North Salem's Delancey Hall to undergo assessment

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - If North Salem’s Delancey Hall were a human patient, it would be about to undergo a much-needed “physical.”

Taking the historic building’s so-called vital signs and assessing its overall health will be Lothrup Associates.

The architectural firm, recently engaged by the town for a sum not to exceed $9,500, will be literally poking and prodding Delancey’s exterior siding, trim, doors, and windows.

Built in the 1760s, the Georgian-style building is literally older than the country itself, notes Councilmember Katherine Daniels, chair of the town’s Capital Planning Committee.

It was last worked on about 40 years ago. While a good job was done, there’s still a lot of damage that water can do in that amount of time, she said.

The presence – or lack -- of moisture and vapor barriers will be sussed out.

Featured on the town’s seal, Delancey Hall houses some of its offices. It's located on Titicus Road, opposite Loebdell House, another historic landmark.

The end result of Lothrup’s analysis will be a menu of repair or restoration options for the town to weigh. Whatever eventually gets done depends on the “level of intervention” it chooses down the line.

According to Daniels, the board “needs to make some decisions.”

“Do we want to do a quick and dirty fix, a 50-year fix, a 100-year fix? How important is this structure to North Salem?” she asked.

The Delancey project started out as a routine paint job, but as things moved along rotten siding and windowsills, compromised interior support beam, and other troublesome issues were uncovered.

Town employees were temporarily shifted last year to 66 June Road while some work, such as the bracing of the interior structure, was done. Other things can’t be started – repairing the beam, for instance -- until the weather warms up.

The new analysis is intended to head any other potential “surprises” off at the pass, according to Janine Kourakos, town Supervisor Warren Lucas’ chief of staff.

“It’s to ensure that we’re making the best decisions,” she explained last week.

Its other goal is to create a written record of the nitty gritty stuff for “posterity” so, Daniels said, “when things come around again, we’ll have a detailed description of what we did AND what we choose NOT to do.”

The Town Board has already authorized Lucas to borrow up to $300,000 for the overall project if needed. Anything beyond that cost would require further board action.

“We’d sure like to keep it (Delancey Hall) around another couple hundred years,” Lucas said at the board’s April 8 meeting.

Recommendations relative to the antique windows – most of which aren’t functional at this point -- that Lothrup makes will be developed and coordinated with Kronenberger & Sons Restoration, Inc., a Connecticut firm that specializes in historic building preservation.

The analysis is expected to take about four weeks to complete.

The hope is that any work the town chooses to do will be wrapped up before 2026, when North Salem is planning a year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of its role in the Revolutionary War.

“This building is old, it’s older than our country. It’s featured in our seal. It’s an important capital asset and we really to think about what we want to do with it and how much we want to spend on it,” Daniels said.