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Wallkill Valley Times, Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Winchell hopes to repair Benedict farmhouse
By JASPREET GILL
[email protected]
After a long battle concerning the
history in the Town of Montgomery,
progress is finally being made to renovate
the deteriorating Benedict Farm house.
Last Wednesday, Supervisor Rod
Winchell and resident Bruce Shafer met
to discuss the current condition of the
house, which dates back to the 1900s
and belonged to late dairy farmers Ted
Benedict and Eden Benedict.
The Town of Montgomery purchased
the 102-acre Benedict Farm property in
1999 for $304,000 to construct the Benedict
Farm Park that now includes a picnic
area, a playground, community garden
and baseball field.
Visitors entering the Benedict Farm
Park arrive to the site of an unkempt
two story white house, crowded with
overgrown weeds, chipped paint and a
small back porch that looks like it is about
to collapse at any second.
Shafer says the Benedicts would not
have wanted their house to be neglected.
For him, preservation of the house goes
far beyond fixing it’s physical appearance
- its ties to Montgomery’s dairy farming
history are just as important.
“Today if you ask a small child where
milk comes from, they say it comes from a
store,” says Shafer. “We have a historical
house here and we have to have purpose
for the house.”
Winchell is on board with Shafer to fix
the house, even proposing to open the
house in the future to visitors of the park.
“Right now my vision is to preserve
[the house], repair it so it’s safe and then
actually open the doors up...so we can
have people walk through [the house] and
look at items and pictures of the family,”
he says.
But Winchell says he can only do so
much.
“I’m the CEO of the town,” he says.
“I’m not in charge of the historical part
of the parks or anything else...I have no
power over [other town] boards.”
Winchell wants to work with people
familiar with the topic of historic
preservation to fix the house and has
talked to several business owners in the
town, while Shafer already has his own
plans in the works. He has been in contact
with the Middletown Home Depot, who
he says are ready to donate paint and
the tools necessary to fix the house. Both
options will be at no cost to taxpayers.
Shafer had brought up his concerns
with the farmhouse at previous town
board meetings. Last December, former
Supervisor Michael Hayes had told Shafer
The Benedict Farm house, belonging to late dairy farmers, Ted Benedict and Eden Benedict,
has been a topic of discussion among residents of Montgomery. Some say the town has
neglected to keep the house in good physical condition.
during a town board meeting that nothing
will happen to the house unless the board
approves it, including letting residents
work on the house themselves, since the
house is owned by the town.
The Benedict Farm house is currently
not listed in the State and National
Register of Historic Places. According to
the State Historic Preservation Office, a
part of the New York State Office of Parks,
Recreation and Historic Preservation,
more than 80,000 historic properties in
New York have received recognition.
The appl ication can take anywhere
from six months to 12 months, but
registered places can reap many benefits.
Recognition promotes tourism, economic
development, and other benefits such as a
preservation tax credit.
In 2006, Governor George Pataki signed
New York State’s first tax incentives for
rehabilitation of historical commercial
and residential structures, a move that
encouraged the revitalization of historical
structures in communities throughout
the state.
Montgomery’s town board enacted
Local Law 1 of 1997 recognizing the
establishment of landmarks and historic
districts in the town. Section three of the
law reads:
“a. The Town Board, either on it own
initiative or upon recommendation of the
Commission, may designate an individual
property as a landmark if it: (i) Possesses
special character or historic or aesthetic
interest or value as part of the cultural,
political, economic or social history of
the locality, region, state of nation; or
(ii) is identified with historic personages;
or (iii) Embodies the distinguishing
characteristics of an architectural style; or
(iv) Is the work of a designer whose work
has significantly influenced an age; or (v)
Because of a unique location or singular
physical characteristic, represents an
established and familiar visual feature of
the neighborhood.”
Other farmhouses in Montgomery have
been added to the National Register of
Historic Places, including the Bodine
Farmhouse, the Brown Farmstead, the
Abraham Dickerson Farmhouse, the
Dubois-Phelps House, the Benjamin
Haines House, the Peachcroft House (also
referred to as the James Wilson Brown
House), the Gideon Pelton Farm and
Tweddle Farmstead.
If you are interested in the history of
Montgomery, consider applying to fill a
vacant seat on the Town of Montgomery
Historical Preservation Commission.
Those interested can send letters of
interest to Town Clerk Tara Stickles at
[email protected] or
by dropping off letters at 110 Bracken
Rd. There are also seats available on the
planning board, farmland preservation
board, zoning board of appeals and
conservation advisory council.
Winchell says the next step to fixing
the Benedict Farm house is to come up
with a plan.
“We have to collectively try to get an
effective plan in what we want to do so
we’re not wasting time and energy in the
wrong direction and get nothing done,”
he says. “And that’s on me...I’m here to
help.”