By Andrew Hackmack
The village board has approved more than $50,000 of work to be completed on the outside of the Pagan-Fletcher Restoration, home to the Valley Stream Historical Society.
At the Feb. 11 business meeting, the board awarded a contract to Waste Recycling Solutions of Yaphank in the amount of $52,875 to perform the work.
Trustee Edwin Fare, the village board's liaison to the historical society, said the work entails so much more than just giving the house a fresh coat of paint. He said because there is a layer of lead paint on the building, special steps must be taken to remove it by a federally licensed contractor.
After all the old paint is removed, Fare said, a layer of primer will be put on, followed by two coats of regular paint. A lot of wood has rotted on the house including around the windows and underneath some of the columns. That will all be repaired as part of this project.
All the shutters will also be repaired and caulking fixed around the windows. Jim Buckley, chairman of the Historical Society's Board of Trustees, estimates that the house has close to 50 windows.
Fare said it is a considerable amount of work because it is a pretty big house. The original building has been added on to several times. "There's an awful lot of nooks and crannies," Fare said.
Some slight architectural changes will be made to discourage birds from nesting on the house. He said there is a flat ledge up at the top of the house which will be slightly pitched during the renovation. "It will look similar from the street," he said, "but pigeons won't be able to nest on it."
Recently a $40,000 roof replacement was completed on the Pagan-Fletcher Restoration. Fare said this was a major project as the roof was stripped right down to the rafters. "That was last year's big-ticket item," he said.
The last time the outside of the house was repainted was about 15 years ago, Fare said. That was before it was known there was lead paint on the house. He said because this old lead paint will soon be safely removed, future painting of the house can be done by village employees.
Buckley said once the work is completed, it should be the last major renovation to the Pagan-Fletcher house for a while. "We don't expect to have any major projects for the building, expense wise, for the next eight or 10 years," he said.
Inside the building is in good shape, Buckley said. The heating system has been recently upgraded and the electrical and plumbing systems were done when the house was restored in the 1990s.
The home, originally built in the 1840s, is owned by the village and serves as a local history museum. It sits on one-third of an acre on Hendrickson Avenue and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fare said that designation does limit some of the work that can be done. It would be easier and far cheaper to install vinyl siding on the house. He said this would encapsulate the lead paint, a procedure allowed by federal law.
However, because the house is officially a historic landmark, this change can't be made. Fare agrees, though, that it is best to preserve as much of the original house as possible. "You want to bring the school children to show them what a house looked like in 1840," he said. "They can look at their own house for vinyl siding."
Photos by Andrew Hackmack/Herald
