A Determination of Eligibility for Willard State: One Step Toward Saving This Historic Site
The Cayuga Home on Willard’s campus is one of several buildings Katie Comeau photographed to help expand the information available to the state Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation.
On Monday, August 15, the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation (OPRHP) issued an official determination that the former Willard State Hospital complex is eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The Finger Lakes campus, which straddles the town lines of Ovid and Romulus, is one of the League’s 2022-2023 Seven to Save sites.
OPRHP’s determination confirms that the former Willard campus is eligible for State and National Register listing under criterion A, “as one of the premier examples of New York State’s leading role in the advances made in the treatment of mental illness from the middle of the nineteenth century and lasting into the twentieth.” It is also eligible under Criterion C for its architectural significance. While OPRHP staff have not yet assessed individual buildings on the campus for their contributing / noncontributing status (contributing resources retain their historic character and were built during the campus’s period of significance; noncontributing resources are more recently built or extensively altered), the official Determination of Eligibility does include information about many of the surviving buildings that best represent the site’s long and fascinating history.
A determination of eligibility is an important step for the Willard campus, because it confirms that many of the buildings can qualify for use of state and federal historic tax credits, if and when a developer is found who wishes to rehabilitate one or more of the buildings.
Hadley Hall was a lively community space when the hospital was still in operation. The 1892 building could potentially benefit from tax credits for redevelopment if and when the Willard campus is listed on the State and National Register — the determination of eligibility leads them one step closer.
I was happy to be able to assist with this process by submitting photographs of the buildings through CRIS Trekker Mobile, the state’s app that allows consultants and others who conduct historic resource surveys to gather photographs and data about historic buildings on their phones or tablets. In Willard’s case, OPRHP already had a significant amount of information about the campus, but needed updated photographs and data. Using the Trekker app, I was able to pinpoint each building’s location on a map, take photographs, and enter the building’s name and number, all on my phone; for a typical survey I might also have entered descriptive and historical information about each building.
When the institution, originally Willard Asylum for the Insane, was established in the 1860s, the bucolic site of a failed state agricultural college on the east shore of Seneca Lake was chosen with the hope that the beautiful surroundings would be a source of comfort and healing for the residents. The Willard campus includes a fascinating mix of buildings that evoke the institution’s evolution from an “asylum” to a state hospital, finally serving as the Willard Drug Treatment Center until its closure earlier this year. Buildings on the campus reflect this evolution, with the oldest dating to the 1870s and the newest built in the last few decades. Some have been vacant for years, while others were still in active use up until a few weeks or months ago.
Some of the former hospital buildings and staff residences appear well suited to house full-time residents, agricultural workers, hotel guests, or small businesses. It is not hard to imagine the former recreation building, Hadley Hall, returning to its former life as an active community hub where residents enjoyed movies and games alongside neighbors living in the surrounding towns. The site does face many challenges, but also seems full of potential, and formal confirmation of its State/National Register eligibility is a positive step.