The best source for local news from Marbletown, Rochester & Rosendale
Published the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month | Vol. 26, Issue 22
The 'State of the Rondout Creek' Page 6
November 19, 2021 | 75 cents
Marijuana ruling planned and ambulance funding discussed
Shop local during the holidays! Holiday section starts on page 17
Page 3
Marbletown Reformed Church rejoices as pipe organ assembled Anne Pyburn Craig BSP Reporter This is a tale of two churches, one enormous logistical triumph, and some downright amazing grace. In 2019, Becky Collins and Kara Jacobsen – co-chairs of the Music and Worship Committee at Marbletown Reformed Church – had just begun looking for a pipe organ to replace their defunct electric organ when the pandemic struck. “We had no organist and no instrument for a while,” says Collins, noting that the late Vivian Hasbrouck had kept the melodies flowing for years before retiring. “It was the consensus of the full consistory – our governing body – to see if we could find a real instrument.” That was never going to be a simple task. Pipe organs are massive, intricate creations custom-built to fit the spaces they will occupy. But then the pandemic halted in-person worship for a while, and the church relied on a piano during Zoom worship, not sure when or if the pipe organ dream might ever be satisfied. Meanwhile, in South Egremont, Massachusetts, a woman named Ellen Proctor was hunting for a forever home for the pipe organ she’d played since she was 13 years old. “I had wanted to play that organ since I was 7,” says Proctor, “and I never thought they’d let me. I did play the piano for Sunday school. Then one weekend the weather was rough and the regular organist couldn’t make it off the hill, so my dream came true.” Proctor would go on playing at the historic First Congregational Church of South Egremont for decades, in and around raising four children, until a 2007 fire in the steeple caused water damage that meant the pipe organ had to be disassembled and repaired. But Proctor was a mindful steward; she’d closed all the stops on the instrument, and Bill Czelusniak, president of Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal Inc. Organbuilders, Restoration & Maintenance of Northampton, was able to restore it to its former glory. When the South Egremont Congregationalists found themselves unable to raise funds to fix their 1833 building, Proctor and Czelusniak began what first seemed a fruitless search for a new home for the organ. That was in 2019, the same year the Marbletown consistory decided a pipe organ would be nice. In January of 2021, Marbletown Reformed member Kathie Hikade’s husband found something on Marketplace that
Skate Time vote Shop Local
What's it all about? Ann Belmont BSP Reporter
my immediate response was, ‘Is that organ available?’ Sather put me in touch with Ellen, and it was on.” Rehoming a pipe organ is more akin to an adoption – or perhaps to neurosurgery on an elephant – than to, say, selling a grand piano, and far more physically demanding. A pipe organ’s weight is calculated at 600 pounds per “stop,” and taking one apart, let alone reassembling it, is a painstaking task. Though Proctor and Czelusniak had had four or five nibbles, no congregation had ultimately been willing to give the 1896 J.W. Steere a home. Until now. Phone calls and emails flew. Czelusniak traveled to Marbletown to take some measurements and found that the instrument would just fit. The South Egremont congregation agreed to fund the disassembly and relocation if the Marbletown folks would do the rest. The Marbletown folks were unsure, until an anonymous donor started the organ installation fund by giving 25% of the thousands of dollars needed. The balcony was shored up, and the
Residents of Rochester may be forgiven for not knowing what to think about their town’s potential purchase of the Skate Time 209 building at the corner of Route 209 and Mettacahonts Road, a question they are being asked to vote upon in a Dec. 7 referendum. The BSP talked to town supervisor Mike Baden to get his explanation of how and why the town has been exploring the purchase of this 30,000-square-foot building. Sometime in May, Baden said, he got a phone call from the current ownership of Skate Time and its 6 acres of land, proposing the idea of the Town of Rochester buying the property. The owners had acquired Skate Time before the pandemic and briefly operated it as a skate facility before they shut down for renovations and then were forced to stay closed due to the pandemic. After he got that call, Baden related, “I brought the idea before the board in an executive session – acquiring property is an executive session discussion – and our attorney advised that we get an appraisal, so we did.” In July the appraisal came back: an estimate of $ 2.1 million. The eventual price agreed upon was $2,060, 000. “The cost of the building will be paid over 30 years, with bonds,” Baden explained. “We could possibly recoup some of the money by leasing or selling some of the land the town currently owns.” Before actually buying it, he said, “we will be conducting a full environmental study and an inspection of the property.” Baden acknowledged that the current owners of Skate Time paid far less for the property – around $1.3 million – but said, “the appraisal is what the market [value] is now … The former carpet store [in Accord] is on the market for over $2 million,” he added. The town's assessor had set Skate Time’s value at a mere $835,000, but its market value is whatever the market will bear. “There are houses in this town that are selling for four times – and more – their
See Organ, page 5
See Skate Time, page 8
Richard Frary of Czelusniak et Dugal Inc. working on the reassembly of the organ
she’d been craving: used church pews – exactly what she wanted for her dining room. The family headed up to South Egremont to rendezvous with the seller, a man named Sather Duke, who’d just purchased a historic church he planned to convert to a woodworking shop. Kathie will never forget that day. “Scott was wearing his Stone Ridge Fire Department T-shirt, and it turned out that Sather had lived in Accord, so there was that immediate connection,” she says. “He remembered driving by our church many times. So we’re looking at the pews – they were perfect – and my daughter Sierra, who’s studied piano, spots this organ and immediately asks if she can play it.” As Sierra began to play “Amazing Grace” from memory, her mother pulled out her phone and sent the video to her good friend Becky Collins. “I sorta knew we had been wanting an organ, but I mostly just wanted Becky to hear Sierra play,” says Hikade. “So my phone lights up with this video,” says Collins, “and there’s Sierra playing a pipe organ, and instead of ‘awww, pretty,’