Preservation News

The Organic Evolution of Artist and Entrepreneurial Spirit in Former High School

Beacon Studios is housed in the old high school in Beacon, New York.  Built 1915 with additions in 1939 and 1974 it is now an adaptive reuse in heart of a city located on the riverfront of the Hudson.  The city is beginning to experience a second renaissance, attracting artists and their patrons from around the region. 

It is no surprise that synergism has developed organically and an enclave of creative people now occur in this space. Imagine the smell of the air after a bout of fireworks. Faint smoke and the essence lingers. The sound of their booming still in the ears and smoke hovering over the meadow, where 10 minutes prior, a thousand people just sat still on blankets and reached their eyes overhead. The lingering sound is tantamount to the layers, or the years, that dust the surfaces in all old buildings. There is a thick history, often more intense in schools, where hundreds, or even thousands of lives, breaths, dreams, words have passed through. It is the young fire that fills up the space, that which lives in young hearts.

The building is unimproved from the time it was last used as a school in 2001 and is essentially in mildly decaying form. But if the building where pristinely painted and rehabilitated, one might be less likely to sense the presence of its original inhabitants.

In Beacon Studios, the slight deterioration lightens the pretense. Its boldness is partially in the reliance on substance, not aesthetics. This unrefined physical interior makes way for a certain freedom, an easy flow of creativity, and for a diverse environment to spring awake. Its present state releases energy of its own. It attracts the sensibility of the artist and adds a layer of inspiring material about which to create art.

It is exactly this type of space that is crucial to the fabric of a community, and perhaps to the region. With rentals as low as $1.18 a square foot, some might call it an incubator where artists and professionals with small budgets can establish a foothold. And indeed, this building is shared by a mix of artists; as well as professionals and budding entrepreneurs, including a baker, woodworkers, Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Green Teen program (matching Dutchess County youth to gardening projects), a seamstress and a recording studio. In fact, the recording studio is now being utilized by popular Americana band, The Felice Brothers. And even though the space is refined there are opportunities for more formal presentation of work. For instance, it has a Premier Studio of over 3000 square feet that can be rented out provided that the renter obtains the proper insurance.

As fertile as this building could be, Beacon Studios is in danger of closing. It is owned by the Beacon City School District which considers the structure to be an extra limb. Although a group of tenants have formed an advocacy group, interfacing with the District from time to time, advice from the State to the District has been to cut itself free of the burden of the building. Thus, the building is currently for sale and the future is unsure. My only hope is that the building continues its other life as inspiration to future generations of artists and entrepreneurs, and continues to teach us inspiring lessons beyond the classrooms of its former use.

Atticus Lanigan

About the author:

Atticus Lanigan is land use planner for Orange County. She has lived in the Hudson Valley since 1993.  She has a strong devotion to the region that manifests itself through art and love on a constant basis.  She has a Master’s degree in City & Regional Planning and is a wife and mother.  She recently created a newsletter called Hudson Valley Movement. She can be reached at Hudsonvalleymovement@gmail.com

Using Vision to wake the Sleeping Building

Last year, Pine Bush was gracious enough to host one of the Orange County Citizen Foundation’s placemaking tours.  An energetic R.J. Smith delighted participants with his stories of how Pine Bush’s village renovation program was largely a home-grown success, and much of the effort to prepare useful materials, including their design vision for the downtown, was created by volunteers.   They handled the creation of a new character on Main Street something like a stage set, relying on old photographs to guide them with the modification recommendations for the buildings, since much of the character and detail had been swept away with inappropriate modifications over the years.   The result was a unified and cohesive downtown of which inspired pride and ownership by the community.  

However one building on Main Street was a bit of an oddball (pictured above).   It was last the office and home of a local doctor and had not been occupied for over 40 years.   Despite several attempts to market the building and redo it, nothing had materialized.  He said that the only use that the property had was that the community used one of the big spruce trees in the front for community holiday decorations.   R.J. Smith challenged us with the question, “What do you do with this type of building?”   I was drawn to the building, and the challenge of helping it become useful to the community again.

The building was originally a wooden Victorian Queen Ann style building, pictured in middle of this postcard dating from early 1900s.   In the 1950’s, a local contractor was hired to brick the façade of the entire building and remove the wood porch.  The new front porch is also shielded with brick, and a room over the porch was constructed.  The imposing addition to the front of the building lacked a “face” on Main Street.  This out of character feeling of this building was especially obvious since the buildings on either side of it retained their original Victorian charm and character.

The building had several positive attributes.   A one-story addition was also added to the back of the building for the use of the office, and the building was large, about 6800 square feet.   The one story addition could be easily expanded to two stories, with elevator access accommodated on the outside of the footprint next to the addition.   And to my delight, many of the original features of the inside of the building harkened from the Victorian era, and were remarkably sound, dry and intact.   Pictured here is a detail of the wooden staircase inside the building.  The front foyer also had the original door, flooring and windows.  Decorative Iron gas fireplaces were also still part of the original family room in the interior of the building.   I spoke to architect C. Willumsen Magill about this building, and he agreed to do one drawing to help “vision” the building into a new use.   

Magill puts a “face” back on the building.   He recommended taking away the front two story brick addition in the front of the building, painting the exterior brick a lighter color to blend in with the existing Victorian streetscape, and creating a front porch on the building, wide enough to accommodate a generous seating area.   Although it is not exactly in the same configuration as the original porch, it is complementary in style with the intact Victorian adjacent to the building.  The porch provides sitting areas on the outside of the building that would most certainly be welcomed in this small village.  Appropriate uses for this building could be residential or commercial. Not having to remove the brick sheathing would help to make this project more affordable.   Since the interior was still mostly wood, plaster, and wallboard, interior renovations could also be affordable.  

