St. Margaret’s Home: Gateway to Red Hook
by Karla R. Cook

One mile south of the center of the Village of Red Hook next to the Hardscrabble Mall on Rt. 9 sits an empty red-brick house with white trim. The porch of the house, supported by narrow, fluted cast-iron columns with lacy iron brackets cast into flowering vine patterns, is shored up with wooden timbers; peering out from behind the timbers is a white round-arched center double-doorway with diamond-shaped windows, flanked by French windows on each side.

This Italian villa-style house, architect unknown, was completed in 1853 for Mrs. William B. Astor (born Margaret Rebecca Armstrong) as an orphan asylum to educate young girls with no other means to acquire an education. Known as St. Margaret’s Home, the building has been on the National Historic Register since 2006, and is also listed on the State Historic Register. A possible A. J. Davis design, it survives as a significant example of mid-19th century domestic architecture. The contractor, James Webb, began construction on the home in 1852 and built the house for $8,207.50.

In 1992 Hudson River Heritage funded a report on the history of the house, written by Richard Crowley, then town historian of Rhinebeck, which was revised by John Winthrop Aldrich, the town historian of Red Hook. According to the report, the home was an orphan asylum for indigent girls until the mid-1930s, when it closed due to New York State’s heightened social services standards. It briefly served as a welfare home, then became a private residence. The last owners leased the house in the late 1980s to the Multi-County Community Development Corporation, a not-for-profit, government supported social services enterprise, which used it as transitional housing for chemical dependent adults striving to resume independent lives. The facility closed in 1991. In 1998, the house and nine acres of property that came with it was sold to Hannaford Brothers, the grocery store chain.

Hannaford’s purchase of the property met with considerable opposition. Paul Fredericks, a realtor with Apple Valley Realty in Red Hook, said it took approximately two years to finalize the transaction. Leading the opposition was Rosemarie Zengen, a Red Hook business owner and community activist, who sells antiques and collectibles on South Broadway (Rt. 9) across from Triebel’s Garage. She founded Save Our Town, a grass-roots community activist organization concerned with the quality of the Red Hook environment, and campaigned against Hannaford’s coming into Red Hook.

Zengen’s main concern was the impact a “Big Box Store” would have on the town and its rural character. She was joined by other activists who wanted to save St. Margaret’s Home from the bulldozer. Clare O’Neill Carr, author of A Brief History of Red Hook, N.Y. led the campaign to save the home and put it on the Historic Register (she has since died, after a long illness); “Wint” Aldrich, who revised the original HRH report and whose family once owned the property, expressed interest in seeing the house preserved; and other historic preservationists and community activists joined the cause. Another strong advocate for preserving the home was former town supervisor Marirose Blum Bump, says Katherine Stewart, a member of Red Hook Concerns, a local grassroots organization also interested in preserving the environment and character of Red Hook.

Rosemarie Zengen said that she gathered approximately 2000 signatures on a petition opposing the mega store and Clare O’Neill Carr gathered another 900. Save Our Town raised enough funds to hire an Albany law firm to help make sure the town of Red Hook studied the impact on the environment of Hannaford’s move into town. The organization ran Linda Keeling on the “Save Our Town” ballot against incumbent Town Supervisor Jack Gilfeather and Debbie Tiberio Temple for a seat on the Town Council. Although both lost the election, they received enough votes that the town government began to really listen to what Save Our Town had to say. Instead of bringing suit, Save Our Town decided to work together with the Town Planning Board’s Chair Marcella Appell, and community collaboration began to take place.

“Marcella Appell was wonderful and listened to both sides,” Ms. Zengen now says. Appell showed Ms. Zengen and the other opponents of Hannaford that a large grocery chain store in Red Hook would not necessarily have an adverse impact on the rural character of the town. Ms. Zengen is now an enthusiastic supporter of Hannaford. She also feels that Save Our Town had all its concerns addressed—Hannaford commissioned Greenhouse Consultants in May 2000 to write the 2001 SEQR (or environmental impact) report, whose environmental concerns were taken into consideration in the construction of the supermarket: A buffer of trees separated the store from Rt. 9; the supermarket was built to fit in architecturally with the Town; and lighting was designed to be unobtrusive to the neighborhood. Save Our Town hired environmental, traffic and health consultants to work with the Planning Board, which in turn passed feedback to Hannaford.

