Couple works to transform historic Adirondack building into The Mill, a cultural center featuring art galleries, live music, and a 1920s-themed bar
By Tim Rowland
Not wanting to see another aging Adirondack building fall to pieces, Taylor Haskins bought quite a specimen of mid-20th century architecture three years ago, one with 11,000 square feet, a soaring central tower, high-ceilinged rooms filled with heavy equipment — and caked in flour.
This month, the 72-year-old former Champlain Valley Seed Cooperative in Westport will enter the first phase of its second act as a music, art and cultural center, hosting a lineup of musicians that will kick off on June 28 with the duo Endless Field and violinist Sara Caswell.
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When it’s finished, Haskins, himself a trumpeter and composer, said The Mill will also include five art galleries — curated by his wife Catherine Ross Haskins, an art scholar and videographer — a speakeasy-themed bar, flex space for community events and apartments for visiting musicians and patrons.
Inspired by rehabilitation projects he’d seen in Brooklyn, Taylor said he bought the building, across from Westport’s historic fairgrounds, primarily to save it, figuring that its future use would come into focus in time.
“It reeked of possibility; it was a great building in a great spot,” he said. “We wanted it to benefit the community, and (considered) everything from a roller rink to a laundromat. We had to go around the merry-go-round a time or two, or three.”
But for a community to flourish, the Haskins believed in the need not just for the basics of grocery stores, shops and laundromats, but for art.
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“That’s the missing piece of the puzzle. We want to help people see how integral arts are to a community.”
Taylor Haskins
With that in mind, plans began to take shape, although there was a lot of work to do before the first patron stepped through the door — work made more complicated because it had to be done in the lingering shadow of the pandemic..
“It was a shell with giant pieces of equipment,” Catherine said. After they found a home for the equipment at the Nitty Gritty Grain Co. of Vermont, the job of restoration began, under general contractor Josh Kingzack — starting with scraping away 70 years of dust and flour.
Designed for industrial use, the beefy structure was uncompromised. And parts of it fit the new mission surprisingly well. The intimate concert hall, which seats 50, featured an odd mashup of angles and rooflines that, with a few minor tweaks, made for great acoustics.
“It feels like an epic concert hall,” Taylor said. A local sawmill provided rough-cut lumber to fit in with the original building materials.
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Taylor used his professional contacts in New York to help flesh out a lineup of musical talent, which will perform year around. Artists have been enthusiastic about coming to the shores of Lake Champlain to perform, he said.
“We imagine this as a regional attraction,” said Catherine, whose gallery selections were selected “to bring new light into an old building.” She has drawn art from her professional connections, and also reached out to artists whose work she admired.
Throughout the center there will be examples of sculpture, stained glass, representations of the painting process and a room themed on a single painting. Traditional paintings will intermingle with more experimental work, including an artist’s memories of a tornado shelter in the Midwest, the predominant color being a wash of green light that is a sign of the coming storm.
Related reading: Pride of Ticonderoga plans to rehab Knights of Columbus hall to add performing arts space downtown
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The Haskins want local residents to be comfortable in the center, with space for yoga or lectures, and the ’20s-themed bar just off the concert hall. The time period “is the origin of the music I love,” Taylor said. “It’s the best time in American history to me.”
Called “The Knock; the Worst-Kept Secret in Town,” the bar is expected to open later this month with small plates and classic cocktails. It will complement the music hall as an intimate experience to share with friends or soon-to-be friends that accentuates the music.
“This really is a listening room where you can feel the music inside of you,” Catherine said.
Photo at top: The Mill cultural center in Westport, which began life as a granary in 1952. Photo by Tim Rowland
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Off the Wall: The Mill was built with money from the Champlain Valley Seed Growers Co-Operative, with my dad, Richard (Dick) Gough Sheman at the helm. It was his ‘baby’ that provided then processing of Birdsfoot Trefoil, a very expensive forage crop used extensively by various states for planting along highway malls, berms and the like. Later, purchased by Sam and Derinda Sherman, it became a flour mill hence Champlain Valley Milling (later moved to the Willsboro location in need of more space). For the new project, I wish the investors well. Ours is a very small town, surrounded by equally small towns. So, whether there is a population base within distance to patronize these new businesses, time will tell. Summer traffic for around three months will give it a much needed boost, we can only hope. Watch and wait for Westport is a growing business community that has to prove it as make or bust all the while a permanent population that has remained the same for decades. s.