“Photo: Lee Wexler describes interior decorating plans to Winnie McLeod, president of the South Whidbey Historical Society.Jim Larsen/staff photoWow.That’s what people should think when they step inside the refurbished South Whidbey Historical Society Museum when it reopens this spring or summer.Winnie McLeod, president of the Historical Society, has just the person to provide that wow factor.That person is Lee Wexler, an artist and relatively new addition to the Historical Society whose volunteer job it is to oversee the creation of a totally new museum interior.He really has guided us, said McLeod during a recent tour to look at the progress being made in the museum. When people open that front door I want them to go ‘Wow!’ We didn’t know how to do the inside so it would be a wow.The outside of the structure was totally shored up and refurbished before Wexler went to work last fall. He began to transform what was simply a long, open 15-foot-wide former bunkhouse into a place of mystery — walls that museum-goers will wonder what’s behind, small rooms inside the room to present individual displays, cases filled with antiquities — and a new, handcrafted display case that can be locked and filled with temporary displays donated by local families with historic roots in the community.It wasn’t easy for Lee, McLeod said as she admired the way things are taking shape. A lot of us were set in our ways. He’s changed the whole thing, but it’s all here.Wexler isn’t one to sing his own praises, but others will. Emil Lindholdt led the $150,000 fundraising effort for the museum refurbishing, and he brought his friend Wexler into the project simply by inviting him to one meeting.Wexler said he was hooked immediately. Although he’s designed many things in his life, including other buildings as a design consultant, he felt an affinity for the museum. This is a very important project, he said.Lindholdt said Wexler is a former college professor and president of the Washington Water Color Association.Before Lee, you’d walk in the door of the museum and see from one end to the other, Lindholdt said. Now, you’ll observe more of the displays. He made a scale model and the whole board was impressed.What Wexler designs, master craftsman Scott McNeil builds with the assistance of Andy Statz. While McNeil is the official contractor, McLeod notes that he’s practically donating his time. Working with such a narrow building was a challenge in itself, Wexler said. Adding to that challenge was the need to leave room for people in wheelchairs to tour the museum. But he’s pulled off the seemingly impossible, creating what he predicts will be a real class act on a tight budget.It won’t be long before the displays start going in, but the museum will not open until everything is just right. Lindholdt thinks that could be late May, while McLeod suspects mid-summer is more likely.Whenever it opens, the first visitor’s reaction is already predictable:Wow.”