For 30 years the building had been crumbling. The famous 1992 Dragon Inn fire nearly destroyed the once glorious 1882 Queen Ann style mansion known as Clovelea, at 134 Burt Street (Route 9W) in Saugerties. The blaze ripped through the kitchen of the restaurant and rendered the structure a derelict.
Multiple owners seeking various uses for the prime property came and went. Some were rebuffed by the town’s Historical Review Board, and citizens rallied and fretted until a proper owner with a suitable purpose could come along.
“I grew up right in Saugerties, went to Riccardi (Elementary School), and always had my eye on this place,” says Nina Schmidbaur, 34, and now the owner and driving force behind the Saugerties Therapy Center and the Clovelea Therapeutic Collective, housed in the miraculously renovated structure.“The owner after it burned did a ton of roof repair and that’s really what saves an old building. When a roof is intact it saves a lot of water leakage and damage…”
Schmidbaur, who acted as her own contractor for the project, says she “still can’t believe that it’s true,” about the facility, which opened for business in July, 2023. “There was a time when I was in college when it went up for sale for $1, through auction — it was foreclosed upon. I thought I missed my window. I may have been abroad at that time…but little did I know she was waiting for me this whole time.
“I think it takes someone who’s local, someone who has a specific vision,” she continued. “There are a lot of hoops that people went through. The previous owners, they were all more interested in creating something that makes a lot of money.”
Writing for Hudson Valley One in 2021, David Gordon filled in some of the property’s history.
“Built as a home for businessman William R. Sheffield in 1882, Clovelea was sold to another businessman about 12 years after it was built,” Gordon wrote. “In the 1950s, the building became the Stonewall Hotel. It became Anton’s Restaurant in the 1960s, according to historian Michael Sullivan Smith’s website. It later became the popular Dragon Inn Chinese Restaurant, and it flourished until a fire damaged the building in the early 1990s.”
We’re in a room to the left of the front door with abundant natural light, lots of toys, a sand table, art supplies…
“I run a group therapy practice called Saugerties Therapy Center, and underneath my license graduates who have an LMSW (licensed masters social worker) have to receive supervision for three years before they can get their clinical degree. So, for example, they are supervised by me and they work with children. They do art therapy, play therapy, music therapy, they work with couples and adults.
“This is a (room for a) therapist who works with parents in a post-partum phase; who works with children as young as 5 and under, a prime age to focus on attachment. It’s a time they might be transitioning to daycare, nursery school, school, during that time, big transitions,” Schmidbaur says. “People come in for all kinds of reasons. They might be noticing issues with bed wetting, behavioral issues, a child not managing emotions well, a new sibling might be on the way. Or there might be a big shift in the family, like a divorce or a change of who the caregiver is, there might be loss of a grandparent…”
Schmidbaur has seven licensed therapists on staff, who see patients of all ages. And there are acupuncturists on staff, who occupy a suite with separate workrooms for each.
“This is a team of two acupuncturists who are also married, they met in acupuncture school. They are a wonderful addition to Clovelea. The have different specialties. So Rory (Crouse) works only with adults on all of the chronic pain and ailments that one would traditionally think of when you want to go to acupuncture.”
We shift over to the second workspace. “This is Megan (Crouse’s) room, it’s got a slightly different touch because she works primarily with women — her specialty is in women’s health. One of the specific things people come to her for is fertility. Acupuncture is one of the most effective methods in terms of helping someone to get pregnant.”
Schmidbaur sees patients, young and old, herself.
“I worked with children for 15 years in Ulster County specifically. I started in college working in the homeless center that’s part of Family of Woodstock in Kingston. Then I worked for UNICEF doing anti-trafficking work, thinking that I would come from a more macro perspective. And then I worked at a homeless shelter in India and then several different school districts including George Washington (in Kingston) which at the time was a public Montessori school, before (I went) into private practice.
“It’s much more challenging to work with children, not only because you have to use a very different set of skills but you often have to interface with so many more people — you’re talking to a parent or caregiver, you’re talking to the school district. There might be occupational therapy or speech therapy. You’re navigating with a lot of different care givers outside of the session time. I love working with children because it’s so creative, so fun.”
The Therapeutic Collective conducts weekend workshops related to therapy, acupuncture and wellness by practitioners who are “typically of professions where you wouldn’t have an office. But they’re the ones who do the workshops for groups on the weekends — think yoga, doula, lactation consultant, massage, art therapist, other forms of wellness that support health, that are not acupuncturists or therapists.
