#adaptive use

[rocklandhistoryblog]

The Osborne Barn, Monsey

Peter Strasser, Hillside Avenue, Monsey was a winner of a Preservation Merit Award for restoration of the Osborn Barn in 1992.

This frame barn was built about 1860 on the Garret A. Osborn farm on East Saddle River Road in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. It is an English type of barn with a high gable roof running the length of the building. Wagon doors are located in the long sides.

Agriculture once dominated our region, and similar barns were common. However, with increasing suburbanization we have lost many of them. In 1989, the Osborn Barn was no longer serving its original agricultural function and, deemed obsolete by its owner, was scheduled to be demolished and replaced by a new housing development.

Moving a historic structure is recommended only as a last resort, and it was the only way that the Osborn Barn could be preserved. Its owners, Mr. & Mrs. Melamed, made it available for removal and Peter Strasser saved the barn from demolition.

Mr. Strasser is the owner of a carpentry firm, Strasser & Associates, which is located in Monsey and specializes in architectural restoration and period interiors. When considering the Osborn bam, he was looking for needed additional studio and storage space for his business and was captivated by the barn’s sturdy picturesqueness and fine construction.

In the late fall of 1989, Mr. Strasser removed the barn’s cupola intact and carefully dismantled the rest of the bam. Each part was numbered and the loca­tion and placement recorded. The parts were moved to the new location, Strasser’s Hillside Avenue property in Monsey.

Over the next year and a half, the barn was rebuilt. Damaged parts were repaired with traditional joinery techniques and modern adhesives. Stones from the original foundation were incor­porated into the new one, and new sills and lower level flooring replaced the de­teriorated old ones. The original hand-hewn frame of the barn was reassembled, raised, and again held together with large wooden pegs, called trunnels. With great sensitivity, the original structural ele­ments, the cupola, doors, hardware, sid­ing, and foundation stones were reused. Board-and-batten siding restored the barn’s original appearance. Fortunately, the original boards of the siding were still in place when the barn was disas­sembled and could be restored to their original locations. However, new verti­cal battens had to be made since the originals had been removed when, in a later modification, the barn’s walls were shingled.

Most of the work for the Osborn Barn restoration was done by Peter Strasser and his staff. He thanks Claire Tholl, George Turrell, Harry Khun, Ken Hirsh, Scott Roop, Ed Kwiecinski, Greg Allen, Marshall Hyde, and his wife Cassie Strasser for their help. Peter Strasser is commended for sav­ing an important remnant of our region’s agricultural past and restoring it with care and sensitivity.

www.RocklandHistory.org      

[rocklandhistoryblog]

#TBT - Penguin Rep Theatre (formerly the hay barn at the Gilmor-Sloane Estate), Stony Point Emeterio Rueda, artist rendering, 1986

In 1958 the United Presbyterian Church Mission transformed the hay barn (c. 1880) on the Gilmor-Sloane Estate into a 150-seat theatre. They named it the Barn Playhouse. Under the leadership of Norman Gano, the Church Mission used the Barn Playhouse to present religious plays and to showcase the indigenous arts of countries which their missionaries visited. By the mid-1970’s, the Church Mission no longer held performances in the playhouse, although they continued to occupy the historic Gilmor-Sloane house.

In 1977, Joe Brancato and Fran Newman McCarthy poked their heads into the Barn Playhouse theatre and dreamed big. Beginning that year, together with Andrew Horn, they put together a community theatre group and mounted three productions: “The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd,”; “Lovers and Other Strangers” and “The Fantasticks.” Since that time hundreds of productions have been mounted.

Over the past 40 years, sympathetic rehabilitation of key attributes of the 19th hay barn including barn doors, rafters, beams and supports has preserved the character of this historic structure. The necessary alterations to create a contemporary professional theatre have been incorporated seamlessly allowing for an enjoyable experience for patrons and a suitable working environment for the professional actors and directors.

On May 21st, Penguin Rep Theatre will receive a 2017 Rockland County Executive Historic Preservation Merit Award for the outstanding rehabilitation of this historic structure. This is another wonderful way to celebrate 40 years of professional theatre in Rockland County! Congratulations!

To learn more about the event at which this award will be presented, visit our website here: http://www.rocklandhistory.org/event.cfm?page=546

[rocklandhistoryblog]

#TBT Palisades School House, c.1927 Oak Tree Road, Palisades, NY Built circa 1870, by Winthrop Sargent Gilman Jr. and Dr. C.R. Agnew on land donated by Abraham Post, the children of Palisades were educated in the two-room schoolhouse until 1936 when the student population outgrew the building and a new brick structure was erected across Oak Tree Road. From 1936 until 1970, however, it continued to serve an educational purpose. Children walked across the street to the schoolhouse for lunch. In the late 1950’s, when the student population eventually outgrew the red brick building across the street, kindergarten was held in the schoolhouse and in the 1960’s both the kindergarten and 6th grade were housed there. In 1970, when the Tappan Zee Elementary on RT 9W was built, the schoolhouse was closed and given to the Palisades community for $1 by the South Orangetown Central School District. In 1971, it became the home of the Oak Tree Playgroup (later moving across the street in 1977 to the red brick school) and in 1987 the Blue Rock School occupied the building (Blue Rock later moved to their current home in West Nyack). By 2007-8, the building had fallen into hard times and was in need of critical repairs. It was in 2008, that the Community Center Board made the restoration of the structure a priority and over the next ten years, they worked very hard to rehabilitate the facility. Today, the building has renewed purpose attracting yoga, karate, sewing classes, Children's Shakespeare Theater rehearsals, private rentals, estate sales and is home to the Palisades Winter Farmers' Market. The recent preservation efforts done by the Community Center Board and committed voluteers has been recognized with a 2017 Rockland County Executive's Historic Preservation Merit Award. The award will be presented at a festive country supper on the grounds of the Jacob Blauvelt Historic Site on May 21st. More info here: http://www.rocklandhistory.org/event.cfm?page=546 Please join us in congratulating all involved in the preservation of the Palisades School House. To see a photo of the school house today, visit our blog here: www.RocklandHistory.org

[rocklandhistoryblog]

#50Years Ago This Week: SENGSTACKEN ESTATE NOW A TOWN HALL Excerpt from the Journal News Week of April 10-16, 1967 Photos by Art Gunther Pictured: Supervisor Robert Slocum; Mrs. Lesmond Kane and Mrs. John Lodini STONY POINT GOVERNMENT MOVES TO NEW QUARTERS – Sengstacken Estate Now a Town Hall ​ For over a year the Sengstacken building in Stony Point has been the object of much controversy over its renovation as a town hall. Last week marked the end of the controversy and the beginning of a new atmosphere of quiet charm for the town offices. ​ Chalk white walls, wide hallways, large sunlit rooms and a gracious wooden staircase characterize the two-story Sengstacken building, once a private estate and later used as a school. ​ The ten offices now housed in the $60,000 town hall include a meeting room which will be utilized for town board and other meetings. The much-argued assembly hall addition, which would have added $25,000 to the $20,000 cost of renovation no longer figures in the town hall’s plans. The supervisor’s offices carpeted in pasture green and cinnamon brown, combine the newness throughout the entire building of fluorescent lighting with the older charm of 50 year old architecture, underlining the historic significance of Stony Point. ​ --------------- The HSRC is pleased to be compiling “This Week in Rockland” a weekly feature appearing in the Rockland Review. Check out other events that happened this week in history! On Newsstands everywhere or online at www.rocklandreviewnews.com www.RocklandHistory.org