Manna Dew sweetens Millerton streets

MILLERTON — Manna Dew café owner Victor Trivelli explained he is donating 10 percent of the restaurant’s proceeds on Sunday, Feb. 24, to the North East Historical Society’s Dine Out for History.

“I think it’s great to have little historic villages like this still surviving and thriving,” he said. “It’s not common in other states and other parts of the country. It’s good. And the historical society does good things; so if I’m able to help, I will.”

For nearly two decades, Trivelli has done his part to help transform the “sleepy little village” of Millerton to its current status as a nostalgic hometown and a popular destination by lovingly restoring the 54 Main Street building once known as the Kisselbrack House.

In one of its many contributions to the village, in 2001 the Historical Society published “A Beckon Call to a Village — Early Millerton, NY,” containing a century-plus old reprint of a Millerton Telegram article on the business/residence built in 1890 for railroad conductor George Kisselbrack and his wife, Mary. The article stated that she was “one of the most popular and prosperous milliners and dressmakers in this section.”

It noted that the western section of the building, which Manna Dew currently occupies, originally contained her showroom, fitting room, and work room, where dresses and hats were created by a permanent staff of five. Her frequent trips to the city ensured that the fashions of the day were available to women in the area as well as customers from as far afield as Florida. 

The Main Street location was Mary’s third, as her business expanded over 15 years and moved from “the Brick Block, over Hatch’s drug store” to “Charles Cook’s building on John Street” and was well suited to the fashionable Victorian building. 

On the building’s opening, The Telegram described it as, “one of the handsomest, architecturally, in the village, and no stranger passes it without an admiring glance. The various gables and points are most admirable [sic] proportioned, and the delicate shades of colors used on the ornamentation of the exterior present a pleasing and most harmonious appearance. Panes of brilliantly colored glass here and there lend a charming effect to the general surroundings, and taken as a whole the building is a masterpiece of the modern builders’ and decorators’ art, so ably represented in this instance by Messrs. Beers & Trafford, who have won a lasting reputation beyond the limits of our town and county.”

Some 110 years later, the choice of the building for the café, which evolved from a health food café in Railroad Plaza, seemed a natural one for Hudson Valley native and lover of old houses Trivelli.

“You don’t realize until you leave this area how beautiful it is and how historic this entire New England area is compared to the rest of the country,” he said.

Part of that beauty, Trivelli said, came from the builders who were “trying to make a statement,” but he noted that over the years, many of their efforts were hidden by paint and linoleum. As a result, much of the restoration work involved doing “a lot of stripping” to bring out the “natural features as opposed to covering them up.”

He noted that the building included, “very high ceilings —obviously Victorian style — a lot of Red Oak supposedly imported from Europe — pocket doors — all the original hand-carved hardware on the doors — glass knobs — all that. We’ve kept it all original.”

The exterior of the building is still a work in progress.

“We recently restored the face of the building — tore off the aluminum siding and exposed the original clapboard on the front and the cedar shake on the top. We also refurbished the peak with the custom wainscoting that we recovered from the building,” he said. 

  Trivelli, whose commitment to Millerton’s history extends to a second Victorian house he is in the process of restoring, said the structure itself impacts Manna Dew in that, “It’s certainly classier to eat in a Victorian building as opposed to a modern building.”

The final Dine Out for History fundraisers will take place at Manna Dew, 54 Main St., Sunday, Feb. 24,  from 5 to 10 p.m. (518-789-3570); and at 52 Main, 52 Main St., Thursday, March 7, from 4 to 10 p.m. (518-789-0252). Reservations requested. 

Many thanks to the above sources and to the North East Historical Society, Ed Downey, Meg Downey, Edie Greenwood, Betsy Strauss, Sarah Ellen Rindsberg and Jeanne Vanecko of Townscape for their assistance.