2025 Preservation Award Recipients
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Each fall, The Landmark Society presents awards to projects, people, and organizations who, through their dedication and hard work, have contributed to historic preservation in our nine-county area. The 2025 Preservation Awards were announced at a ceremony on November 16th. A list of recipients is listed below.
For more information, consider becoming a member to receive our quarterly magazine. Our 2025 winter issue features this year’s award winners.
Award of Merit
This award is given for the sympathetic rehabilitation of historic buildings in our region completed within the past two years.
Flower City Apartments
1616-1624 N. Clinton Avenue, 699 E. Main Street, & 899 Culver Road, City of Rochester, Monroe County
During the stresses of the pandemic, Home Leasing undertook the rehabilitation of four historic apartment buildings at three different sites within the city of Rochester to create 149 affordable housing units for households earning up to 60% of the Median Area Income. 56 of these units have on-site support services available, made possible by Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative Awards to Person Centered Housing Options and Spiritus Christi Prison Outreach. Those services include behavioral health supports, life skills training, and educational assistance to provide support to people struggling with homelessness and substance abuse.
The rehabilitation included significant repairs to severely distressed and unsafe apartments and modernization of all buildings, including the installation of new boilers, roofs, appliances, low-flow plumbing fixtures, LED lighting, new windows, and energy recovery ventilation units. At the same time, the character-defining features like cast-stone exterior decoration and intricate decorative plasterwork in the interior common spaces were retained. The project’s scope of work also included asbestos abatement, mechanical and electrical upgrades, and the installation of security system and improvements to kitchens, baths and flooring, representing a significant investment to prepare the historic buildings for the next century.
The bold investment in the rehabilitation of Flower City Apartments repurposes properties into modern, comfortable places to live for nearly 150 households, maintaining affordability, contributing to the vibrancy of Rochester, and proving that preservation is an important means to many of our community’s aspirations.
The Rockford and The Marblery
30 W. Broad Street & 216-222 South Avenue, City of Rochester, Monroe County
43 North Real Estate, a development firm, and Bace Build, their allied construction management, general contracting and building firm, have significantly advanced downtown Rochester’s revitalization with two highly-visible adaptive reuse projects in the last few years.
When the team acquired the 1873 property at 30 W. Broad Street with the assistance of The Landmark Society in 2019, nothing about the condition of the structure designed by leading nineteenth century Rochester architect A. J. Warner hinted at its century serving as Rochester’s City Hall. “The windows were rotting, the masonry was crumbling, the HVAC wasn’t working properly and the roof had never been replaced,” Joel Barrett, a leading partner in both firms, told reporters. “And you can’t patch a 150-year-old roof.”
Working tirelessly through the pandemic, this team adapted the 60,000 square foot building into 30 residential units and 12 to 15 commercial spaces, opening in 2023, one hundred fifty years after the building was originally constructed. The work of architects at 9×30 Design and historic architecture firm Bero Architecture, as well as the interior design work of Veolette Design, retained and capitalized on the building’s expansive ceilings, real wood and marble floors, brick barrel vault ceilings, and ornamental plaster. A new roof, along with structural steel enhancements, ensure that this investment in Rochester’s historic built environment will grace downtown’s streets for another century and a half to come.
Around the same time and just across the river downtown, this same team acquired 216-222 South Avenue – a 7,500 square foot, three-story brick building constructed in the 1860s by Hebard Marble Works and later the long-time home of the V.H. Lang Trophy Company. Getting the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places unlocked historic tax credits that made it possible to rehabilitate the deteriorating, old trophy-laden structure into four apartments, as well as office space for 43 North and Bace Build themselves. The building’s cast iron storefront, previously entombed in wood sheathing, was re-exposed and restored, and the retail spaces were restored to their original configuration. Restoration of the existing historic windows was completed in-house by Bace Build as had been done at The Rockford. An electrification grant allowed the conversion of the building to all-electric heating and high-efficiency heating and cooling, and a new stairwell was added to the building, updating the structure and ensuring that the building’s distinctive Hebard marble lintels will continue to watch over and enhance Rochester’s continuing transformation into the future.
Stewardship Awards
These awards recognize organizations that have demonstrated care and commitment to the preservation of an architecturally and/or historically significant public property over a period of years.
Port Gibson United Methodist Church
2951 Greig Street, Town of Manchester, Ontario County
Ask a resident of the small canal-side hamlet of Port Gibson where their history lives, and there is a good chance they will point you toward this, the community’s lone historic church building. Built in 1871 in a rich Romanesque Revival style that contrasts with adjacent modest residences, the superb preservation of the church’s external beauty, stained-glass windows, and intact interior are no accident, but the work of a small congregation and community allies committed to the maintenance of this place-making structure.
