Town board hears architect’s plans for Amsterdam Carriage House as storage space

Main house with garage bays viewed from courtyard; garage wings extend forward on each side; see more photos in “Read more…”
September 9, 2011
by Christine Yeres

In a work session on Tuesday night architect Peter C. Cole reported back to town board members with a plan to preserve the Amsterdam Carriage House and adapt it to serve as document and equipment storage space for the town.  Already the garages at the carriage house contain some parks and rec equipment.

The town board once considered making over the upstairs of the carriage house into one or two affordable housing units, perhaps even to house a caretaker for the park, but the $450,000 cost, mainly due to septic/sewer logistics, was prohibitive. 

Cole, who was retained at the end of July for a sum “not to exceed” $16,740, has found that the main two-story house portion of the carriage house is on sound footing, but the two one-story garage arms of it that extend forward to make a courtyard are not.  As a result, the walls to have bowed out and the roof has sunk downward.  It would be more cost-effective, Cole told board members, to take down the two garage sections and rebuild them.  In doing so, he said, he recommended using larger pieces of wood to strengthen the two garages, resulting in additional storage capacity in their attics, which are currently too weak to take the weight. 

The town has already made many of its records electronic, but is still obliged to retain its many archived original paper documents, explained Supervisor Barbara Gerrard later in the week.  Since the town needed document storage space, board members reasoned, they could renovate the carriage house for storage while not precluding some other, future use of the structure one day.  Currently, the town stores documents in less-than-ideal conditions, under the Hudson Hills water tower.

Cole’s plans showed a small portion of the ground floor of the two-story house used for storage for police department records.  The four garage bays on the ground level would keep their appearance, but only one of the garage doors would remain usable; the other three would be “dummy” doors, insulated as walls would be.

Cole recommended replacing the existing old clapboard siding with a “Hardy Board” product, prepainted “that will last forever.”  When finished, said Cole, “it will look like a wonderful old carriage house brought back to the modern world, with its old materials used in a new way.” 

As to cost, Cole said he is still working up the numbers, but suggested that the town could save money by breaking the project into several bid packages, and by allowing some of the work to be done in-house, by DPW employees.  Commissioner of Recreation and Parks Robert Snyder told board members, “We’re where we were when originally estimated,” but did not speak the dollar amount.  Presumably, the cost would be less than the estimated $450,000 for residences and septic originally proposed.

Photos from August, 2008:

West wing of carriage house

East wing and covered walkway of carriage house

Front of same east wing

Back of the carriage house, showing second floor dormers of living space

Crossing the courtyard

Front view of east wing and main building with center courtyard

Below, interior of second floor living space