By MJ Hanley-GoffThey say the eyes are the windows into the soul, but to Reggie Young, owner of Newburgh’s Hudson Valley House Parts, the windows are the eyes into the soul of a home. It’s one of the reasons why he offers historic window restoration workshops, among his roster of craft classes, to homeowners and preservationists who want to learn how to repair and restore their home’s original “eyes.”

Reggie is a bit of a salvage connoisseur, not only collecting architectural treasures from old houses and selling them in his 2000 square foot warehouse on Broadway -- in the heart of the city of Newburgh -- but he’s been on the buying end of the salvage business for years while renovating Brooklyn Brownstones, and restoring an 1812 Stone Mansion in Athens, New York, where he also gave historic preservation classes.
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There were twelve students at the recent window restoration class held in a neighboring shop, Newburgh Sash and Restoration, taught by Reggie’s friend Ben Brandt at his carpentry studio on Liberty Street. The two-day class brought in an enthusiastic crowd who’d carted their windows for miles, and from as far away as Delaware and Massachusetts where they learned how to properly scrape off years of paint, resurface the wood, repair broken features, and reglaze around the panels that hold the glass in place, making them water-tight. The class was so popular that Reggie had to start a wait list for the scheduled January class, which to date holds 30 names.

Wait…what? A window restoration class held in Newburgh was so popular that a wait list had to be created. But Reggie isn’t surprised.

Homeowners today, he explains, are more interested in the historic significance of the house, and want to keep it as original as possible, especially when it comes down to the windows. Rather than updating the house with modern windows that won’t fit as well, and lack the personality, they’re opting to be educated on how to fix and restore them. Much of this interest, Reggie says, stems from the internet, with all the “how to” tutorials on YouTube. Once the homeowner sees that it’s possible, they search out someone like Reggie. “This new generation of homeowners,” he says, “wants to keep things original, they want a more sustainable life using reclaimed products.”

When asked why he choose to set up in Newburgh three years ago, he’s eager to share his loyalty to the struggling Hudson River town. Not only is the city renowned for its significance in American history, he says, but it’s also a treasure trove of architectural homes, designed in partnership with who the NY Times considers the “19th century apostles of taste” -- Newburgh native, Andrew Jackson Downing and collaborators Calvert Vaux and Frederick Clarke Withers. The architectural ideas of Downing dominated home building in the United States, and the three would go on to popularize the Gothic revival style seen in the Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village, Downing Park in Newburgh and Manhattan’s Central Park. It’s no wonder then, that those who wish to retain their home’s architectural integrity would gravitate to the place where it all began and where this type of craftsmanship is honored and kept alive.

This also explains an exciting trend in tourism, something that can have long lasting and positive effects on places like Newburgh. Historic tourism – whether it has to do with researching family history, visiting the places of historic significance, or learning how to perform century’s old woodworking – is a rapidly growing trend in the US thanks, in part, to Ancestry.com, and 23andme; the PBS-TV show, Finding Your Roots, Genealogy Roadshow; and TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are. According to a story in Conde Nast Traveler Magazine, “family history research in the US has grown fourteen-fold in the past decade.” The overwhelming benefit, according to the GlobalHeritageFund.org, is the economic boost to the historic site and surrounding communities, and subsequently the additional monies to fund these sites.

All of this puts Newburgh in the spotlight. With over 20,000 visitors a year coming to visit Washington’s Headquarters alone, and those who come for Newburgh’s Historical Candlelight Tours, the Tiffany Glass at St. George Church, the Crawford House and Dutch Reformed Church, now figure in the students of historic preservation from around the state, and around the country, who will need to find places to eat, get coffee, and sleep. One exciting project that will boost tourism to Newburgh – historic or otherwise -- is the Grand Street development where three buildings are to be renovated into an “urban resort,” and will feature an 80-room hotel, restaurant, bar and meeting and event space.

Whatever it was that inspired Downing, Vaux and Withers all those years ago is definitely still in the air.

Visit hvhouseparts.com/workshops - to learn more about upcoming classes, fees and sign up for Reggie’s newsletter. Upcoming classes include mortar restoration and how to use lime-based products.

Visit newburghpreservationassocation.org/walking-tours - for more information about the sites mentioned in the article.

MJ Hanley-Goff is an Orange County-based writer who particularly enjoys writing on Orange County history. mjgoff758@gmail.com.

Orange County Historian Johanna Yaun shared her expertise with Historic Preservation students from Westchester Community College last month, during a walking tour of the Newburgh Historic District.

Yaun highlighted some of the city’s most important historical landmarks and gave the SUNY Westchester students the opportunity to meet some of the people dedicated to protecting and promoting Newburgh’s historic treasures.

“Newburgh has the largest contiguous historic district in New York State and boasts a variety of buildings by renowned architects,” Yaun explained. “These include A.J. Downing, A.J. Davis, Calvert Vaux, Frederick Clarke Withers, George E. Harney, Frank Estabrook, and J. Percy Hanford, to name a few.”