Recent projects have included repointing of the foundation, along with the installation of a French drain to preserve the building at its foot and repair of rotted and damaged wood in the roof and steeple at the structure’s top. Selective replacement of brick where unsympathetic repairs were previously done have improved the façade of the church, while a new railing and ramp adapt the church to evolving demands. Ornate wood finishes and a unique layout are well-maintained in the interior. The tireless work continues with window restoration in the ca. 1930 rear addition. Because of its supporters’ dedicated work, the church remains as a stunning and important visual reminder of the community’s long history and identity on the Erie Canal, and an important community gathering place.
Adams Basin United Methodist Church
4296 Canal Road, Town of Ogden, Monroe County
The 1891 structure designed in Queen Anne exuberance by Kendall-born architect Addison Forbes for the Methodist congregation founded in Adams Basin in 1828 serves to define the identity of this small canal-side hamlet; the exquisite preservation of all its details is thanks to the devoted work of a small congregation and community allies.
The original memorial stained-glass windows, among the building’s most arresting features, were repaired two at a time by Pike Stained-Glass Studio in Rochester over about a decade in the early 2000s. A new roof protects the largely intact interior layout which is enhanced by sympathetic modern conveniences like track lights, Scout- installed ramps and handicap bathrooms, and refinished hardwood floors and new carpeting. Repairs to a drainage pipe have eliminated the basement flooding that once threatened the integrity of the structure. Recent repairs to the steeple and ongoing efforts to address leakage and water damage testify to the tireless attention the small congregation and community allies take in preserving this landmark at both the physical and civic center of the hamlet.
Small Business Award
The Small Business Award recognizes small businesses that occupy historic commercial buildings and have demonstrated their commitment to preservation via care, repair, and/or long-term operation at these sites.
Park Theater
71 Genesee Street, Village of Avon, Livingston County
Avon’s Park Theater opened in 1938, with a parade feting the community gathering place with seats alleged to be larger and more comfortable than any in Rochester, as well as one of the area’s first theater air-conditioning systems. The theater remained a civic center in the rural community through the twentieth century, with movie projectors running until 2003, when multiplexes increasingly lured customers from such local gathering places. The property sat underutilized for many years in the early twenty-first century, even temporarily serving as a garage after the vintage seats were removed, until it was purchased in 2018 by village resident Ann Younger. Recognizing the need for a local gathering place, Younger pursued and received funding through Livingston County Economic Development Corporation’s Dream-o-vate program, as well as NY Main Street and Restore New York Communities Initiative grants, to rehabilitate the theater and expand its function as a cultural center for the rural region.
Partnering with architect Elise Johnson-Schmidt and veteran-owned contracting business Loyal 9, a new roof, HVAC system, and stage, along with reupholstered seating, reinvigorated the space. Solar panels added to the roof satisfy some of the building’s energy needs without compromising the Art Deco style communicated by, among other things, the original neon signage, found in the basement and restored by Clinton Signs. The original concrete fireproof projection booth was also retained. In 2022, with more than $800,000 invested in this highly-visible property along Avon’s main commercial corridor, the theater reopened and is again a local gathering place, a destination for the best in Rochester area music, classic and independent movies, as well as a private party and event space.
Jamestown Skate Products
207-209 Pine Street, City of Jamestown, Chautauqua County
A history of wide-ranging uses – as a garage, a bowling alley, a bakery, and a dance hall – left this 1916 downtown Jamestown property riddled with alterations that increasingly obscured its historic character. This changed when Pete Scheira purchased the property in 2010 and subsequently restored the storefronts to their original appearance, moving his own Jamestown Skate Products into one of the retail spaces. By building a two indoor skateparks within the building (one of which doubles as an event space), manufacturing skateboards, establishing a seasonal ice-cream shop in the garage entry, and attracting a sustainable living store to the other storefront while living in an upstairs apartment, Scheira and his business have built a self-described “ecosystem” that testifies to the sustainability inherent in preservation and leverages the historic to give a push of skater’s momentum to the new. The building, and the cause of preservation in its downtown Jamestown neighborhood – much of which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015 – benefit from the Jamestown Skate Products stewardship of this linchpin property.
