The Village of New Paltz Historic Preservation Commission presented two “Partners in Preservation” awards at the New Paltz Village Board meeting last week. Certificates of appreciation were presented to Kelly and Sean Houlihan, owners of Shapers on North Manheim Boulevard, and to Vanderlyn Pine, manager of the office building at 126 Main Street. Pictured L-R: Sean Houlihan, Kelly Houlihan and Thomas G. Olsen, chair of the New Paltz Historic Preservation Commission. (photo by Lauren Thomas)
At last Wednesday’s Village Board meeting, the Village of New Paltz Historic Preservation Commission made the official presentation of the Partners in Preservation awards for 2017. A certificate of appreciation was presented to Kelly and Sean Hoolihan, co-owners of Shapers, a beauty salon located in a former private house at 4 North Manheim Boulevard, just off Main Street. Vanderlyn R. Pine and Gordon K. Pine, owners and managers of the office building at 126 Main Street, were out of town on the night of the meeting and received their certificate in absentia.
Since 2010 the Historic Preservation Commission has recognized village property owners who have made significant improvements to their homes or places of business. For 2017, the five-member commission cited the Hoolihan siblings as “commended for historically sensitive repairs to the exterior of Shapers, their business property.” In presenting the award, commission chair Thomas Olsen called the brick-and-wood-fronted building “a shining example of how to do restoration to a building that is not a historic landmark.” He added, “You’ve done a beautiful thing for the village.”
The Pines, father and son, “carefully maintained a converted home as part of a successful office complex on Main Street,” according to the official citation. At the meeting, Olsen described the structure at 126 Main as “very sensitively repurposed from residential to commercial use.” The yellow-shuttered, grey-sided Dutch-style Pine Professional Center, sited next door to One Epic Place, serves as headquarters for several small businesses, including the Wellness Embodied studio. This was the second Partners in Preservation award for Vanderlyn Pine, who previously was recognized for his property at 16 Plattekill Avenue.
“Both our 2017 recipients have significantly enhanced the beauty of New Paltz’s built environment with thoughtful approaches to maintaining and repairing their respective repurposed commercial spaces,” Olsen stated in a press release from the commission announcing the awards. At the presentation ceremony, he elaborated, the Hoolihans and the Pines were “a great example to the village” as “excellent stewards of buildings that have been very sensitively maintained.”
Olsen also thanked trustee Dennis Young, the Village Board’s liaison to the Historic Preservation Commission, for his assistance with a new video explaining the commission’s work. Now viewable online at www.villageofnewpaltz.org/historic-preservation-commission, the video explains the history and principles of architectural preservation and applies them to the local context.
Gee – any chance to get the crazy junk ‘Asian Fusion – Tronix’ building with all kinds of zoning, signage and
junk violating ‘crap’ in the front yard to adhere to some sort of community standards of beauty? Can we also lump in China House (with it’s peeling paint, crumbling front porch, grease stained West side and outdated grease/smoke vent)? Can we clean up the New Paltz Hostel? And what about the very ugly and sorely needed redesign and rehabilitation of Shop Rite plaza? New Paltzers spend a great deal of time complaining about brand new construction which brings in 21st Century, clean, upgraded properties and seem to turn their blind eye to major eyesores lining Main Street – in most place it is the other way around.
When the Pine Nursing Home went belly-up, the owners of the building came to the Assessor Unit and said “Business is dead. Lower our assessment?” and the assessing unit is did. Then the chamber moved in, rents went back up, and the assessment has stayed under market value and the same amount for the last 19 years. That is way uglier than anything else in village and town.