As the Shaker Heritage Society celebrates the centennial anniversary of the 1915 Barn Complex, the historic site is preparing to undergo some much-needed repairs and renovations.
The Albany County Legislature approved a resolution earlier this month to provide $90,000 in emergency stabilization funds for the 100-year-old complex. Shaker Heritage will begin stabilizing the foundation in the complex’s buildings after finding the conditions of the original concrete were worse than originally thought.
The Shaker Heritage Society originally received over $310,000 in grants from private foundations and the state to stabilize the 1915 complex, according to Shaker Heritage Executive Director Starlyn D’Angelo. The funds were used for roof, foundations repairs, and restoring barn windows.
While preparing to stabilize buildings, D’Angelo said Shaker Heritage found the conditions of the original concrete were worse than anticipated, specifically in the manure barn.
“At that time, concrete was pretty new material, and it didn’t have support inside of it, so we discovered the foundation in the manure shed was much worse than we expected,” said D’Angelo. She said they had thought they found footing for the foundation, but only found a full concrete slab floor.
D’Angelo said that the stones allowed water to infiltrate, which made for easy cleaning, but as the water thawed and froze, cracks developed. In the end, the stones weren’t enough to support the building.
Since the Shaker site is officially owned by Albany County with Shaker Heritage as tenants, the society contacted County Legislator Tim Nichols, who represents that area. Nichols drafted the resolution to provide the emergency funding, which was unanimously approved Monday, March 9.
“I’ve been a long time advocate and champion of the Shaker site and the Shaker Heritage Society. This is something that I originally thought we would do as part of the budget process, but we didn’t get to it at the time,” said Nichols. “The county owns those buildings and the Shaker site itself, so we have a responsibility to do all we can to care for it.”
With the funds, the Shaker Heritage Society will work with engineers to be sure the architecture is correct, and restore the buildings. Parts of the foundation in the manure barn cannot be saved and will be rebuilt with approval from the state’s preservation office, said D’Angelo.
On top of the repairs, D’Angelo said that composting toilets will be installed in the manure barn. “It’s not just historical preservation, but it’s also an economic development initiative,” she said.
The goal, she said, is to make the barn complex more suitable for large-scale events, so that more people will be drawn to the site, helping bring revenue into the area. This is part of an initiative to “generate economic development through heritage tourism,” she said.
D’Angelo said that the hope is to finish all renovations and construction by May 20, which is the official 100th anniversary of the barn raising. Even more celebration will be had later in the summer, when the Shaker Heritage Society will host a free community event to celebrate the centennial with music and food from local vendors.
But while the funds from the county legislature help the Heritage Society restore the 1915 Barn Complex, Nichols expressed concerns for future funding of the Shaker site.
“I think the county needs to do a lot more,” he said. “The county really has not done enough, in my opinion.” Several years ago, Nichols sponsored a resolution to give the Heritage Society a longer lease, since some of the applications of grants require having control over the site for 10 or 15 years.
There has been talk of extending the Shaker Heritage lease to match the lease for the veteran’s housing that may be going on the property adjacent to the Shaker site, according to Nichols. This could mean another 50 years for the lease and a steady stream of volunteers for Shaker Heritage, he said.
“This is a great effort by the legislature, and I think that as we move forward, we’ll see more of this,” said Nichols. “I think we really need to be a lot more proactive about this than we have been.”