“In the collective, we are all women and we are all mothers. So every single person is specifically motivated to create wellness events for mothers and for parents, that this can be a space where people don’t have to be isolated in parenthood…they can have a one-stop shop for lactation support, post partum doula, therapy, processing the birth trauma, all of these things all in one centralized location. Parents get so overwhelmed as it is, transitioning to this new phase of life, we thought it would be important for there to be one place they can go every weekend where there’s a consistent group happening that’s supporting them. And they can bring their child to the group.”
Schmidbaur shows off the wide carefully yet freely designed lobby, obviously used as a waiting room. But it’s also the place where the Clovelea Therapeutic Collective weekend workshops take place.
“Here we have what we call the Liminal Space, designed by Hinterland, a collective of female-identifying designers and makers in the Hudson Valley. They created absolute magic in this space — a waiting room that is whimsical, enlivening, calming, and beautiful. You can see the books for children and the little table.” She points to a custom tea hutch, crafted by Hinterland furniture maker, Alison Zavracky. “You can see some features, like the clove that’s a signature of the Clovelea window. We have the stained-glass leaded windows, hand made by Brenna Chase, a stained glass artist of Hinterland and a signature of that time period.
Hinterland member Brenna Chase did research in the Ulster County archives and felt that these would have been the windows on the third floor, that there would have been a few panels of leaded glass.” She points to an original mantel, now painted magenta; to a set of eight chairs, painted the same magenta, both painted by designer Jennifer Salvemini. “This was a set of outdoor furniture, white at the time, had a hideous print, but I was assured by Hinterland designer Jennifer Salvemini that it would be a soothing color…this chandelier I got off Craig’s list, someone who had taken it home from New York City, and it was laying around for about 20 years or so before they decided to sell it…they decided it would look better in a place with taller ceilings. People think it was originally here, it seems to be in that style.
She points to an original mantel, now painted magenta; to a set of eight chairs, painted the same magenta.
“This was a set of outdoor furniture, white at the time, had a hideous print, but I was assured it would be a soothing color…this chandelier I got off Craig’s list, someone who had taken it home from New York City, and it was laying around for about 20 years or so before they decided to sell it…they decided it would look better in a place with taller ceilings. People think it was originally here, it seems to be in that style.
Schmidbaur was asked if the walls were newly constructed.
“Absolutely. I would not have remembered what the Dragon Inn looked like on the inside, because of my age when it burned down, I would have been four. But when I bought it, it was in an entire state of ruin, there were absolutely no walls. A lot of the fireplaces were closed up so you weren’t exactly sure where they were, what conditions they were in, particularly in that room (she points to her own office which also doubles as a therapy setting) I didn’t even know there was a fireplace…so the floors are new, the walls are new, plumbing, electric, all of it.
“A lot of these buildings would have had no insulation whatsoever and the heating costs would be enormous and it would be hard to keep them warm because a lot of these rooms are quite large…Whitewashed brick was used to create a feeling of openness.Each room has a fireplace that was specifically designed so you can see the fireplace from the door.All of the fireplaces needed to have some level of brick repointing to be done, but this one has a cement wash over it, went through iterations of color to match some semblance of the original brick.”
There’s more to the building, up and down.
“(Upstairs) is not yet finished. Hopefully it will be at some point. I have a lot of other plans.
“There’s a huge basement, it’s storage, it’s empty. I’ve gotten a lot of offers of what to do with the basement, but I don’t have any plans. But people are really eager to see more of the structure being used. I’ve been approached by a lot of artists who would be interested in having studios , or people who want more office space, want me to expand in one direction or another…so we’ll see. This portion took a lot.
“The parking lot has to be up to code and has to have the appropriate amount of spaces. You can see I’m still working on the sign, which has to get approved by multiple entities.
“The red tape took nearly a year, so it was a long time before I was able to start the renovation, then the renovation took about the same amount of time as the red tape.
“Things had to be modernized, here we’re looking at the handicapped accessible ramp which is a very specific code…I wanted to make sure it didn’t take away from the character of the building. So I think this ramp is the most beautiful subtle ramp one could have and still be accessible to everyone.
“There are all these ways you have to modernize a structure from a time when you didn’t have to plan for that. You have this old ceiling, you feel like you’re being transported back to 1882, and on the other hand it has all the modern features…”
For more information, see www.clovelea.com.
Email Nina Schmidbaur at Clovelea1882@gmail.com.
The next Collective workshop will be a Mother’s Day event on May 18. For more information on it, see www.clovelea.com/events. You can also sign up for a newsletter to be informed about upcoming workshops and groups.
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