Leaders work to redevelop Keeseville’s former high school

From abandoned school to community hub: a closer look at the process underway to transform a long-empty building

By Tim Rowland

The architecture is identifiable from literally a mile away. An emphatic two-story rectangular broadside of concrete and brick with soaring windows and outsized entryways. Those entrances were capable of swallowing hundreds of students, who in the first half of the 20th century were newly required by law to attend school.

At the end of the 19th century, only 5.6% of America’s 14- to 17-year-olds were enrolled in high schools; 50 years later, according to McGill University, compulsory education laws had sent three in four of these teens to class.

This massive increase in students required a building program to accommodate them, and Keeseville High School was a result of that construction.

By 2000, most of these pedological battleships had been mothballed or torn down by communities that could afford to do so. Keeseville could not, and today its advocates see that as a blessing, as they prepare to open it to the public later this fall as a new community civic center. 

A community hub in the making

Along with a refurbished gymnasium, the school is also home, or will be, to a handful of businesses, the idea being that the rent will help pay for upkeep. It’s still very much a work in progress, but one thing the school has going for it is nostalgia —  many of the paint-scraping volunteers slowly reclaiming the hallways had parents or grandparents attended school there, said Ausable Supervisor Tim Bresett, as did his own parents.

Grant money has been trickling in, and today renovation is far enough along that, soon, people can begin coming and going, which Bresett believes will generate a fresh wave of momentum. “This building just needs some life,” he said. 

Perched on a bluff high above the Ausable River with a commanding view of the village, it was built in 1936 and served its intended purpose for a scant 35 years before students were sent off to a consolidated school in Clintonville that would serve the communities of both Keeseville and Au Sable Forks.

In 1971, optimistic educators stuffed a bunch of documents explaining the merger into the new AuSable Valley school’s cornerstone and basked in a student population that at the time was still growing. Keeseville sent 520 high school students to Ausable Valley, and another 430 came from the high school in Au Sable Forks. But that same year the paper mill in the Au Sable Forks shut down never to reopen, and today the AuSable Valley middle-high school’s student population is less than half of what it was then.

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A long process toward rehabilitation

The Keeseville High School, meanwhile, fell into the hands of the village of Keeseville, which moved a handful of offices into the massive shell — “Mayor” is still stenciled onto a heavy wooden door near the entry — until the village itself dissolved in 2015, and 55,000 square feet of floor space were suddenly there for the taking — with few takers.

The village assets were conveyed to the town of Ausable when the village dissolved, and by the  time of the Covid-19 pandemic then-Ausable Supervisor Sandra Senecal and a friends committee led by Council Member Jim King were figuring out that the old school was a community asset worth saving. 

Meeting monthly, the committee wanted to be sure it was a place the Keeseville community could enjoy, including Ausable and also the half of the community that’s right across the river, but is jurisdictionally a different town (Chesterfield) in a different county (Essex).

Advocates envision the building as a hybrid business and community center, with enough leased space to support the considerable upkeep. The going has been slow, but the George and Shirley Moore Foundation paid for a new gym floor, and Bresett hopes people will be playing basketball, volleyball and pickleball by November.

Most problematic is that up until now the school has still been heated with a wood-burning steam furnace. Bresett said a gas replacement is nearing readiness, and until then the high, south-facing windows and acres of heat-absorbing brick give the town some wiggle room. “This building doesn’t cool down until December,” he said.

Structurally, there’s not much wrong. “It’s super-solid, no settling, no cracks,” Bresett said.

Small-business incubator

The commercial space has begun to take root, with space leased to the Development Authority of the North Country, as well as a pizza shop and a mushroom grower. Rent is cheap enough that Bresett said new leaseholders will be able to renovate individual rooms to suit their purposes.

Greg Rowe, owner of Cornucopia Gourmet Mushrooms has done just that, building in a laboratory, inoculation rooms and space for the tents in which the mushrooms mature.

He said his space, located in the school’s basement, was a good fit, with room to grow — which he plans to do. “So many restaurants have reached  out — I don’t have the product this year, but I will next year,” he said, noting that a bigger problem than space is finding help. “It’s fun, it’s exciting, but it’s labor intensive and it’s hard to find anybody to work.”

When renovations are completed, Bresett said he expects the town of Ausable offices to move in. There are also plans for a fitness center and a new community radio station — oddly, an upstairs room was at some point fitted with a glass booth that seems tailor made for broadcasting.

If the school was once the center of community life, Bresett believes it can be again, providing recreation, meeting space, jobs and other amenities that will not only serve the Keeseville area, but will be attractive to people looking to find a spot in the Adirondacks where housing is still relatively affordable. “These are the things that are expected by people looking to move here,” he said.