A reignited proposal to create an 18-lot residential subdivision adjacent to the Colonie Country Club has New Scotland officials scrambling to save the historic LeVie barn.
Town Board member Daniel Mackay said he reached out to owners of the LeVie barn property more than three years ago to determine what, if any, historical value the 115-year-old building had and if relocation would be possible. Mackay was able to recently arrange a visit and brought along several people to see the barn in December. He’s concerned the timeline to find a solution for the barn might now be too short, with developers looking to proceed and start construction, according to town officials.
“It is an awesome structure to be in,” Mackay said. “My personal assessment is that the structure is irreplaceable.”
The owners of the property, Country Club Partners, LLC, have used the barn as a storage facility for maintenance equipment and supplies of the Colonie Country Club. Near the end of 2010, the proposed subdivision was granted sketch plan approval, but further development stalled. Town officials believe the recession played a role in the delay.
Long struggle before barn visit
Mackay provided Spotlight News with a copy of the email he sent Barry Hollander, a co-owner of Country Club Partners, on Oct. 15, 2010, requesting to visit the barn.
“I’d like to get some photos of the interior post-and-beam construction and get an feel for potential obstacles and costs for potentially moving the structure,” Mackay said in the email. “Would you be comfortable with arranging a potential site visit for this purpose?”
Hollander replied on Oct. 19, 2010, and declined his request until further town approvals were received.
“An inspection of the barn at this time is premature,” Hollander said in the email. “After subdivision approval, we will be in position to build a new maintenance facility.”
Hollander recently granted Mackay access to the barn, despite subdivision approval still pending, after several attempts over the years to visit the property, according to Mackay.
“I finally had a site visit on Dec. 18, 2013 — three years later,” Mackay said at the board’s Jan. 15 meeting. “That is time I would have put to good use in terms of assessing funding opportunities, local grants … and creative local fundraising. We are now, in a sense, under a deadline here. The developer is eager to move forward with his plans on the site.”
Believing this was his “one chance” to visit the barn, Mackay said he invited several people to join him, including fellow board member William Hennessy, town Planning Board member Kurt Anderson, Town Historian Robert Parmenter, town Building Inspector Jeremy Cramer and “a number of other parties.”
“The excuse given for delaying site access is that the golf course continues to utilize the property for maintenance, storage and various activities,” Mackay said. “We had site access last month, and all of those activities continued to exist on that site so that seems to not really have been the excuse.”
Spotlight News emailed several questions to the owners of the property but only received a general statement regarding the issue. The owners of Country Club Partners contend they cooperated with town officials throughout the process.
“From the beginning of the process, we have cooperated with the town on every request they have made,” Country Club Partners said in a statement to Spotlight News. “Our intention is to continue to cooperate in any way necessary to complete the project in a manner that will be most beneficial to the town. We have an extremely good working relationship with the board and would never do anything that would jeopardize it.”
Minutes from the town planning board’s May 3, 2011, show a representative of the property saying the barn is going to be offered to “a historical organization, or someone who would be interested in taking it.”
Conditional approval eyed
Mackay said since owners did not accommodate his prior requests for access, he believes the Town Board or Planning Board could be allowed to attach some conditions to the final approvals needed. These conditions could require the barn to remain on site and accessible for a certain amount of time while development begins on other areas.
“What I am proposing is not unrealistic or any type of particular hardship, and the structure is of such significance and style it is worth that,” Mackay said. “If we had the last three years to do the proper planning, we would not have to ask for time.”
There were also two landowners possibly interested in having the structure relocated to their property that joined the barn visit. Mackay would not disclose who those people were, or anyone else interested in the barn, because of talks only being preliminary.
“The intent here would be to see the building reused in the Town of New Scotland and there seems to be legitimate potential for making that happen,” Mackay said.
He also said he would like to see the barn reused in some agricultural context to fit with the barn’s history.
William Krattinger, historic preservation program analyst at the state Division for Historic Preservation, also joined the December tour of the barn. Krattinger, whom Mackay described as a “barn expert,” assessed the structure to be National Historic Register eligible, according to Mackay.
“There is value in exploring deconstruction and relocating,” Mackay said.
Mackay said he hopes to set up a second site visit to have an expert on barn relocations put a price tag on what moving the structure would cost.
“Without that number, I think it is a speculative conversation, more idealistic than practical. I need a number to figure out how to get practical about this,” Mackay said. “I do think it is going to take some cooperation between Town Board, Planning Board and the developer to grant us the time, at least some time, to pursue that type of campaign.”
Mackay said he would “love to see” a 12-to-15-month window for the barn to be relocated, or any other solution.
“I found it an awe-inspiring structure, and I would like to see … some attempt made to get real creative about how to save that barn,” he said. “I understand at a certain point maybe time runs out and maybe the save doesn’t happen.”
Local ties to barn’s history
Voorheesville Historian Dennis Sullivan, who has researched several barns in New Scotland, provided insight into how the 60-foot wide, 120-foot long and 60-foot tall barn was erected.
The barn was built in 1898 near the former LeVie’s farm stand along Route 85A, which is how it became known as the “LeVie barn.” A more proper name historically though would be the “Hilton barn,” because it was built when Captain Hilton was raising “some of the finest strains of Devon cattle” on his farm, according to Sullivan. The barn standing today was built to replace Hilton’s barn that burned down, Sullivan said.
“When it was built, it became the largest barn in Albany County,” Sullivan said.
The man who built the barn, Frank Osterhout, was also a well-known carpenter of his time and built two other barns within the town, along with the former Odd Fellows Hall in Voorheesville, the former village firehouse now serving as Voorheesville Village Hall and three houses within the town.
“It was said by people that because Frank was such a great carpenter, they didn’t have to cut a single piece a second time,” Sullivan said.
A brain-raising bee was held on Saturday, March 25, 1898, and 160 volunteers turned out. Since the barn was “so huge,” volunteers had to return on Monday and Tuesday to complete the job.
“It is a beautiful structure, just beautiful,” Sullivan said. “It reflects the history of Albany County agriculture.”
He said having the barn still standing keeps the memory of Osterhout alive and it’s a connection to history that can’t be replaced.
“Every time I ride by, I look at that barn in amazement,” he said. “People go to Paris to see Notre Dame, and to me it is like going into a cathedral.”