Lounge earns award for reuse of space

SCHENECTADY — A restaurant that turned a windowless cement block building into a tasteful dining area has won the annual Schenectady Heritage Foundation’s preservation award.

The Winedown Lounge, at 613 Union St., will be honored along with three other buildings next Thursday at noon at City Hall.

Heritage Foundation Chairwoman Gloria Kishton said the Winedown Lounge received top marks because of the owners’ innovative reuse of the space. It was once a Victorian house and later sported a cement addition for the Beyer Fur Company’s fur vault.

Workers could have simply gutted the interior, but instead they found ways to use every room without even moving the walls.

“They retained the different spaces in the building,” Kishton said. “They’ve taken the original floorplan of a Victorian house and adapted the space without destroying the layout.”

The front parlor is now a casual dining area, with low-slung tables circling the original fireplace — which still works. It’s used all winter.

“When you walk in, you have kind of your living room space,” said sous chef Brett Laude. “It’s pretty much all original in here — the floors, the ceiling, the molding.”

Actually, one piece of the intricately carved molding was lost during renovations. But along three walls, the original leaf-motif can still be seen.

BACK IN TIME

One door away, the original dining room still looks much like it did a hundred years ago, with a long wooden table filling the space. That’s now the lounge’s trademark wine-tasting room.

A small space that connects to the room has been turned into the wine cellar.

But the tour de force, Kishton said, is the back room, which workers turned into an elegant dining area. She praised the architect for seeing such possibilities in a dark, forbidding room.

“It was a space that was peculiar to that business, a fur vault, which was a room with no windows. I think it was humidity-controlled. It was basically a cement block added onto the building,” she said.

Workers put a stage in back and built a raised platform along the wall. Now customers can sit on the main level with the musicians or high above their heads along the walls. Adroit use of artwork and lots of lighting masks the fact that there are no windows.

The original vault door stands open, leading out into a hallway with what looks like the original brick. Plaster appears to have covered about half of the wall.

“That was intentionally put over it to give it that antique feel,” Laude said.

The Heritage Foundation is also giving an award to Angelo Mazzone and Paul Sciocchetti for their work renovating three adjacent buildings on State Street. One building now houses Mazzone’s new restaurant, Aperitivo Bistro, and the business partners are trying to rent the other spaces.

The buildings were among many downtown that had been vacant and deteriorating for many years. The foundation had been worried that they might be demolished or their facades destroyed.

“We have seen many of those mistakes,” Kishton said.

So foundation members were delighted when the buildings were bought by developers who wanted to restore them. Kishton called the work beautiful and respectful.

DELANSON, PRINCETOWN

Two Preservation Awards are also going to buildings outside the city.

In Delanson, the foundation is recognizing the long maintenance effort of the Quakers, who have kept their meeting house in good repair for 200 years.

The two-story building on Quaker Street is still in good shape. Even its slate roof and plaster ceilings — which are now expensive to repair — have been maintained.

Dorothy Garner, the clerk of the Delanson meeting house, said the expense has always been worth it.

“It’s the historic value and the remembrances of all the people who came before,” she said. “If you could listen to the walls talk, you would hear those old walls telling all sorts of stories. Why would you not want it?”

Besides, she added, it’s not as expensive as it sounds when repairs are done regularly.

“I wouldn’t say it was that expensive,” she said.

In Princetown, the foundation is giving an award to horse farmer Gary Zarr, for his work in restoring the farmhouse and barns at 406 Maben Road.

Kishton said she was particularly impressed that he restored the barns.

“People don’t normally think of barns as a beautiful place,” she said. “He has put such consideration into the little details.”

Among the unusual details: Zarr has built a long shelf on the outside of a barn that faces his farmhouse. Sculptures are displayed on the shelf.

“He’s just created these beautiful spaces from every viewpoint,” Kishton said.