Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Another look: How to save the Gazebo?

Board of Ed gets involved

Another look: How to save the Gazebo?
The Save the Gazebo float, shown here, was very popular in this year’s holiday Parade of Lights in Millbrook. Photo by Judith O'Hara Balfe

MILLBROOK — Ashley Lempka, Chairwoman of the FRIENDS of the Save the Gazebo group, reported on Wednesday, Dec. 8, to the Millbrook Central School District (MCSD) that the Board of Education (BOE) had gotten back to her regarding questions she had about salvaging the aging garden structure. The Millbrook Gazebo has become a galvanizing issue in the village and one that the BOE discussed at its meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 7.   

The MCSD learned it’s actually the owner of the Gazebo, which is located near Elm Drive Elementary School. Questions had arisen about whether the district owned the structure or the village of Millbrook did. But yes, MCSD is the rightful owner.

Now the question the MCSD is asking is whether it should be torn down, and if so, of if it should be replaced? Many in the community believe it has an important place in the village’s history, while others claims it’s in an eyesore and in a sorry state. It is currently closed and some think it should remain so.

The FRIENDS of  the Gazebo arose as a nonprofit group created to save the site. The 501(C)3 is trying to work with the MCSD on measures to preserve it.

Lempka had presented some questions to the district about the group obtaining a 99-year lease for the Gazebo and other was to save the structure. The question about the lease has gone unanswered. Another question also unaddressed is  from the president of the American Country House Foundation, who offered to provide surveying services for the Gazebo.

Yet another query was made about the possibility of purchasing the Gazebo and the small plot of land it sits on. Lempka said she was told that idea is not currently being considered and that any divestiture of real property would require voter authorization.

One problem was settled, however; the MCSD will provide maintenance for the Gazebo during the winter.

Asked if there would be tax write-offs for those who send in donations to repair the Gazebo, the BOE said tax deductions could be available through either direct donations to the district or through a proxy donation through a charitable organization (like the Millbrook Educational Foundation).  

The FRIENDS also asked about getting an independent assessment and their own inspection of the Gazebo. The MCSD replied any work done must comply with state building codes. 

“We will be having the Gazebo assessed along with all of our school buildings, grounds and related structures during a comprehensive architectural and engineering assessment in the coming months,” stated the MCSD. “This will ensure that the Gazebo assessment is in line with the codes under which the district is responsible to adhere to.”  

Lempka indicated it will  take time to learn what the future holds for this much-loved structure, and the FRIENDS will support along the way.

Judith O'Hara Balfe

Latest News

Millerton wine shop owner organizes charity wine tasting for local child

Millerton wine shop owner organizes charity wine tasting for local child

Millerton Wine & Spirits owner Chris Jeans has organized a charity wine tasting to benefit the family of Crew Slater, a Millerton native with congenital kidney disease. The wine tasting is set for Thursday, Oct. 29, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Pasture Kitchen on Route 44 just east of the Village of Millerton.

Illustration provided

MILLERTON — Two local business owners have joined forces to put on a charity wine tasting benefitting Millerton's Slater family.

Crew Slater, a 5-year-old Millerton native, needs a kidney transplant to survive congenital kidney disease. Millerton Wine & Spirits owner Chris Jeans and Pasture Kitchen founder Austin Cornell have organized a charity wine tasting at Pasture Kitchen on Route 44 next Thursday, Oct. 29, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Keep ReadingShow less
events

The Millerton News - October 22, 2026

The Millerton News - October 22, 2026

Download directly

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less
education
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

The Pink House AM is serving up community

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
business
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.