital says the nearly-quarter-mile-long building is the largest hand-cut stone building in the country.

The building, a National Historic Landmark, was built between 1858 and 1882, begun when the area was part of Virginia and completed 19 years after the formation of West Virginia. An allocation of $29,000 from the Virginia Legislature earmarked for the hospital's construction was confiscated and used in 1861 as the initial treasury for what became the state of West Virginia.

Weston officials have agonized over the fate of the hospital property because it is such an integral component of the town. The successful auction yesterday by the state Department of Health and Human Resources relieved a lot of that anxiety, Ms. Spelsberg said.

"To me, it's having a burden lifted that maybe we can proceed now," she said. "It was just hanging over everybody's head. We still don't have an exact answer about what's going to happen, but at least we know there's a future."