The Sutton Company
120 South Main Street, Village of Naples, Ontario County
The Sutton Company has been making and selling fishing & outdoor gear with a vintage flair from their c.1865 timber-frame commercial building in downtown Naples since 1944, when Jack Stafford leased the building, purchasing it in 1947. The company’s long tenure in the building has ensured it has received the attention necessary to maintain such a historic structure, including its beautifully preserved pressed tin ceiling installed c.1898; in turn, the company’s long stewardship has helped preserve the quaint sense of place that draws so many people and dollars to Naples and its small commercial district, a testament to the power of preservation as economic development. Under the ownership of Jack’s granddaughter Dierdre Stafford Stevenson with help from Debra Miles, the company continues its thoughtful stewardship of this linchpin structure, currently developing plans for structural rehabilitation of the back addition’s foundation and lower level so that the property will remain an anchor in this rural community.
Historic Home Award
This award is given to owners of private residences for their continued care of and commitment to the preservation of an architecturally significant house over a minimum of seven years.
Jim Whalen and Philip Wagner
1422 Highland Avenue, City of Rochester, Monroe County
When Whalen and Wagner purchased their 1911 house designed by noted Rochester architect Claude Bragdon more than two decades ago, much of its historic charm was obscured. Ivy encrusted the stucco specially formulated by Bragdon, and inside, the house had been divided into three apartments, obfuscating the structure’s original function and character. From this base began a committed home rehabilitation that has graced one of Rochester’s busiest streets with a unique home and exemplified the power of committed preservation on an individual level. Once they painstakingly extricated the house from the ivy and removed apartment divisions to restore the house’s original layout to that shown in the blueprints they had in hand, their attention turned to restoring the house’s details. They retained the original pantry furniture, mother-of-pearl light switches, tub, storm windows, radiators, and pocket doors. Where new materials were used or new elements installed, Whalen and Wagner relied on skilled craftspeople who created work sympathetic to the house’s historic design, including hiring a glass specialist for new cabinetry, ordering hand-painted wallpaper, and re-chroming original fixtures. A quatrefoil design found in some original elements of the house has, at the request of Whalen and Wagner, been incorporated into much of this new work. Moreover, their meticulously cultivated garden enhances the beauty of the house. With 60 windows to wash, maintaining the house is not easy work, but in doing so, Whalen and Wagner have set an example for historically-sensitive homeownership that enriches our shared landscape.
Special Commendations
The Special Commendation recognizes projects that do not fit into other categories and/or outstanding individual or group accomplishments in the field of historic preservations.
Scott Sidler and Stacey Grinsfelder
Co-authors of The Case for Historic Windows
Anyone with even a casual acquaintance with the field knows that switching out historic windows with modern replacements is anathema to preservationists. Still, it can often be hard for practitioners to justify this aversion to a cost-conscious public beyond normative arguments rooted in aesthetics and references to disparate scraps of evidence for historic windows’ cost-effectiveness.
With the publication of their book The Case for Historic Windows: The Truth about Energy Efficiency and Old Windows this year, Scott Sidler and Stacey Grinsfelder have made the preservationists’ case immensely easier to defend, and are sure to enlist many former skeptics to the cause. Here in one place, Sidler and Grinsfelder, leveraging their immense experience as restoration practitioners, educators, and popularizers, compile the evidence from scientific studies, industry testing, and real-world experience that properly restored historic windows save money and boost home values, all while preserving historic structures’ timeless charm to boot. For providing this information in one place, in a way that is easy for any property owner to digest and act on, these co-authors’ work significantly and uniquely advances the cause and appeal of preservation across a wide audience.
Morgan-Manning House / Western Monroe Historical Society
151 Main Street, Village of Brockport, Monroe County
This stately 1854 Italianate mansion was the home of the family of Dayton Samuel Morgan, an early manufacturer of mechanized reapers. It remained in the family until a 1964 fire at the property took the life of Sara Manning, a 96-year-old widow who was the last of the seven Morgan children. Volunteers restoring the home after the fire organized themselves as the Western Monroe Historical Society in 1965, and in painstakingly maintaining the highly-visible property on the village’s Main Street as a house museum and community gathering space for the area’s residents to commune with their shared identity and history, the organization has demonstrated the power of preservation in place-making for over sixty years.
In January 2025, fire again struck the building, drawing fire companies from across the region and causing significant damage. It would have been easy for an organization to be crippled by such a blow to its greatest asset, but having been forged in the 1964 fire, the historical society lost no time this year stabilizing the building, securing funding, reconstructing the collapsed portions of the structure under the guidance of Bero Architecture and Jensen/BRV Engineering, and planning for a comprehensive restoration, a profound expression of faith in the importance and power of preservation in making our shared spaces special.
