One of Schoharie County’s most prominent buildings will add another chapter to its rich history next week.
The former Mountain View Manor Home for Adults in Middleburgh goes on the auction block at 10am on Tuesday in the lobby of the Schoharie County office building.
The main building, constructed in 1908 as another in a line of county Alms Houses for the poor, has seen better days but should bring some interest at the auction.
A large tree remains fallen on the south side of the main building and the first floor windows are boarded up.
Little is known about the condition of the inside of the building.
The former Mountain View Manor closed in June 2006 and a representative for the mortgage holders, Textron Business Credit Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island, had no comment on the building last week.
The 56.42-acre parcel, which includes the main brick building and several outbuildings (one of which still has a basketball court built while the property was used as a friary) was last purchased from Sullok Associates for $1.1 million on December 3, 2002 by BFJ Property Associates LLC of Caroga.
According to attorney Marvin Parshall Jr., the referee for the auction, the original mortgage was $1,050,000. The unpaid mortgage is $1,047,765.75. Because of interest and late charges about $1.4 million is owed on the property.
In addition to BJF Property and Bette J. Forshaw, there are other defendants listed in the legal notice printed in the Times-Journal this month.
County records show that the property is assessed for 2007 at $927,070.
Mr. Parshall said that he could not make any statements on whether there were any other liens on the property.
It appears, he said, that the last payment on the property was made around August 1, 2006.
Mr. Parshall, who was named referee in March, said it was only recently that he realized that the property was the former Mountain View Manor.
Thus far, he said, there has been no interest in the property.
“In this case, I have had zero phone calls,” he said last week.
Ms. Forshaw was one of several people arrested in the summer of 2006 as the home was being closed by the state Department of Health for a sprinkler system violation that June.
Ms. Forshaw, then 62, was charged with petty larceny for allegedly taking about $400 from the personal account of one of the occupants of the home, according to the State Police.
In the June 14, 2006 edition of the Times-Journal, the resident medical coordinator for the home said the state DOH was closing the home because of a defective fire sprinkler system.
There were 22 residents and 14 employees at the home when it was closed.
Ms. Forshaw pled guilty to charges of disorderly conduct on April 25, 2007 and was sentenced to a one year conditional discharge, plus fines and surcharges, according to a spokesperson from the county district attorney’s office.
Letters sent to Ms. Forshaw and BJF from the Times-Journal were returned unopened last year and neither party was available for comment.
Since the business closed, the zoning for the property has been changed by the Town of Middleburgh.
As part of several zoning changes approved last month, the property is now zoned as commercial.
Some of the rationale for changing the zoning on that section of Route 145 was to make it easier for the owner of the property to utilize the building.