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Elm Drive Elementary School in Millbrook.
MILLBROOK — The Central School District Board meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 17, in the wake of voters’ rejection of the three-phase major capital plan at the Nov. 19 referendum brought discussion of how to interpret the defeat.
Board members offered opinions on a wide range of factors which might have led to the vote result. Also discussed without resolution were potential next steps to resurrect portions of the capital plan. Particular focus was on the most serious of the roof leak problem areas.
Following a lengthy discussion, board members agreed to decide on a way forward at the next meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 7, when decisions will be made about reducing the project scope to enable critically needed roof repair, along with cost estimates.
Early in the discussion, a reduction in project scope seemed warranted, so roof repairs to Elm Drive School could proceed and the Middle School could receive roof repairs and installation of a lift for ADA-compliance, but perhaps not the originally planned elevators for access to all levels of the Middle School.
Representatives of BBS Architects offered advice during the discussion. For more information on the architects’ project planning, go to www.millbrookcsd.org.
Wide-ranging board discussion recognized residents’ reluctance to pay for the repairs. Others felt officials and project proponents were not effective in explaining the project to the public and there were not enough people who came out to vote in the referendum.
How to get to a ‘Yes’ vote was a focus of the discussion. The total number of voters at the special referendum numbered only slightly more than 500. One board members felt that 3,000 voters should have turned out to vote.
Board members spoke of previous boards deferring maintenance from term to term, bringing the schools to the current emergency where rainwater can be heard within the walls of Elm Drive School and rainwater spurts directly into the Middle School. Damage to the floors is evident.
Architect Joseph Rettig said it would be essential to retain plans for a lift in the Middle School to allow for access where none exists from the lower corridor to the auditorium. The elevators which would have provided more convenient access to other levels could be eliminated, he said.
“We will do anything we can to ensure continuity of the Middle School programs, but the buildings will decide for us,” one official said.
Rettig noted that a flat roof does shed water as a flat roof does have a gentle pitch to channel runoff water.
“But the Middle School roof is very old,” Rettig said.
Most board members agreed that the community must be better informed of the need for maintenance work.
If the project is reduced in scope, the needed repairs will be deferred further. In a few years, the demonstrated needs will be more severe, and more expensive to correct, starting with a redo of the design plans.
Rettig pointed out that if the Middle School roof is replaced, and then in a few years, the HVAC work is approved, then the new roof would need to be cut into to do the installation of the new equipment. He said that cutting into a new roof invites damage to the roof, recommending instead that roof and HVAC occur at the same time.
The school district board has until the first week in February to choose a direction.
Leap year 2024 was another good year to buy and sell real estate in the North East corner of Dutchess County despite political turmoil and high interest rates; however, recorded results for the year in these four rural towns are distinctly different from one another. The markets of these four small towns — North East, Amenia, Washington and Pine Plains — all saw median prices for single family homes rise compared to last year with the biggest increase of 39% to $487,500 in the Town of North East and the smallest increase of 1.8% to $353,750 in Pine Plains. Both North East and Washington closed the year above the Dutchess County median price of $430,000. A closer look at real estate transfers over the last twelve months, including commercial and land as well as residential housing, reveals the unique dynamics of each town.
Pine Plains
With 46 recorded transfers of property, rural Pine Plains is the least active and least expensive market in our readership area with only 46 public and private transactions, fewer than four a month, totaling $18.4 million. Residential sales accounted for 78% of the activity with only two houses selling for over one million dollars. The largest land sale was 174 acres at Pulvers Corners to Carson Power for a solar farm for $1.8 million. The project received approval from the Pine Plains Planning Board at the end of 2023 and beat back a legal challenge over the summer. The most talked about commercial sale was the former Lia’s Mountain House at 7685 Route 82 for $625,000 which is being transformed into an events venue and catering operation. The property was the most expensive of the four commercial properties sold in the town during the year.
North East and Village of Millerton
North East and the Village of Millerton recorded 62 transactions totaling $34.8 million, almost double that of Pine Plains. Similarly, it had more than double the number of properties selling for over a million dollars. The most expensive was $4.05 million for 1081 Route 83, an architect designed estate with “heart stopping views” on 126.99 acres. The highest sale of a home in the Village of Millerton set a record to date of $670,000 on 38 Simmons St. There were two commercial properties sold in the town during the year. Bank of Millbrook bought the former Elizabeth’s Jewelry store on Route 44 for $890,000 and MadRose gallery purchased 5 Main St. for $469,000. Land sales were limited to six building lots ranging in price from $62,500 to 18 acres on Mountain Farm Road for $365,000.
