Some History of a House

Yesterday, Gossips was alerted to something happening at South Fifth and Partition streets. The siding was being removed from 35 South Fifth Street. 

Because the house is located in a historic district, and because the project had not come before the Historic Preservation Commission for a certificate of appropriateness, I alerted Nick Fox, our code enforcement officer, who promptly went to the site to check things out. As it happens, the project is a like-for-like replacement, which does not require a certificate of appropriateness, although it is not clear why what appears to be perfectly good old growth wood siding needs to be replaced.

The attention to this house reminded me that in 2018 Gossips published two posts about it: "Time and Again" and "Footnote to 'Time and Again.'" Those posts were inspired by the discovery of this image of the house that appeared on the back cover of the city directory for 1918.

For those who don't have the time to read the old posts, I'll summarize the information they contain. The house at 35 South Fifth Street was built in 1888 by Edmund Denegar, who was a prominent building contractor in Hudson at that time. Denegar built the house for his own family. The brownstone foundation of the house was laid by John F. X. Brennan, the son of Irish immigrants who became a very successful stone mason and bricklayer. We know that Brennan laid the foundation from an item that appeared in the Hudson Evening Register in October 1888. It seems Denegar and Brennan often collaborated on the construction of houses in Hudson. Brennan's own house, which he built in 1894-1895, stands at 39 West Court Street, and it is likely that Denegar was involved in the construction of that house, too.

39 West Court Street

The collaboration of Denegar and Brennan in their construction is not the only thing that connects the two houses. Most people in Hudson know that 39 West Court Street was for many years the home of the late renowned poet John Ashbery and his partner, David Kermani. What may not be known is that Ashbery and Kermani once owned 35 South Fifth Street and rescued it from the spectre of imminent demolition. In 2018, Kermani shared with Gossips this information about 35 South Fifth Street:

In the mid-1980s, John Ashbery and I, along with Lydia Littlefield, operating as the St. Winifred Alliance, purchased and restored that house because we loved it, and it was in such a dangerous state of disrepair that we were afraid it would be condemned and torn down. (Those were the days when city officials would ask at public meetings if anybody had anything they wanted taken down, "because I've got a bulldozer next Tuesday.") The Preservation Tax Credits were a relatively new thing then, so that is how we justified our seemingly rash activity of restoring to high standards and then running a rental property, which none of us knew anything about.

35 South Fifth Street in 2018

35 South Fifth Street today

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