Our Story
The village of Sherburne in Central New York still stands as a vision of small town life in America. Streets are tree-lined, people stop and chat at the Post Office or in the aisles of the grocery store, kids ride their bikes to the town pool, unattended. Families come home for holidays here, and community organizations sponsor events like Wednesday evening Music in the Park during the summer, Fourth of July celebrations, and even a Bike Night and Cruise In at the local ice cream stand. There are parades, with veterans and Girl Scouts, bands and Santa. Sherburne has been an ideal of small town life for nearly two hundred years.
Last October, that vision was threatened. The owner of The Sherburne Inn had the opportunity to sell the property, which stands at the heart of Sherburne's main intersection and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, to a chain store that planned to tear the building down and erect in its place a 24-hour convenience shop and gas station. A number of community members were horrified at the thought, and so approached the owner with a cash downpayment and an offer to buy The Inn. The owner gave the group six months to raise the money to purchase the building, with a warning that if that effort failed, our historic Inn would be torn down.
Nine of those community members formed the nonprofit organization, Save The Sherburne Inn Restoration Project, Inc. (SSIRP), and raised the $165,000 purchase price in less than six months. The group filed for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and was approved in February. The Sherburne Inn was purchased in April and now SSIRP faces the task of restoring the exterior and renovating the interior of The Sherburne Inn.
While the structure is sound, the building has suffered from neglect. Pigeons roosted in the former dining room, vandals broke in and spray painted windows and walls, broke glass, and caused other damage. The roof had been replaced, but not before water damage heaved the original wood floors in the dining room. The kitchen is dismal. The upper levels were gutted because a previous owner planned to renovate the interior; today, there are no guest rooms or bathrooms. Out historic building needs help.
Our Vision
The vision of SSIRP's board members is to restore the exterior of the building and renovate the interior to reopen The Sherburne Inn as an upscale boutique hotel and farm-to-table restaurant with two bars and retail space. Because there are no such hotel rooms in the area, local businesses must send their clients at least 20 miles to stay in comfortable hotels. Local residents must drive a similar distance to enjoy an evening out, including a find-dining experience. Wedding receptions once held at The Inn are now sent out of town. Historically, The Sherburne Inn served all those needs and will do so again; but the road to get there will be neither easy nor short.
We Need Your Support
Please support the preservation of historic small town America by considering a donation to Save The Sherburne Inn Restoration Project. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is following our progress, advising that SSIRP's volunteer board is doing what all small town citizens should do: rise up to preserve our history, and say NO to the bulldozers. Check out our gifts at various levels, and start planning your trip to Sherburne! Our goal is to reopen The Sherburne Inn by 2015, one hundred years after the previous Inn burned to the ground. See our website (thesherburneinn.org) for more history, more information, and photos. And thank you for believing, as we do, that teaching our children the value of where we came from may be the most important lesson they learn about where they're going.
