He may not be Superman, but Bernie Hillman can lift buildings with a hydraulic bound.
Lifting the row houses he purchased with his wife and brother and replacing their foundations has been a part of the rehabilitation that went into three 18th-century buildings in the historic section of the town of Montgomery. The trio sat empty for nearly 30 years, until Hillman and his brother, both ironworkers, along with Stacey, Bernie”™s wife, decided to go into the rehabilitation business. Â Â Â
Reuse and recycle have been the earmarks of the “This Old House” type of reconstruction renaissance the family has engaged in. Much of the wood adorning Brian Hillman”™s new Iron Horse café came from walls and flooring removed during the two-year transformation. Although he”™s only been open since January, Brian Hillman”™s comfortable café serves Starbucks and has a steady stream of customers.
“Yes, Montgomery has reached Starbucks status,” says Bernie Hillman, who also lives in the same building. He refurbished the second and third stories of the row house into an apartment. “It”™s truly a live-work space for me.” Hillman stressed that saving as much existing flooring and woodwork as possible to maintain the historic integrity is at the top of the list.
Stacey Hillman worked several years for Olsten”™s, an employment placement service. When her former company was bought out by Addeco, she started her own staffing business. It just wasn”™t providing that “good feeling you need to have about what you are doing every day,” she said. Now, rather than cook up leads for clients and soliciting business, she bakes up delicious artisan breads and cookies located in another of the renovated buildings.
“This building is strictly set up for offices,” says Hillman, touring her new Downtown Breads and Bake Shop ( HYPERLINK “http://www.downtownbreads.com” www.downtownbreads.com) on the first floor of the second of the three row houses. Her new store keeps her busy six days a week, in addition to managing the accounting for their business. Offering Carousel Cakes from Nanuet, Hillman says the bake shop is well-accepted and the career change has been a definite plus in her life. “I have more time with my family ”“ that”™s been the biggest plus of all,” says the mother of two.
Switching career gears had other benefits for her: “I was paying close to $50,000 in workers”™ compensation every year as a small-business owner in the employment business. It just got to the point where it became so overwhelming, in addition to all the other taxes a business owner pays ”“ burden, not a blessing. The costs the small-business owner is forced to pay are nothing short of ridiculous,” she says. While owning a bake shop has its unique set of challenges, dealing with mounds of taxes and red tape is not one of them.
Now, the husband and wife team, brother Brian, along their friends and family in the construction trades, are getting ready to tackle the last of the three row houses. “It is in the best shape of all,” Stacey Hillman says, touring the soon-to-be work-live space the group is planning to renovate, adding, “We have put our hearts and souls into the renovations (not to mention close to $250,000) and have kept them historically correct. Most of this project has been done in our ”˜spare”™ time.”
For Hillman”™s husband and brother, their ironworking skills have come in handy when it came to lifting the buildings off their foundations and totally replacing them. Now that summer”™s here, work on the last building has slowed. It is painted yellow and has flowers, and Stacey Hillman has no doubt that when the season winds down, the brothers will be back full time renovating the last of their three buildings.
Then, the family will turn its attention to some commercial space they purchased in the back of the row houses, where they hope to entice both a fish market and butcher to open shop. Says Stacey: “Those are the kinds of businesses we sorely miss here in local villages. They were a small-town mainstay and I am sure would be welcomed by people who like to do their marketing directly with a person who is in the business. We”™ve lost that connectivity because of the superstores, but people miss it and they do support their local merchants here. We are very excited to be part of the re-birth of downtown Montgomery.”
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