‘Dreamers and risk-takers’ honored by Cobblestone Museum with preservation awards

140 attend first-time event as museum seeks more supporters for mission

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Andrew Meier, an attorney in Medina who has tackled several preservation projects, served as keynote speaker on Friday at a preservation awards celebration for the Cobblestone Society and Museum.

About 140 people attended the event at Maison Albion. Meier entitled his speech, “Preservation 101: A Brief Science Lesson.”

Meier has led the ongoing renovation of the former R. H. Newell Shirt Factory. He started that project in 2005, and continues with the work on the building from 1876. It has hotel rooms, a law office, the Shirt Factory cocktail bar, and for many years was home to 810 Meadworks.

Meier said the labor from the stone and wood artisans, and other craftsmen can’t be duplicated with new buildings, where the focus is often on speed and the lowest cost possible.

Those older buildings in the county were built with old forest trees that were 200 to 300 years old. The sites were often made of the incredibly durable Medina Sandstone, which was hauled to sites on wagons by powerful animals.

“There were no concrete trucks or cranes,” Meier said. “This was all brute force, muscle labor from men and horses,” he said.

Andrew Meier acquired the Robert H. Newell Building at 113 West Center St. in 2005, when he was 25 and starting out as an attorney. The 14,000-square-foot building for 86 years was home to the Robert H. Newell Shirt Factory, which manufactured custom-made shirts, including for many famous customers, including Winston Churchill and Bob Hope. The site was originally a hotel that opened in 1876.

Orleans County continues to benefit from the legacy of people who built for the long haul with downtown buildings, churches, residences, even cemeteries, Meier said.

Meier admitted preservation projects are often very frustrating, with unknown challenges and expenses. But he said the undertakings are well worth it. Reviving a historic site or an already-built structure is good for the earth by preserving existing materials.

“Retrofitting an existing building emits less carbon than building new,” Meier said.

Meier said the four villages in the county – Albion, Holley, Lyndonville and Medina – all have buildings from the 1800s and early 1900s that are marvels. Even the hamlets and countryside in the county feature many sites that have endured for generations.

Those buildings are tremendous feats and the residents today benefit from them, and are linked to the “giants” of the past, who put so much human capital into these buildings, Meier said.

That human energy remains stored and is ready to be unleashed, he said.

“Our built environment is waiting for that little nudge from the dreamers and risk-takers,” Meier said.

Andrew Meier speaks during Friday’s preservation awards program which was held at Maison Albion.

The community is seeing the benefit of projects in the historic buildings, from bustling restaurants in Medina, and several “boutique” hotels and small businesses in the region’s historic downtowns.

Meier said he is pleased to see so many people in his hometown of Medina take a chance on the older buildings, and give them new purpose that has been embraced by the local community, and increasingly many out-of-town visitors.

“Medina has become a different town,” he said. “There is more vibrancy, more restaurants. It would have been impossible without the buildings.”

He is thankful the county largely avoided the urban renewal movement that leveled many historic downtown sites in the 1960s and ’70s. He noted Albion has the wondrous Courthouse Square, downtown business district, and Mount Albion Cemetery with the Cobblestone Museum close by.

Holley has its Public Square which is seeing a resurgence in investment, and so is Main Street in Lyndonville. Kendall’s historic tavern has been a success in the year since it opened with new owners with a vision for the culinary arts, Meier said.

(Left) Brenda Tremblay, an Albion native and morning radio host for WXXI in Rochester, served as emcee of the dinner and celebration on Friday. She told the group, “You are surrounded by so much amazing historical stewardship.”

(Right) Matt Holland, a member of the Cobblestone Museum board of directors, urged the group to donate and support’s the museum’s mission, which includes breaking ground on a new visitors center next year.

The Thompson-Kast Visitors Center will be a new building next to an 1824 brick home that will be part of the visitors center at the intersection of routes 98 and 104.

The center will join the museum’s building inventory that includes the Cobblestone Universalist Church from 1834, Brick House (museum office) from 1836, Ward House from 1836, Peter’s Harness Shop from 1838, District No. 5 Schoolhouse from 1849, Farmers Hall from 1855, Hill’s Print Shop from the 1870s, Voting House (now used book store) from 1909, Vagg’s Blacksmith Shop from 1921-22, and the Vagg House from circa 1830s and then remodeled in the 1920s.

Doug Farley, right, is director of the Cobblestone Museum. He presents an award to Steve and Paula Nesbitt, owner of the Pine Hill School at 4757 Pine Hill Rd., Barre. They were one of six winners of preservation awards from the Cobblestone Society and Museum. The Pine Hill School was built circa 1835 of fieldstones.

The award winners also received citations from the Orleans County Legislature and State Legislature.

(Left) Tim and Catherine Cooper of Medina restored the Wash Hotel, which goes back to 1852, when the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Company completed the railroad through Medina. The building was recently purchased by Rollin Hellner.

(Right) Harriet Greaser and her late husband Phil restored the Presbyterian Manse at 31 East State St., Albion. The site has now been privately owned for more than 30 years. The Greasers brought the site back to grandeur.

Diana Dragan Reed’s home at 349 South Main St., Albion, was built in 1876 and took seven years to build. Reed recently moved back to her childhood home and has made several changes more reflective of its historic character.

Talis Historic Restoration employees, Ian McAnn and Dan Totten, accepted an award on behalf of Roger Hungerford for the restoration of the Bent’s Opera House.

Hungerford restored three floor of a historic Medina Sandstone building at the corner of West Center and Main streets in Medina. The building opened in 1865. It is now home to a boutique hotel with 10 rooms, an upscale restaurant and events center.

Kim and Neal Muscarella were honored for their efforts to turn the former Cooperative Extension building at 20 Main St. in Albion into the Marti’s on Main art gallery.

Cobblestone Museum leaders said they are pleased with the attendance at the first-time event.