The end results, according to Ms. Zengen: Additional jobs came to Red Hook, and the supermarket is clean, well stocked, a corporate friend of the community, and supports many local non-profits. (Whether or not the chain’s arrival was the critical factor leading to the recent demise of Tiberio’s IGA in the village center is still debated.)

Hannaford transferred the deed to St. Margaret’s Home to the town of Red Hook in 2005. Hudson River Heritage’s application for St. Margaret’s inclusion in the National Historic Register was approved in 2006. Wint Aldrich led the St. Margaret’s Task Force to get the building in shape for viable tenants, local contractors did some minor repair work, and Mill Street Loft of Poughkeepsie, looking for a Red Hook presence, became the home’s first tenant. Many community volunteers also helped improve the grounds of the site, including Ramapo’s AmeriCorps team.

Mill Street Loft’s Todd Poteet, Director of The Art Institute, an artist who lives in the village of Red Hook with his wife Kathi, said that St. Margaret’s Home was an ideal location for the non-profit arts education organization. Unfortunately, the organization had to move to the Parish Hall of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on South Broadway in the Village of Red Hook because the home became unsafe to occupy.

The biggest problem with the home was the roof—which needed to be stabilized. The task force led by Wint Aldrich eventually evolved into the St. Margaret’s Advisory Committee, with Paula Schoonmaker as chair (recently succeeded by Paul Fredericks), Linda Keeling, Rosemarie Zengen, and Amy Dubin as committee members, and Doug Strawinski and John Kuhn as advisors. Wint Aldrich described Ms. Schoonmaker as “the glue that holds things together,” and she worked hard to obtain the grants to restore the building. With the help of State Senator Steve Saland, two major grants were awarded to the town to renovate St. Margaret’s: a $90,000 State grant for roof stabilization, and a competitive grant through the Community Capital Assistance Program. The town hired Dobbs Ferry-based preservation architect Stephen Tilly, a preservation architect based in Dobbs Ferry to oversee the project. A brief roadblock was waiting for approval from the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to a requested amendment to the Community Capital Assistance Program. Approval was received by the town in August 2010, and various aspects of the project have been or are currently being put out to bid. The Town was also awarded an Environmental Protection Fund Grant of $450,000 in 2008 which it received this spring.

Other renovations also need to be made to the structure to make it viable as a community center for paying tenants. Wint Aldrich said the bathrooms need to be redone, noting that there is no bathroom in the “commodious” basement, and the bathroom on the first floor is too small for use as a public restroom for a community center. The building also needs a new furnace.

Save Our Town, Hardscrabble Committee Chairman Ed Blundell and the St. Margaret’s Advisory Committee held a special ceremony last fall on Hardscrabble Day to dedicate the newly erected historic site marker and also planted a “Hannaford Tree,” purchased by Save Our Town and selected by the Town of Red Hook Tree Committee, honoring Hannaford for helping to preserve St. Margaret’s Home. The ceremony, coordinated by Rosemarie Zengen, featured local and county dignitaries being driven to the site in vintage cars, which were supplied by Dr. George Verrilli, avid car collector and owner of Eastgate Motors at the Chocolate Factory in Red Hook. Later these dignitaries also rode in the Hardscrabble Day Parade. One of the speakers was Wint Aldrich, who said he hopes that one day the home will return to its original color, white.

The advisory committee also kicked off a fundraising campaign that day and is currently seeking donations from the public to help fund the continuous effort to turn St. Margaret’s Home into a Red Hook community center. (As a condition of the grant, only non-profit organization are eligible to occupy the building). For more information, or to send a contribution, write to the Town of Red Hook, c/o The St. Margaret’s Committee, 7340 South Broadway, Red Hook, NY 12571. Although progress has been slow in turning St. Margaret’s Home into the southern gateway to Red Hook much like the Elmendorph Inn is to the north, the project has steadily moved forward, thanks to the tireless work of community volunteers.