More work required at Booth House
Interior repairs needed before certificate of occupancy is issued
Last summer, a preservation group announced that emergency stabilization work at the crumbling Nathaniel Booth House largely had been completed.
Significantly more interior work is still needed for the city’s Building Safety Division to issue a certificate of occupancy, according to Kevin McEvoy, a director with Kingston Preservation Inc.
“Building Safety recently closed their case based on stabilization work completed, but cannot issue a (certificate of occupancy), as further work is required to achieve that,” McEvoy said in an email. “We did have an engineer look at the house last summer for the next phase of further stabilization.
“The house is closed for the winter so the pipes do not freeze,” McEvoy added.
McEvoy said property taxes on the house at 116 Wilbur Ave. have been paid.
Additionally, more afterwinter maintenance work is planned, McEvoy said.
“In the spring, we will also need to do routine post winter maintenance with regards to leaders and gutters and other site management issues,” McEvoy said.
McEvoy said he is still working on getting his organization tax-exempt status so it can collect tax-exempt donations. Also, he
is preparing information to be used in the group’s quest to get the Booth House listed on the National Register of Historical Places.
McEvoy said he expects renovations at the Booth House will be completed sometime in 2019.
In June 2016, Kingston Preservation Inc. announced that stabilization work at the Booth House had begun.
Getting the work started in a timely fashion was a requirement set by the Kingston Common Council as part of the deal to sell the house to Kingston Preservation Inc. for $1.
The group plans to sell the house eventually.
The Booth House was targeted for demolition in
early 2016 under Kingston’s Unsafe Buildings Law when pieces of stone fell from its facade.
Members of the local historic preservation community protested, however, and ultimately a deal was reached for the building’s owner, Nanon Kopko, to give the house to the city and for the city to sell it to Kingston Preservation Inc. for $1.
Research by Friends of Historic Kingston Executive Director Jane Kellar and City Historian Edwin Ford shows Nathaniel Booth worked as a grocer, freelance bookkeeper and shipper of Kingston bluestone in the 19th century. Booth also kept an extensive diary of life in the Rondout area.