ALTAMONT — Tragedy has turned to triumph at the Altamont Fair.

Just over a year ago, vandals hurled rocks at one of the fair’s oldest buildings. Twenty windows were broken in the Flower and Fine Arts Building, a graceful Victorian structure built in perfect symmetry, with four wings spreading from a center hall. Each wing has a Palladian window and the center hall beneath the roof is rimmed with clerestory windows.
The fair secretary at the time reported in tears how she felt sick when she came to work and saw the broken windows. "I couldn’t believe it," she said. "It’s such a beautiful building."

The community read about the vandalism in The Enterprise and several villagers offered to donate antique glass for repairs. While measuring for repairs, workers discovered that the window sashes and mullions — bars dividing the panes of glass — were so badly deteriorated that new glass couldn’t be installed; the antique frames were fragile and were ruined by the vandalism.

This spring, the fair’s board of directors announced it had received a $50,000 capital grant from the Wright Family Foundation to repair the Fine Arts and Flower Building.
"It’s the gem of the fair," said Marie McMillen, vice president of the fair board.
The newly-refurbished building will be ready when the fair opens next week, said McMillen. "The date is in the contracts," she said.

"First building at the fair"

McMillen herself became involved in the fair when her children, now grown, were active in 4-H.

She takes great pleasure in helping the fair and likes the variety of people who are involved.
"There was a lady wandering in the parking lot at ten of eight," she said last week. "She wanted to know where to drop off her entry for ginger cookies and chocolate fudge. She was 78."

McMillen went over some of the fair’s early history for The Enterprise.

She read from minutes, written in careful longhand, of a meeting held on Sept. 3, 1892 in the house of J.O. Stitt. The meeting was called to order by C.M. Frederick and a motion was made by W. Hilton, she read.
"They were charged to go to Cobleskill and have the Cobleskill County Agricultural Society share their experience," reported McMillen.

A committee of five was set up to call on subscribers; 200 or more subscriptions were needed, she said.
"The fair initially was a stockholder fair," explained McMillen.

As she spoke of that century-old history, the modern-day fair was bustling about her. Waves of people ebbed and flowed through her fairgrounds office, seeking information and directions for their tasks. The phone rang as McMillen efficiently answered queries.
Then she picked up with the history again, explaining that an Altamont contingent "went to Cobleskill to look at the Flower Building there."
"It was called the Exposition Hall," said Harold Hahn as he walked through the office. Hahn has been helping with the restoration project. He went to a file cabinet in the back of the office to look up the contractors for the work currently underway.

The building’s roof is being painted by Robert White; the building itself is being painted by Clark King of First Choice Painting; and the windows are being done by Bellamy and Sons of Glenville.
"His grandfather was involved with the Altamont Fair for a long period of time," Hahn said of Bellamy.
"This was the first building at the fair," said Hahn of the Fine Arts and Flower building. "It’s well over 100 years old."
McMillen looked to her records for the exact date. "The Exposition Hall was built in 1896," she said.

Restored glory

Only two buildings on the current fairgrounds are older — the gateway at the foot of Grand Street and the original grandstand building.

The board of directors of the Altamont Driving Park and Fair Association purchased 24.5 acres from Isaac Reamer and held the first fair in 1893, from Sept. 12 to 15. Receipts for the four-day fair totaled $884.13.

The cost to build the gateway was $115, McMillen reported. The two Victorian gatehouses were spanned by an elaborate arch, long since gone.

Three years ago, a group of volunteers painted the gatehouses, where tickets were once sold, in splendid Victorian colors. The two ticket booths are now used as restrooms.
"This was the fair’s main entrance for everyone from the village and it still is," said Jerry Oliver, who helped with the restoration. "Why should they walk into the back end of a restroom, surrounded by barbed wire and a chain-link fence" Everyone in the village should be proud to walk through the gate and they will be. In its restored form, it will reflect the history of the fair and the village. It will be a thing of beauty."

There was talk at the time of reconstructing a replica of the original arch that connected the two ticket booths.
McMillen said this month that the gate entrances will be raised so new sills can be put in. Asked if there were still plans to re-create the arch, she said, "We’re going to visit that."
The original grandstand now serves as the Poultry Building. "If you look on the walls, you can see the treads where they pulled the seats out," said McMillen.

She looked at her records and reported that H.P. Foster built the grandstand for $1,975.

A race track was built in front of the grandstand for horse racing, which continued in Altamont until the mid-1990’s.

A later wooden grandstand burned and was replaced with metal bleachers.

The Fine Arts and Flower Building was complete for the third fair and was based on what the Altamont committee had observed at the Cobleskill Fair.
"They stipulated the roof be of A Number slate," said McMillen. "It’s now standing-seam. That was done in the 1900’s."

H. Schoonmaker was awarded the bid to build it, for $2,146.

Picture perfect

McMillen has photographs from the era when fair patrons arrived in horse and buggy — the women in long skirts and bonnets, the men in suits and straw hats. Later pictures show an occasional horse and buggy amid the many rows of new horseless carriages — the early automobiles.

There, in the midst of the crowd, was the fine Arts and Flower Building, looking much as it does today. The roof was slate then, while today it is tin. And the building was painted in a variety of hues while today it is white.

