I had passed the building so many times without giving it much thought. The wood was dark and the windows were boarded up. A large black mark stretched across the side from a fire long ago. If it wasn’t for the American flag draped across the front, the building would have looked was ready for the bulldozer.
It was winter when I knocked on the door of the Ketcham Inn and met Bertram Seides. My first impression of Bertram was that he was an odd little guy. The way he looked at me was if he was sizing me up, trying to figure out how much he wanted to tell me. When he first spoke, there was an exhaustion in his words. Everything he said came out slowly as he thought about it first.
Bertram told me his story, he grew up on a farm where he and his father restored old cars. He first learned to drive on an old Model-A pick-up truck that he had repaired. Bertram’s interests moved to fixing old buildings. In the 80s he restored an old saltbox, a traditional colonial era style home. He went through the entire process of repairing the interior and exterior of the home and moved it to a new location. The experience was invigorating for Bertram and he sought out more buildings to save.
Bertram knew about the Ketcham Inn for years. At one point, it was been a home for abused women and the area surrounding it had grown destitute. A fire ripped through it causing severe damage. But Bertram approached the owner anyway and requested a tour of the inside. What he saw blew him away. Inside the building he found all the original colonial furnishings remained intact. The windows, the floorboards, the railings were all from the late 1600s. When Bertram walked out the front door he was visibly shaking, he knew he had to acquire the building and repair it, never allowing it to be torn down and forgotten.
The Ketcham Inn sits at a unique place in history. The foundation of the building began when a blacksmith named Samuel Tyrell became the first white man to move into the area. Tyrell and his family made their home in the blacksmith shop until a fire burnt it to the ground. Then the Ketcham family came and built a large Inn over the bones of Tyrell’s shop. The Inn was grand for its day, becoming a popular stagecoach stop. It housed several rooms as well as a bar and a large ballroom. Historically its claim to fame came when in 1790 Thomas Jefferson stayed there while visiting General William Floyd. The building was passed through the generations, always retaining the bones of its past.
Bertram’s office is a little sample of the way he thinks about his work. All around are pieces of the Inn’s history. There are framed pictures of all the people that lived there in the past. Bertram knows that every document is important to the building’s living history. One that he knows he is a part of. His goal for the building, as well as the community, is to set up a historic district. While the Inn is still far from complete a few blocks down he has a working model of this plan. The Haven’s Estate, a Victorian Era home, has been set up as a museum. Guests can walk through and see exactly what life was like back then. But one building isn’t enough. Bertram’s plan reaches further. He wants the historic district to be a drawing point for the community. With multiple buildings that guests can spend the day exploring, all within walking distance, and be transported back in history.
Sitting at his desk Bertram was becoming agitated. This 30 year journey has worn on him. There are many people in the town that look at the building as an ugly reminder of the past. To them it would be better to get rid of the building and put something new up on the property. Bertram was hesitant to even let me see the inside of the building, fearing what I would think about what I saw. What frustrates him is that he knows how hard it is for people to understand his vision when the Inn is in the state that it is. The only thing that steadies his confidence is that he knows once more improvements are made to the building that maybe the community will be able to see what he is trying to do.
Fourth of July 2015 was a huge turning point for Bertram. During the spring months, he used grant money to hire carpenters to repair the outside of the building. As per Bertram’s request, with each section they repaired they would cover it up with a tarp. Always a bit of a showman, Bertram wanted to reveal the new outside of the building to the community. Fourth of July seemed like the perfect stage to do that.
Flanked by actors in colonial dress, Bertram picked up the microphone set up in front of the Inn to a large crowd. His mood was so much different from the man I originally met. Once exhausted, now Bertram couldn’t let go of his smile. I was unprepared for the energy surrounding the event. During the winter, I felt like one of those people Bertram was frustrated by. I couldn’t see what he was building to. He told the story of his journey to the crowd and they were moved by everything he had done. This was a man who wouldn’t give up and they appreciated it. If it wasn’t for his perseverance the building would have been torn down long ago. Now it was ready to be the center of his long desired Historic District.
After his speech, the carpenters went about removing the tarps. The crowd stood in silence in the warm summer sun watching the tarps fall to the ground. Bertram stood there too. Throughout the whole repair process, he hadn’t seen the complete outside of the building until now. When the last tarp was taken off the crowd erupted in applause. Bertram just maintained that smile and let the moment sink in.