After several long months of negotiations, the deal for 130 Canal Street, the building on the eastern side of Liberty Square in Ellenville, was completed in September. The new owners are now considering their plans for what they intend to do with the property.

One slight hold up to the deal had been the need to re-zone the northern half of the property, which had been zoned residential sometime in the 1980s to accommodate a possible development there. That never happened, however, but the residential zoning had remained. The Village of Ellenville re-zoned the property back into the Business District and removed any doubts about development issues.

The site has always been a crucial one for Ellenville. The Liberty Square crossroads is where the village actually began, around 1800. Canal Street, running east to west, was the first major thoroughfare connecting to the canal at the eastern end and to the massive glassworks that arose there that first put Ellenville on the map. The site was used for one of the very first grand resort hotels in this area, the Terwilliger House, built in 1830, though bought by Eli Terwilliger in 1847 and renamed at that point. That hotel burned down in 1904. On the site rose the Wayside Inn, possibly the most magnificent of the later generation hotels, with 100 guest rooms and a huge dining room that could seat 400 people. The Wayside Inn burned down in October 1967, a night that many older people in the area still remember. There remain a couple of the stone pillars that once lined that side of the square beside the hotel, as well as the now defunct street sign that stands beside the Publik House, an addition to the Inn that survived the fire.

However, it is the structure on the far side of the property, now completely unheralded, that clinched the deal for the new owners. That building was the Coach House for the Wayside Inn and possibly may go back to the Terwilliger House, too. In the days before automobiles took over, dozens of horses, along with carriages and carts, were kept there and the open space was a paddock for the horses.

Eric Springer, one of the new group of owners, talking about the deal briefly, noted, “It was that building that really did it for us. We looked at it, noted that it was in poor condition, but it has some great potential.”

Indeed, despite its current state, the old Coach House could be revived and become something new and in tune with the 21st century.

The new owners’ plans are still being formulated and have yet to be presented to the Ellenville Planning Board, if that is necessary. There will be further announcements as they harden up.