The Landmark Society announced our 2018 Five to Revive list back in October. We have had much success in our first five lists and thought we would highlight a few of those for you.

Let’s get the sad news immediately out of the way: we lost our very first Five to Revive property—The Hotel DeMay. After a hard fought battle by the local advocacy group, Save the DeMay, with the support of The Landmark Society and the Greece Historical Society, Hotel DeMay was demolished in November of 2017. Although the building is lost, Save the DeMay has stayed involved in the planning process, working with the
new developers on design review and hopefully a display on the historic significance of the hamlet of North Greece and Hotel DeMay.

The other 2017 listing that we want to call attention to is The Front Porch. Inspired by this listing, the Village of Fairport piloted a residential Front Porch Grant program in the Deland Park neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of the Village. The neighborhood is primarily owner-occupied traditional American Foursquares. Their goal is to pilot the program in Deland Park, and then roll it out to the other areas of the Village within the next year. In the first year of the program, they approved 9 projects representing nearly $30,000 in investment, with matching grants of approximately $12,000.00. Congratulations to Fairport’s Office of Community and Economic Development for their creativity and innovation.

The 2015 list included a thematic listing of Fraternal Meeting Houses. The Grange Hall in the Town of Huron has been going great guns since that “honor” was bestowed on them. Not everyone sees it as an honor to be included on the Five to Revive but the town of Huron did! The town allocated $11,000 for building repair and combined with grants from the Rochester Area Community Foundation and the Hoffman Foundation, as well as additional donations from a local business owner and the town, they were able to restore the exterior of the building, three of the original Huron Grange chairs, and will be undertaking window restoration/repair in the spring of 2019. With encouragement from Landmark Society staff, they also hosted a community day event to bring recognition to the Grange building, called Huron Days in partnership with the Huron Presbyterian Church members. It was so successful that it has become an annual event. We are very proud of all the hard work and dedication that the Huron community has put into this important part of their history and commend them for seeing it as a vital part of its future.

Any Five to Revive update would be lacking if we didn’t acknowledge our partners in the development community. Home Leasing is one of our strongest partners. They have now taken on two monumental projects from our inaugural 2013 list. The transformation of the Eastman Dental Dispensary into Eastman Gardens is nothing short of breathtaking and we can expect the same quality as Holley High School takes shape as Holley Gardens. A huge thank you to the entire Home Leasing team.

Written by Larry Francer