PreservationNation Blog

The Sherburne Inn in 1917

Written by Kathleen Yasas, President, Save The Sherburne Inn Restoration Project, Inc.

Her lights have been dark for almost a decade now. She has stood vacant and endured rain and snow, falling bricks, and gatherings of not people, but pigeons. Still, when you step inside the Sherburne Inn, you can almost feel the souls who have passed through her doors since she first opened in 1917.

For eighty-plus years, people of this community -- and those from well beyond -- celebrated life's moments within these walls. Sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, grandparents and children, aunts and uncles and friends crossed the threshold to gather and make merry, whether at dinner or for a glass of wine, or for weddings, reunions, and milestone birthdays.

The Inn's two fireplaces, cold now for years, once warmed the hands of those huddled inside away from our town's legendary snow. And on brilliant summer days in June, when Sherburne's Pageant of Bands brought streets to bursting, glasses were raised from the Inn’s porches to hail a village known for its generosity and love of rural sensibilities.

The Sherburne Inn is located at the only four-corner intersection of Sherburne, a small village nestled in the Chenango Valley of central New York. Settled in 1791, Sherburne was once a key stopping point between Albany and a booming westward industry. Since 1803, a tavern, rooming house, or hotel has stood at what is now the intersection of Routes 12 and 80.

All previous structures burned to the ground, including that which stood on the property until 1915, when village philanthropists joined together and erected a building made of brick and poured concrete. The “new” building, which opened in June 1917, was to be known as the Sherburne Inn, and for the next eighty-four years would be a vital part of the Sherburne community.

Nearly 100 years later, in October 2012, the Inn again became a threatened property, not by fire, but by development.... Read More →