First the group toured Washington Headquarters State Historic Site with Paul Banks, Interpretive Programs Assistant. They discussed Gen. George Washington’s wartime service, as well as how the headquarters, open since 1850, came to be the first publicly owned and operated historic site in the nation.

“As America’s first historic site, Washington’s Headquarters has remained open to visitors through many changes in the museum profession, they have had to reinterpret the history time-and-time again to meet the shifting expectations of the public,” Yaun noted.

The scholars then visited an art installation organized by STRONGROOM, located in the shell of what was once the William A.M. Culbert House. Built by A.J. Downing and Calvert Vaux in 1852, this is one of the first times that the ruin has been open to the public since it was severely damaged in a fire about 40 years ago.

Other stops on the tour included:

- The Crawford House museum with Historical Society of the Hudson Highlands Trustee Steven Baltsas. This museum preserves the story of David and Fannie Belknap Crawford and their daughters, a successful mercantile family in the early 19th century.

- The Dutch Reformed Church, which was constructed by A.J. Davis in 1835.

- Calvary Presbyterian Church with longtime member Jim Ferguson. The church survived a fire in 2019 and is undergoing extensive restoration.

- St. George’s Church with the chair of the St. George Cemetery committee, and lifetime member of the church, Catherine Costello.

In addition to serving as the Orange County Historian, Yaun is also an instructor in the Historic Preservation Certificate program at SUNY Westchester, where she teaches Intro to Historic Preservation at the Peekskill campus. She, her husband Douglas, and her son Calvert are restoring the 1917 Tudor Revival style home of architect J. Percy Hanford, located in the City of Newburgh.
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For more information, contact Johanna Yaun at JYaun@orangecountygov.com.

Learning to clean and preserve gravestones in Newburgh's oldest burial ground
Mike Randall
Times Herald-Record

CITY OF NEWBURGH - Every gravestone tells a story.

But over time, nature tends to cover the details of those stories with dirt, pollen dust, and other things that get blown onto the stone and obscure its message.

Sixteen area residents got a lesson in the proper way to clean and preserve gravestones on Saturday at a workshop offered by the Orange County Historian's office.

Their teachers were cemetery restoration experts Dale and Tina Utter from upstate Chenango County, and the location was Newburgh's oldest burying ground, the Old Town Cemetery, adjacent to Calvary Presbyterian Church on Grand Street.
And the Utters said you only need simple materials to clean a gravestone to make the names, dates and other details carved on them stand out clearly again. Ammonia, bleach and other household cleaners should not be used, as they can damage stones.

"Plain water and a soft brush will do wonders," Tina Utter said.

When the short lesson was done, the "students" went to work with their scrub brushes, and gradually, names and dates hidden by grime for years became legible.

Kristen Verge, of Beacon, who came with her husband Joe O'Brien-Applegate, said she wanted to learn to clean gravestones so she can keep up graves of some family members who are buried in New Jersey.

Steven Baltsas, of New Windsor, said he just wanted to "learn a useful historic preservation skill that I can't learn anywhere else."

But he also said he saw potential for the cemetery, which reputedly dates back to 1713, four years after the first German Palatine settlers founded Newburgh.

"This cemetery could be a real tourist attraction," Baltsas said. "But it should be protected more."

Adam Staiger, of the hamlet of Wallkill, said this was the second time he'd attended the workshop, which the historian's office usually offers six times a year at rotating sites around the county. He said it is "very cathartic and therapeutic to help preserve someone's legacy."

Mary Murphy, who was born in Newburgh but also has a family home in Ireland, where her mother is buried, said now she will be better equipped to keep up her mom's gravestone.

"I've wanted to learn how to do this for years," Murphy said. "Today is my mother's 103rd birthday, so this is a way to honor her."

Dale Utter said besides gathering your very simple tools and materials, there are a few safety checks you should perform before cleaning a gravestone.

First, make sure the stone is sturdy, so there's no chance that if you push on it, the stone will fall over and hurt you or someone else.

Also, make sure the stone does not have cracks or show other signs it might break easily. If it does, move on to another stone.

But sometimes, problems are only discovered after you start the job.

As a bonus lesson, Dale Utter was showing attendees how to reset a stone that has tilted, using the stone marking the grave of Isaac DuBois. But as he and a couple others dug around the stone, they gradually found it had leaned after its collar, which surrounded the stone at its base, had broken.

Utter resolved the problem by removing the collar and burying the stone 19 inches deeper. All of the writing on the stone was still visible above the ground after the work was done.

Johanna Yaun, the Orange County historian, said the gravestone cleaning workshop has been especially popular in this year of the COVID-19 pandemic, "because it gives people a chance to get outside and socialize."

There are at least 914 cemeteries in the county, and Yaun said the workshops assist in their preservation.
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"We hope we are creating a team of people who have the knowledge to restore the stones, and now they can pass that on to others," she said.