New $4M Essex County Ag building a compromise for the future

101-year-old historic building will remain next door awaiting preservation

Essex Country dignitaries broke ground on a $4 million project to build a modern new home in Westport for its agricultural agencies last Monday, a ceremony that was in some ways less about the new building than the 101-year-old architectural artifact sitting right next door.

Four years ago, the clapboard Colonial Revival “Ag building” was targeted for demolition and replacement, which the community saw as an affront to aesthetics, the county’s agrarian roots and the town of Westport itself, which Supervisor Ike Tyler, never one for understatement, called “the prettiest town in the county, by far.”

The Ag building was a gateway to both the hamlet and to the distinctive Essex County Fairgrounds, a largely intact assemblage of red-roofed period buildings, some of which date to the fairground openings in 1885.

But the majority of supervisors remained convinced that rehabbing the old Ag building would not meet the needs of youth programming or the two agencies that will call the new building home: the Cornell Cooperative Extension Service and the office of Soil and Water Conservation.

So even after funding began to come together during COVID-19, a frustrating debate about construction, funding and history that had begun in the early 2000s continued on for another four years as the old building continued to deteriorate.

Investing in the future

While compromises seldom satisfy everyone, Supervisors Chair Shaun Gillilland said the board made a decision that was necessary as the North Country adapts to the changing face of agriculture.

“The very good people at Cornell and at Soil and Water, and the Fairgrounds Committee do tremendous work for our youth, for 4H and for the agricultural future of the county,” he said. “Essex County is a leader in the state, and so I always thought it was incumbent upon us as a Board of Supervisors to provide them all the tools necessary to continue that trajectory.”

The new building echoes architectural elements of the old, and along with office space will include meeting space, modern electronics and a full kitchen for cooking projects.

The country has performed some of the preliminary grading work to help keep costs down, said Department of Public Works Director Jim Dougan, and the building is to be completed late this year, with the agencies moving to their new quarters in early 2026.

The Cornell Cooperative Extension and Soil and Water agencies are currently housed in separate and substandard facilities in the Town of Lewis. CCE director Elizabeth Lee said it will be good not only to have new office space but also to have the two organizations, which often work together, under one roof. “Both are integral to agriculture in the county,” she said.

What about the old building?

Preservationists, meanwhile, still voiced reservations.

Erin Tobin, executive director of Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) in Keeseville, said the outcome “was not our preferred outcome, but also not the worst outcome.”

The Ag building will survive, but without rehab funding, is in some sense back where it started. 

“We believe that a better use of taxpayer funds would have been to rehabilitate the existing, historic Agricultural Building and have an architectural study demonstrating how that would have been possible,” Tobin said. “We appreciate the investment that the county has put into the historic building (and) we are glad it remains standing and that the county is making improvements so that it will be ready for whatever future use comes along.”

The appearance of the building has improved, with removal of brush and a fresh coat of paint, and Tyler said there are plans to replace the roof.

Tobin said the building might qualify for AARCH’s Adirondack Rural Revitalization Program if the county chooses to rehab the building as a public space.

The Colonial Revival building, which is on the National Historic Register, began life in 1924 as Westport Junior Achievement building, as one of the many projects of Ticonderoga industrialist and philanthropist Horace Moses.

It was designed by New York City architect Max Westhoff, who is believed to have come to the Adirondacks to take the cure for tuberculosis in Saranac Lake. His firm went on to design a number of significant camps and commercial buildings in the region.

After a quarter century of wrangling over the future of the Ag building and the future of agriculture, Gillilland said the outcome was for the best. “This is a win,” he said. “And for the board of supervisors, it did take a lot of courage to move forward with this, and a lot of negotiation. This is a very proud day for the board.”