This week, village building inspector Dan Pollan issued a notice of condemnation on the Terrace Motel. The motel sits on a hilltop overlooking Ellenville and the Shawangunk Ridge, on 8.2 acres off Route 209, fronted by an iconic sign that’s rusted out and teetering.

In 2021, it was purchased for $550,000 by two couples hoping to revitalize it. Not long after, the owners of the Terrace Motel in Ellenville gave up on their effort to bring it back to its glory, frustrated by the massive expenses they encountered along the way. The mid-century structure was left abandoned. People wondered if it would collapse, burn to the ground, or – somehow – be rescued.

Rescues sometimes just don’t happen. Now condemned, it must be demolished.

The timing is unfortunate because just last month, a group of local people bought the property for a rumored $600,000, with the stated interest of “remedying the property.” The spokesperson for the group, which is called Shawangunk Ridgeview Terrace LLC, said that they wish to remain anonymous for the moment.

The importance of the site and the decaying condition of the building were “the genesis of this effort to see how the property can be stabilized and then curated,” the group told the Journal. “Everybody is on the same page with trying to ensure that it remains a premier gateway property to the village.”

Discussing the state of the Terrace now, the spokesperson said the motel “was left in such a state of abandonment. We think that homeless people and vagrants were in there. A number of roll-offs [dumpsters] were filled with debris and removed from the site. The grass had been cut. Dead trees have been taken down. There’s a lot of preparation going into the property to ensure that the next phase can start soon.”

So, what happens now? “That remains nebulous,” the group says. However, “Things will start happening very soon.”

The story of the once vibrant motel, one of the village’s hottest spots back in the 1970s, has turned into another sad saga of the end of the Borscht Belt glory. One effort to revive it has failed. Now, another is getting underway.

Whatever the future holds for the site, it will not be the same as what was. Rather, something new must come to the Terrace Motel.