Clock of Nations Restoration and Reintroduction
Tower280, 280 E. Broad Street, City of Rochester, Monroe County
The Clock of Nations – the 28-foot-tall animated timepiece designed by sculptor Dale Clark that served as the centerpiece of Rochester’s groundbreaking 1962 Midtown Plaza – was once so associated with the city’s civic identity that it was showcased in the opening seconds of a 1960s video promoting the area. When the Plaza around it floundered and was ultimately razed in 2010, the clock was moved to the airport, only to be unceremoniously warehoused in 2016 in disrepair, with uncertainty about whether it could ever be restored.
In 2024, Buckingham Properties, which had redeveloped the salvaged Midtown Tower as Tower280 over the past decade, recognized the opportunity posed by the possibility of returning the Clock to its original vicinity and formed a partnership with the Rochester-Area Community Foundation, The Landmark Society, and Monroe County to bring the Clock home. Restoration efforts began in 2024, including meticulous cosmetic and mechanical repairs, and the Clock was reinstalled at the former Midtown Tower in early 2025.
Repairing, restoring, and re-assembling the clock in its new location ensures the secure display of a piece of Rochester’s history and historic built environment for future generations. By returning this artifact to its original neighborhood, the project not only feeds nostalgia for Rochester’s past but encourages visitors to learn from historical narratives and reconnect with downtown Rochester as it exists today, a worthy end of historic preservation.
Traditional Trades Award
These awards recognize outstanding individual or group accomplishments in the field of historic preservation as related to the traditional trades.
Eric Norden, furniture restoration
Sometimes, reaping the full potential of a historic structure goes beyond the typical “brick and mortar” concerns to the furniture that makes historic spaces functional. This is the domain of Eric Norden and his business Eric Norden Restorations, described by many as the “go-to” in furniture restoration in Rochester. From his work restoring the furniture that accompanies Rochester’s Frank Lloyd Wright -designed Boynton House, to the work he did restoring an early twentieth century Rochester & Eastern trolley car for the New York State Museum of Transportation in Rush soon after moving to the area from Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s, Eric has been a vital spark animating the spaces and places redeemed by preservation in our area for more than three decades.
Jean France Special Achievement Award
This award recognizes the accomplishments of individuals over a lengthy period of time. The award was named in honor of the late Jean R. France, Landmark Society trustee, architectural historian, preservationist, community advocate, and long-time member and chair of the Preservation Awards Committee.
Don Jensen and Joe Rosenstiel of Jensen Engineering
Since founding his namesake structural engineering firm in 1977, Don Jensen, along with his long-time senior employee Joe Rosenstiel, have been key allies to local preservationists in making rehabilitation projects physically possible in the Rochester area. Indeed, the firm Don and Joe steered has uniquely built, over several decades, an expertise in structural analysis for rehabilitation and expansion of existing buildings that is sympathetic to those properties’ historic character. Recent preservation and adaptive reuse projects which bear the Jensen firm’s mark include the conversion of the historic Eastman Dental Dispensary on Main Street in Rochester (an early Landmark Society Five to Revive property) into the senior apartment complex Eastman Commons, in a manner that preserved and capitalized on the long under-utilized building’s historic layout and character. The firm’s work on the Eastman Theatre Expansion in the early 2000s and several University of Rochester River Campus renovations further exemplify their awareness of how the historic built environment can enhance and co-exist with the new. Though both Don and Joe have retired in the last decade, the firm they built, now Jensen/BRV Engineering, continues their legacy of considering the historic rhythms of the built environment in their numerous projects, both past and present, throughout our region including: the Gorsline Building and High Falls Festival Site, Free Academy Building, E.E. Boynton House, First Presbyterian Church of Pittsford, Asbury First United Methodist Church, The Little Theatre, Rundel Memorial Library, and Bents Opera House.
Paul Malo Preservation Advocacy Award
This award recognizes an individual who has been an outstanding advocate for historic preservation in their community. It was established in honor of the late Paul Malo, Syracuse University professor, architect, historian, award-winning author, and preservation advocate, whose passionate advocacy for New York’s historic resources extended over six decades.
Steve Jordan
Architectural/window restoration specialist and tradesperson-educator-advocate
Over many decades, Steve Jordan has been a tireless advocate for the resource that is the Rochester-area’s historic built environment, particularly its historic windows, and the tradespeople that maintain it. His self-reported goal of “preventing the thoughtless destruction” of old things – whether buildings or windows or skilled trades – by “bringing to light [their] enduring yet often overlooked qualities as compared to the short-term lives of modern replacements” has in turn enlightened our landscape and the lives of the people who share and maintain it. The recent publication of his The Historic House Handbook: A Sensitive Guide for Old-House Living (an update of his award-winning 1995 book Rehab Rochester: A Sensible Guide for Old-House Maintenance, Repair, and Rehabilitation) distills and generously shares the knowledge built over a continuing career caring for our shared historic landscape.