Amenia
The Town of Amenia has two separate real estate markets, public and private — Silo Ridge and everyplace else in town. Sales at gated community Silo Ridge of both lots and condos/villas accounted for $52.5 million or 67% of Amenia’s total dollar volume recorded transfers this year. Without Silo Ridge sales Amenia’s transaction volume in 2024 would be only $26.4 million — less than 75% of North East’s sales. One Key Multiple Listing Service reports that the Amenia median home price in 2024 without Silo Ridge was $351,000 – less than the $487,000 in North East, and $353,800 in Pine Plains. Outside Silo Ridge’s stone walls Amenia has many affordable neighborhoods as well as elegant estates like 22 Smithfield Road which sold for $3.7 million or 173 Kennel Road with 107 acres which sold for $3.9 million — the only two transfers in Amenia outside of Silo Ridge this year for over a million dollars. Resales at Silo Ridge are now beginning to happen with over 50% returns on the owners’ original investment. There were four transfers of commercial properties including the most expensive — Seravan Restaurant, now Panacea — which sold for $800,000. Sales of vacant land accounted for 15 of the 69 transfers including a total of $16.1 million for seven lots sold at Silo Ridge and eight town properties sold ranging in price from $45,000 for 3.7 acres to 32 acres for $500,000 on Cascade Mountain Road.
Washington
The Town of Washington and Village of Millbrook, collectively known as Millbrook — the Hamptons of Dutchess County — is by far the most active real estate market of the four with total sales of $106 million in 2024. Of the 72 transfers, 15 were over a million dollars, including three estates over $5 million and the median price for the year was $609,000, a 26% increase over 2023. Migdale Castle, built by John D. Rockefeller’s only daughter and renovated by the art-dealing, horse-racing Wildensteins for a rumored $20 million was sold at auction by Sotheby’s for $10.8 million. But Migdale was not the most expensive property. That honor went to an estate at 123 Fraleigh Hill Road with 145 acres, an 8,264 square foot house with six bathrooms, six fireplaces, an equestrian facility, swimming pool and sporting clay range for $12.45 million. Meanwhile three even pricier properties remain on the market at $18 million, $28 million and the Hitchcock estate with 2,078 acres for $65 million. Despite the sales of stunning houses on large parcels of land, approximately 30% of sales — especially on the village’s smaller lots — closed at less than $500,000 in 2024.
*This analysis is based on real estate transfers recorded between Dec. 1, 2023, and Nov. 30, 2024, sourced from Dutchess County Real Property Tax Service Agency. Only transfers with consideration are included. Median residential sales results are from One Key MLS. Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Advisor with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
MILLERTON — Katie Cariello, the school-to-work coordinator at the North East Community Center, has moved into a new role as the Town of North East’s Planning Board Secretary.
“I’ve really taken to the North East area,” Cariello said. “I enjoy frequenting the libraries, shops, restaurants, and supporting local farmers and makers. I realized there was a space I hadn’t frequented yet, and that was our local government.”
The part-time position requires Cariello to attend two Planning Board meetings a month and to write the minutes for those meetings.
“When I saw the secretary position, I knew I wanted to throw my hat into the ring,” Cariello said. “I am excited to serve the board in taking notes and providing an accurate account of meetings. I’ve attended a couple of Town meetings as well as the latest Planning Board meeting and am looking forward to taking on the role. ”
Cariello has been working at the North East Community Center for over two years as their school-to-work coordinator. After being offered this position, Cariello and her husband moved to Amenia in 2022, and then purchased their first home in the village of Millerton in 2023.
“As a newer member to the community, I want to be present and be a part of the local fabric,” Cariello said.
MILLBROOK — The village anticipates welcoming former Trustee Peter Doro to the position of Village Mayor in January following his election in November, along with two new Trustees. The exercise of reflecting on the past year shows accomplishments and progress on some major projects.
Millbrook’s youngsters did their part. The annual observance of Arbor Day in late April saw students enrolled in Grades K-2 at Elm Drive Elementary School helping with the planting of an elm tree in honor of their school.
In May, work began on the Stanford Road bridge over the east branch of Wappinger Creek, replacing the old structure with a new wider bridge. Stanford Road remained closed to traffic for the summer months.
On June 1, the village welcomed a new Chief of Police. Keith Dworkin.
For the first time since 2015, the Millbrook Library sought and received voter approval of a November ballot proposition to increase library funding within the town’s annual budget, only the third such funding request in the library’s history. Voters approved an increase of $165,000 to a new total of $349,000 for library support.
Following two public information sessions in October and November and mailings to each household, a mid-November special referendum on the school district’s capital plan saw defeat of all three proposed construction elements.
Three years in the planning, the project would remediate actively leaking roofs at two schools, the more severe problem found at the Middle School. The capital projects would install lifts for ADA-required access and allow for air quality monitoring and improvement within all schools in the district.
Because the plan includes critically needed maintenance work and repairs to areas with water damage, the district will continue the discussion into 2025 on a revised plan which voters can support.
Two major construction projects were a focus throughout the year. In late August, a contract was awarded by the Board of Trustees to replace storm drains on Washington Avenue. The work was completed before the end of the year.
A project to upgrade the village wastewater treatment plant received advice from the town’s bond counsel on how to amend the original 2022 resolution to reflect higher project costs of about $10 million.
A December report given at a Trustees meeting, presented by a representative of the engineering firm of Tighe and Bond, reviewed the status of required studies and early steps toward completing grant applications. The coming year will see continued progress.