The old black-and-white photographs don’t reveal the hues but they show the lightest color for window trim, and batten boards, creating a striped pattern, with the darkest shade on the gables and an in-between hue beneath.
The Fine Arts and Flower Building takes it name from what is displayed there. McMillen recalled some of the local florists like Doris Remus and Inga Barth who had years ago transformed the place. "They did extensive displays; they were just beautiful," she said.

This year, as in years past, local artists will exhibit their works along with the plants and flowers that are displayed and judged. But the setting will be much grander because of the restoration.
"They’ve made exact duplicates of the Palladian windows," said McMillen.
"They look original in appearance but they are vinyl so they’ll be easy to maintain," said Hahn.

A beautiful park beneath the bright mountains

The restoration of the Fine Arts and Flower Building is part of an overall refurbishing of the fairgrounds.
"We’re hoping to bring the fairgrounds back into being a beautiful park, actively using the grounds for outside events," said McMillen.

Projects totaling $450,000 are to be complete by the time the fair opens next week, she said.

McMillen detailed some of the improvements: a new 80-by-200-foot cattle barn, newly paved roadways, an improved drainage and water-collection system, and painting and repairs for many of the fair’s buildings. The repairs and painting for most the buildings are being completed under the direction of building supervisor Mark Traverse, said McMillen.

Bob Santorelli, president of the fair’s board of directors, told The Enterprise earlier that money for the improvements has come from grants, sale of property, the fair’s annual budget, and a short-term $160,000 loan from the Bank of Coxsackie.

Santorelli said the board will have spent about $600,000 over the past few years in capital improvements.
"I believe it is the most put into the fair in the history of the fair," he said.
The $50,000 grant for the Fine Arts and Flower Building is from the Wright Family Foundation, which Philanthropy Northeast says provides grants to support "community development, the arts, education, health care, and civic renewal."
"It’s great to make our oldest building on the grounds look new again," said Santorelli.

He also said, with the new cattle barn, the fair expects a significant increase over the 190 livestock entries last year.

The board will remain focused on agriculture, he said.
"We are different from most county fairs because being near the Capitol, we are more metropolitan," he said. "Ninety percent of the families come here to see the animals."
McMillen envisions many uses for the grounds. "The Flower Building would be a gorgeous setting for a wedding," she said.

And the entire grounds can be rented out for special events by large groups, she said. Traditional events on the fairgrounds have included the Old Songs Festival, the Capital District Scottish Games, the Irish Fest, and the Apple Fest.
The fair is starting something new this year, said McMillen, with a group arriving from California "Moritz, promoters for the car industry, are going to have a Honda Ride and Drive here," she said. "It’s a new chapter for us. We will do a full turn-key activity — right down to the food and the linen."

In a way, the fair has come full circle. McMillen referred to a history of the village of Altamont, written by the late Arthur Gregg, Guilderland’s town historian, in 1965, the year Altamont celebrated the 75th anniversary of its incorporation.

Gregg wrote of the attraction the little village at the foot of the Helderbergs held for nearby city dwellers and of how it provided a commercial center for the rural countryside.
"The Village of Altamont would have developed near the new rail line, even if there had been little beauty in its environments," Gregg wrote in 1965. "But fortunately, it was a site which has enthralled travelers ever since the weary Palatine refugees, toiling toward their ‘Promised Land’ of Schoharie in 1712, paused, spell-bound, and gave the name of ‘Hellebergh’ or ‘Bright Mountain’ to the beautifully wooded rampart that forms our western boundary.
"The more than a hundred thousand patrons annually filling the grounds of the Eastern Regional Exposition in our village, enthuse over a setting unexcelled in this country.
"In the early days, reporters for Capital District newspapers were eloquent in their descriptions of the place. One reporter wrote in 1888: ‘What a pretty village, said a fair-faced girl of 17, as the Western Express stopped at the Village of Altamont the other day. What a lovely park and beautiful flowers! What quaint cottages and how grandly those magnificent mountains seem to protect the place.’
"‘It is a fact,’ he continued, ‘the village gives every evidence of a steady growth with promise of being a summer resort of no little note. There are many desirable spots for summer houses. The houses being put up by retired farmers and other people of means, are of modern design, some of them teeming with gables and brilliantly colored nooks and corners, and the streets are objects of beauty.
"‘The Kushaqua, the mountain hotel of Colonel Church, has been enlarged to accommodate 175 guests. Governor Hill and his secretary, Colonel William Gorham Rice, have found this a congenial spot and may frequently be seen pacing the piazzas that look out upon what is considered the longest uninterrupted view in the country.’
"The prophecy," Gregg continues, "that the village would become the center of a summer resort, was well founded. The two large village hotels were soon filled, as were the private boarding houses.
"During the Altamont Fair in earlier years, almost every private home opened to judges, concessionaires, and entertainers. From the hourly trains poured guests for not only Altamont and the Kushaqua, but Thompson’s Lake, Warner’s Lake, Berne, East Berne, and White Sulphur Springs...."
"People now can stay right on our campgrounds," said McMillen. "The exhibitors and the vendors stay there during the fair. And people can stay there during events," she said, as they have traditionally at the Old Songs Festival and as a group from Florida which as rented the grounds will do shortly.
"We’re on a mission," said McMillen, "to bring the fairgrounds back to being a beautiful spot under the great Helderbergs."