A pressing need of seniors in Orange County, New York is appropriate retirement age housing that will allow them to stay in the community that they have lived in most of their lives.  As a result, there are a number of grant programs that can be used to create affordable senior housing within a community.  Often it can be used within a partnership with a private developer and public entity or non-profit organization.   There are also a limited number of programs that would allow for the renovation of a building such as this for commercial use headed by a private developer.

Almost every community has a building that becomes the impossible task in the minds of the residents.    However, with the right vision and combination of grant and creative planning tools, these buildings can be put back to use again.  The “Main Street philosophy” encouraged by the National Trust for Historic Preservation favors adaptive reuse of buildings, and it is a philosophy in which I also believe.  The adaptive reuse of historic buildings, even if they have been modified, is still a useful approach in the redevelopment plans of a community; it embraces history and pride of community and is in my mind, the primary building block of a sustainable community.

Author: Susan Roth, AICP of Hudson Valley Planning and Preservation.

Notes:  Postcard from R.J.Smith collection, and used with his permission.  This article would not be possible without the generous contribution of the talented architect C. Willumsen Magill (Carl Magill), office located at 232 Ward Street, Montgomery, New York.  His office number is 845-457-1955.  He can also be reached by email at cwmagillarch@frontier.com

 

The Doctrine of "Do More Than One Thing"

From my perch I could see the boys hurling tomatoes out of the community garden. Our 1875 house was clearly built to see and be seen, and its raised entry, 14-foot ceilings and 8-foot windows make my office a promontory.  They had no idea I was watching.  I dashed down the steps, zipped across the street and shouted “Gentlemen!  What are we doing?”  Five boys spun around; all denied vegetable pilfering, etc.; then one asked “but this is a community garden, isn’t it?”

Two weeks before I stopped three kids leaving the garden with the last of my turnips.  They too said “but it’s a community garden, isn’t it?” I explained the “yes, but no” concept and then let them go with the booty. I figured if they could identify the vegetables and really wanted to eat them, that was good enough for me

Here in Easton the garden should clearly become more of a social resource. There are other gardens, here and around the country, where volunteers garden to give away the vegetables through social services, but I am looking for a different model.  After the boys and I chatted about the tomato incident, we toured the garden and named the plants, tasted the peas and the cherry tomatoes, and they asked if they could have a plot.  I promised to help them have their plot next year if they promised to help take care of it. I may end up managing it more than I like, but perhaps the exposure will lead gradually to an appreciation for, and a habit of growing one’s own food even if it can only be a few tomato plants on a porch each year.

That will only happen, though, if the garden “Does More Than One Thing”…more than just be a garden for the people with the plots.  Members of my community who do not have plots often stop in when they see someone gardening. We share English and Spanish plant names, talk about how we grow them and cook them; and I share my vegetables. If the garden creates community interaction, not just vegetables, then it has a value that protects it from wayward kids, grasping developers, and needy city or town managers. Then it’s sustainable.

Hope Alswang,the Director of the Museum Program for the New York State Council on the Arts a decade or more ago, taught me that “Money must do more than one thing."  As a funder she knew that the competitive proposals, the most effective projects, were the ones where the money achieved more than one goal: created curriculum that could be reused annually and reach a new audience; preserved a structure and gave the community a place for public programs; or protected a landscape that provided open space and protected a water source.  I’ve always followed the Doctrine in fundraising, and now use it in nearly all I do, particularly preservation work.

The Doctrine of Do More Than One Thing applies beautiful to sustainability – in preservation and in other environmentally-sustainable practices.  Every time we preserve an historic house we also raise the profile of the neighborhood, we reduce waste and consumption, we improve the built landscape and avoid adding infrastructure. That’s definitely More Than One Thing. 
The best, the most sustainable choices, are those that accomplish much with one act. A year from now I hope to report that the garden has a kids’ plot and that they’ve learned to compost and identify and grow vegetables, and eat healthier food, much like they did in the early history of our community. I also hope I’ve learned more Spanish, that we know each other’s names and say “hi” outside the garden, too -- and that we need a bigger garden. Maybe we can take even steps toward re-establishing a community canning kitchen so that we can relearn how to store this bounty.  That would be a LOT More Than One Thing.

Sarah Brophy

About the Author:  As a consultant Sarah works with museums, zoos, aquariums, gardens, and historic sites to make them more sustainable. The work can address sustainability financially through grants development, environmentally through green practice, and socially through mainstreaming activities bringing every nonprofit and its community closer together.  She is the author of Is Your Museum Grant-Ready? and co-author of The Green Museum.  You can find her on the Web at www.bmuse.net, and on Twitter as @greenmuseum.  She lives with her family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where they have mastered composting, recycling, and living with one car. Shorter showers are still a problem….

Your Life is the Legend

Your life is a legend of the environment in which you live. For me, it is the Hudson Valley. To be environmentally conscious and to live a full life, a Hudson Valley resident should believe that his life is a story within a greater story, that of the Valley. We can achieve a love of place and color in those legends by following the voices that lead us to the most unlikely places.

There are, in fact, places to which we are all mysteriously drawn. We may be able to rattle off their names like clockwork but not the reasons why we are drawn to them. These are centers of energy that I call power points; places of interest that pull us in either by their appearance or just the way they make us feel.