Steve grew up in rural West Tennessee, attended Memphis State University and the Cornell University Historic Preservation Program, and has now worked from Rochester for many decades. He served as a rehab advisor for The Landmark Society of Western New York and an architectural conservator for Bero Architecture, where he oversaw and worked in restorations on the George Eastman House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Boynton House in Rochester and Graycliff near Buffalo, Aquinas Institute, and the First Universalist Church. Since 2002, he has focused on repairing and restoring thousands of local windows, in ordinary homes and iconic local landmarks alike. Among his projects are the Susan B. Anthony House, The Landmark Society’s Stone-Tolan House, the Chemung County History Museum, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the Third Presbyterian Church, the Rochester Free Academy, Gates Hall in Pulteneyville, the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, and many of the properties collected at the Genesee Country Village & Museum. In recent years, he has shared his knowledge through various publications and led several workshops, many in partnership with The Landmark Society, in the skills required to maintain historic windows, ever widening the circle of people who care about and can care for our shared historic landscape.
Barber Conable Award
The Barber Conable Award, the our most prestigious award for historic preservation, recognizes a large-scale rehabilitation of a historic building in our region completed within the past two years. This award was created to honor Congressman Barber Conable of Alexander, Genesee County, whose supported the establishment of the Federal Investment Tax Credit Program for the rehabilitation of historic, income-producing buildings.
Canal Commons
67-89 Canal Street, City of Rochester, Monroe County
At its opening in the first decade of the twentieth century, the Utz & Dunn Shoe Company’s massive 168,000 square foot brick masonry plant was described as one of the most modern shoe factories in the country. With urban deindustrialization late in the century, the building became a warehouse, before falling into disuse in recent decades and appearing on The Landmark Society’s 2020 Five to Revive list.
Thanks to an extensive rehabilitation project envisioned by new property-owner East House and shepherded by MM Development Advisors, however, 67-89 Canal Street, rechristened Canal Commons, is again enlivened and serving the community’s needs. With the help of PLAN Architectural Studios and Hamilton Stern Construction, the building’s industrial spaces were converted into 123 apartment units affordable to households with incomes up to 60% of Area Median Income, including 70 units that receive supportive services through the New York State Office of Mental Health. East House provides these residents, who began to move into the building in 2024, with additional services including financial case management, education and employment counseling, peer support, life skills coaching, and social activities. Good public transportation options in the vicinity of the property are also a boon to the residents. Funding from the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance’s Housing Assistance Program, subsidies from NYS Homes and Community Renewal, and NYS Low Income Housing Tax Credits are among the funding sources that made this project possible.
Seneca Knitting Mill / National Women’s Hall of Fame
1 Canal Street, Town of Seneca Falls, Seneca County
For more than 150 years, textile workers, including many women, labored in the limestone 1844 Seneca Knitting Mill, one of the last testaments to small-scale industry in Seneca Falls and other rural communities like it in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The highly-visible canal-side property sat vacant for the past several decades, however, even as investments in nearby women’s rights landmarks increased. Now, thanks to more than a decade of committed work by the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the mill has been fittingly enlisted and enlivened to help tell the women’s rights story as the Hall’s home, enabling national and international visitors, scholars, tourists, and the community to discover and be inspired by a rich heritage centered around the stories of great American women.
While the task of rehabilitating the structure was daunting in terms of resources and time, and building a new Hall of Fame on a clear site would likely have been more cost effective, the organization recognized the power of repurposing a historic structure in the heart of Seneca Falls to tell their story, acquiring the property in 2007. Through two phases of construction buffeted by recessions and a global pandemic, local contractors stabilized the structure, stripped old paint, repointed masonry, replaced the roof, installed new windows, preserved the smokestack and the floors, and updated the electrical system to accommodate limited exhibits in the first floor Subsequent work restored the smokestack and the historic stairway, constructed a new elevator and internal stairwell, and renovated the second floor to create space for new exhibits. An addition to the mill serves as a Welcome Center and includes a visual orientation area, reception, gift store, and restrooms. The second floor has a café and a roof terrace that offers views of Seneca Falls and the Erie Canal. CJS Architects’ masterplan kept the historic stone mill as the central, iconic feature of the site, with elements added to the site serving to support the visual story told by the historic building at the complex’s heart. As funding is available, additional work will continue on the 3rd and 4th floors, and when completed, the building will host the museum’s educational programs, inductee area, research center, Mill history, special exhibits, and artifact displays.
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2025 Preservation Award Recipients
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