BERNE — The demolition of a looming three-story boarding house, once the White Sulphur Springs House on what is now Route 443, was planned twice this summer, postponed by one of its last hurdles: finding a contractor with the required liability insurance.

The owner, Evangel Church of Long Island City, agreed to take the dilapidated white building down within three years when its special-use permit for operating a retreat at the property was under review by the town in 2010. It said then that, eventually, its maximum overnight occupancy for the property would be 110 people, with 50 in a dormitory building and 60 in a gathering hall behind the boarding house.

This summer was year three and Jimmy Wong, who represents the church in dealing with the town, said a date was set in June, with the sheriff’s office and fire departments notified for traffic control and hosing down the building.

The church had paid deposits to excavators who would do the work and contributed toward the insurance of one to raise its coverage, Wong said. But the town’s building inspector, Timothy Lippert, told them about the requirement of having an umbrella insurance policy and Wong had to call everyone off.

Umbrella policies are broad in nature and meant to protect against all sorts of risks that could put the owner in court. Also known as excess general liability policies, they go beyond standard coverage.

In Berne’s case, the $4 million umbrella policy is in addition to the requirements for general liability, workers’ compensation, auto, and pollution liability insurance. The town has to be named in the contractor’s policies.

“I’m just looking to cooperate with the town and do the best we can and get it down in the most cooperative way,” said Wong, a deacon at Evangel Church.

Berne Supervisor Kevin Crosier said the insurance coverage required by the town is meant to match the town’s own policies, which are recommended by their insurers. The level of coverage doesn’t change from project to project, he said, describing the requirements, including asbestos surveying, as standard process for demolition.

Crosier noted the size of the building and it’s strong, post-and-beam construction.

“There’s a difference there,” said Crosier. “The town wants to make sure that the road is protected, that the other properties around it are protected and the health of the public is protected; that’s our job.”

So far, the search for excavators that can meet the insurance requirement hasn’t been successful. Wong hopes to have the building down before the end of October; otherwise, it will have to wait until next year.

 “They seem to be well known in what they do; they said there’s no such requirement,” Wong said of the excavators he had lined up. “I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to argue that. That’s what they want.’” Wong said the excavators are returning the church’s deposit money.

Crosier said finding a reputable contractor with the right policy is easy, suggesting the church needs to seek out those certified for such large demolition projects.

“If they don’t want to take the building down then they can come back in and we can take a look at their special use permit,” said Crosier, noting that the demolition is expensive.

The building conceals behind it several smaller buildings that will be part of the retreat.

The 120.9-acre property has been used for Boy Scout camping and day picnics by church members since the church bought the property. It includes a gathering hall, a tabernacle used for storage, and a two-story dormitory.

Rev. Robert Johansson, the founder and headmaster of the church’s school, agrees the building is an “eyesore.”

“The building is sagging,” Johansson told The Enterprise. “It never had any heating in it because it was only used in the summer. It’s falling apart, so, therefore, the basement is washing out. So we just have to take it down and make a parking area there.”

The Fox Creek that feeds into the dam at the Berne hamlet flows through the property. It surged with tropical storms Irene and Lee in 2011, damaging one of the dormitory buildings.

A rural getaway

While the property’s oldest building will be cleared away, its planned use by the Evangel Church is similar to when it was first developed; its more recent religious owners, the United Pentacostal Church, were from the southern tip of the state, as well.

“We’ll have during the summer several weeks where our Girl Scouts go up there, our Boy Scouts go up there,” Johansson explained. “We’ll have a time when just adult families can go up there and stay for a week. We’ll have programs for youth and single adults. We’ll have, throughout the year, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday retreats going on there.”

Families from the city stayed for a vacation or the whole season during the late 19^th Century and early 20^th Century, attracted by the natural setting and to drink and bathe in its sulphur water.

A still-bubbling well near the boarding house is the only part of that history that will stay, Wong said, and could become a second water supply for the retreat.

The large building was opened by Jacob Hockstrasser Jr. in 1880 as a summer hotel, touting the healthful quality of its sulphur water, able to treat “congestion of the liver and kidneys, from gout or hemorrhoids, chronic bronchitis and rheumatism,” Willard Osterhout wrote in his Life Along the Way series of books containing images of local ephemera and photographs.

Osterhout, a longtime resident of Warners Lake, collected stories and photographs of local history for his books. In a visit to the boarding house in 2007, he wanted to document its inside before it was taken down. Walking on the floors, Osterhout felt the structure was solid, but its lath and plaster walls were deteriorated and coming apart. The basement had been filled with water for a long time, he said.

“The odor and the stench was overpowering,” said Osterhout. “Just from raccoons, pigeons —whatever wanted to live in there could.”

The church tried inviting people eager to use old wood inside the boarding house, allowing them to salvage anything as long as they took care of demolition, but it mostly offered unattractive pine, Wong said.

“One of those groups was the Amish,” he said, “…they said no, it didn’t really have that quality of wood they were looking for.”

When the property operated as a summer hotel, similar boarding houses and retreats were operating throughout the Hilltowns. The Lakeside Hotel on Thompsons Lake, Osterhout said, was larger than White Sulphur Springs, with a large generator from General Electric, but Hockstrasser’s endeavor was still large among its contemporaries, the largest near the Berne hamlet, and it was unique for its healthful claims.

In 1910, Osterhout wrote, advertising these benefits in the Bahamas brought the Hockstrassers a needed increase in their boarding, but the sinking of U-boats off of the Atlantic Coast in 1916 kept Bahamans from making the journey and the family closed the business.

The property was used in the following decades as a park for group picnics and swimming lessons in its hand-dug pool fed from the creek.

The United Pentacostal Church bought the land in 1960. The new owners left the large building unused, building the dorm building closer to the creek, a dining room, and the tabernacle.