NoVo's Hurley Building Will Be Renovated, and Mural Will Stay by Jesse J. Smith/Kingston Wire
An old building in the heart of historic Hurley will take on new life as administrative offices for the NoVo Foundation. But in a nod to the building’s connection to the community, a mural at the site depicting the town’s famous stone houses and cornfields will be preserved.
The Hudson Valley Farm Hub was created back in 2014 when the NoVo Foundation paid $13 million for the Gill Farm, a 1,600-acre spread along the fertile banks of the Esopus Creek. Since then, the Farm Hub has produced a range of organic crops while also acting as an agricultural laboratory to test sustainable farming techniques and a training center and incubator for aspiring farmers.
In 2020, the foundation bought another former Gill family property, an old wooden building on the corner of Wynkoop Road and Main Street. Renovations at the site began in November. According to NoVo Foundation President Peter Buffett, the project will retain the original footprint of the building while the interior will undergo extensive remodeling for use as an office space. The project also includes the installation of a new roof with a solar array and, Buffett said, a new façade designed to fit in with the surrounding historic neighborhood.
Buffett added that he was coordinating a Town Hall style meeting about the project at the Hurley library sometime early next year.
One thing that will remain when the project wraps up in the early summer of 2024 — a mural painted by Gill family member and local artist Cynthia Gill Lapp back in 2010. In a post on the Facebook group Citizens of the Town of Hurley, Lapp recounted the mural’s origins when someone tagged the side of the building and her father, the late Jack Gill, asked her to paint something over it. Lapp said the work was her first mural and she decided to take the town’s iconic stone buildings and the sprawling corn fields of her family’s farm as her subject.
“It took me five months to paint it. I painted after work and any free time I had during that summer going into the fall months. It was done in 2010 so it’s been there for 13 years,” Lapp wrote. “I always took care of sealing it when I could. I do have some prints made of the mural and t-shirts that are being sold at the Hurley Historic Society Museum store.”
The Hudson Valley Farm Hub was created back in 2014 when the NoVo Foundation paid $13 million for the Gill Farm, a 1,600-acre spread along the fertile banks of the Esopus Creek. Since then, the Farm Hub has produced a range of organic crops while also acting as an agricultural laboratory to test sustainable farming techniques and a training center and incubator for aspiring farmers.
In 2020, the foundation bought another former Gill family property, an old wooden building on the corner of Wynkoop Road and Main Street. Renovations at the site began in November. According to NoVo Foundation President Peter Buffett, the project will retain the original footprint of the building while the interior will undergo extensive remodeling for use as an office space. The project also includes the installation of a new roof with a solar array and, Buffett said, a new façade designed to fit in with the surrounding historic neighborhood.
Buffett added that he was coordinating a Town Hall style meeting about the project at the Hurley library sometime early next year.
One thing that will remain when the project wraps up in the early Summer of 2024 — a mural painted by Gill family member and local artist Cynthia Gill Lapp back in 2010. In a post on the Facebook group Citizens of the Town of Hurley, Lapp recounted the mural’s origins when someone tagged the side of the building and her father, the late Jack Gill, asked her to paint something over it. Lapp said the work was her first mural and she decided to take the town’s iconic stone buildings and the sprawling corn fields of her family’s farm as her subject.
“It took me five months to paint it. I painted after work and any free time I had during that summer going into the fall months. It was done in 2010 so it’s been there for 13 years,” Lapp wrote. “I always took care of sealing it when I could. I do have some prints made of the mural and t-shirts that are being sold at the Hurley Historic Society Museum store.”