On Friday, the Historic Preservation Commission held a public hearing about buildings at the corner of Warren and Fourth Streets, being renovated to become a hotel to be called the Hudson Public. A stop-work order has been in place since August for violations of the project's certificate of appropriateness. The HPC is now considering a new application for the project that reflects the work that has already been done.
Before the public hearing started, Walter Chatham, the project's advising architect, acknowledged they had failed to return to the HPC for approval of specific materials. He also spoke of the three pieces of original marble that, according to the certificate of appropriateness granted in 2023, were supposed to remain in place. He explained that one of the marble columns is still there, now encapsulated in new material. The other two pieces--a column and a lintel--have been preserved, and the intention is to use them somewhere in the building, as ornament, possibly in the bar.
Thanks to the historic examples we have at hand to guide the outcome of restoring this importantly placed and widely visible building on Warren Street, 402 Warren St. can be as noble as it once was and a valuable asset for the people of Hudson.
The end wall (facing the alley) of the historic row houses has an installation of electrical feeds on the brickwork, destroying the former beauty of that wall. These feeds could have just as easily been placed on new alley building’s large blank wall. The original historic moldings on the roof end were replaced with plain squared-off lumber.
The three historic buildings should have period-appropriate 6-over-6 windows. The 2-over-2 windows in the new infill buildings should remain, in order to distinguish the new from the historic construction.
The historic houses on North 4th Street had a white coating at the attic level, down to and including the relief brick molding only. The area above the second floor windows was free of any coating and should remain so. Therefore the new, bright white pointing in that area needs to match the existing pointing. This also is the case for areas of the west facade of 402 Warren St. Two windows on the North 4th Street (west) side of 402 are missing their marble sills; it would be nice if they could be replaced.
The west facade at present does not conform with the original west elevation drawing as far as the corner treatment is concerned. It comes across as a heavy-handed interpretation of the west side of 701 Warren Street. The 260 Warren St. building’s east side would be a better prototype for the west side of 402 Warren Street.
There were three original marble pillars on the main facade of 402 Warren; two were removed from the doorway and one was covered over at the far right-hand (east) side, adjacent to the new building on Warren Street. These pillars were all 14 inches wide and made of hard marble. There are similar 14-inchwide pillars on two buildings in Hudson at 260 Warren and 701 Warren Street.
701 also has a doorway with an opening 3 feet 4 inches wide, with one surviving marble pillar. This is very similar to the original doorway (now removed) as shown on the granite arcade elevation drawing as having an opening of 3 feet 3¾ inches. The over-door transom original to the building, also shown in the drawing, has been eliminated; and the replacement doorway opening is 46.5 inches (3 feet 9.5 inches) wide. This interferes with the harmony of the four openings on the left of the doorway; in the granite arcade elevation drawing all of the openings on either side of the doorway are the same, at 5 feet each, and the outer pillars were 20 inches wide; the remaining pillars are 1 foot 2 inches (14 inches) wide. The newly proposed division of the marble lintel is too short and should be much longer, and the original marble molding across the top of the lintel should be replaced to be more like 402 was and as 701 Warren St. currently is. The removal of original historic material is very unfortunate and justly should be restored to match in appearance and size the transom, door, and paneled side walls of the recessed entryway with a stone flooring of white marble, which was in place, and like the doorway at 701 Warren. The marble pillars should be restored in size and type. The end pillar, now covered over, and the pillars from the door opening demonstrate that all the pillars were 14 inches wide (the same as 260 and 702 Warren Streets). This can and should follow the original historic evidence we have.
The old (2023?) south elevation drawing appears the same as the earlier granite elevation drawing and conforms to a greater degree to the historic examples we have to guide us in this endeavor. Yet what we see on Warren and North 4th Streets now has a lack of uniformity in the size and placement of the pillars and openings of the colonnades, historic and new, and thus fails to conform to the previous proposals.
There is none of the refinement of the historical, pre-modernist, understated interpretation of Classical design.
When McGhee completed his statement, Phil Forman, who chairs the HPC, asked McGhee to submit his statement in writing so the HPC could deliberate on what he said before making a judgment about the project. McGhee agreed. It was also announced that the HPC would accept written comments on the project until its next meeting, which will take place on October 24. Written comments should be submitted to hpcclerk@cityofhudson.org.
Charles Gottlieb, attorney for the Galvan Foundation, requested that the stop-work order be lifted for interior work, noting the installation of an elevator was in progress when the stop-work order was issued and citing the urgency of continuing the interior work. (It was earlier revealed thar Galvan hoped to open the hotel before the holidays.) Forman responded, "We are here because your team did not follow what was approved in the certificate of appropriateness." Nick Fox, director of code enforcement, agreed to review the case to see if the statute allowed for interior work to resume while the violations that had to do with the exterior remained unresolved.
COPYRIGHT 2026 CAROLE OSTERINK
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