Treman Center: The New Venue in Town
By Peggy Haine
Artist/stonemason Kevin Reilly fell in love with a derelict 19th century three-story threshing barn that straddled a stream, had a broken ridge line and could just barely hold itself up. But it called out to him from its spot on Newfield’s Decker Pond, speaking of its decades of useful agricultural life and practical construction.
So Reilly bought it and took it apart, numbering boards as he went. Loading the post-and-beam, mortise-and-tenon skeleton onto three flatbed trucks, he hauled it back to his property on the edge of Robert H. Treman State Park. There he built a beefy stone foundation for it, and with the help of dozens of local craftsmen (carpenters, electricians, roofers, iron artists, barn restoration experts) put the monumental puzzle back together again. With green-friendly design in mind, Reilly embraced high-technology electric work, radiant floor heat, air conditioning and tight construction practices.
While Reilly and his wife and partner, Leslie Carrère, first thought to make the restored barn their home, they say its majestic 6,000-square-foot size and pleasing proportions called for a higher use. The Treman Center was born of a desire to provide an inspiring home for gatherings of all sorts, and support for community interaction and participation.
Carrère, the center’s factotum, problem solver-in-chief, returner of phone calls and general magician-in-residence had the community vision. She also had the eye for interior décor and for many of the building’s design elements, including four hip bathrooms and a lush and sprawling collection of living greenery. Her genius for working with clients to bring their own ideas to fruition brought early and continuing success to the three-year-old center. While the structure itself is astonishing, to its creators the focus is on “simplicity, elegance and whimsy”—and community.
Leading up to this venture, Carrère’s accomplishments included captaining trans-Atlantic ocean crossings, being a dolphin trainer, teaching art in Italy, heading the design firm LunaMedia and founding the not-for-profit Restore the Earth Foundation, which has reforested thousands of acres of Louisiana and Mississippi post-Katrina coastline, among other accomplishments. Reilly is an award-winning stone artist known for his high-end homes, fountains, pools, entryways, grand fireplaces and courtyards. The pair know how to get things done.
A barn of that size could have been creaky, dark and dismal, but the owners chose light-loving walls of windows on the first and second floors, and painted interior walls and original hand-hewn beams white. The view takes in a Tuscan-inspired stone patio and reflecting pool surrounded by 12-foot-high stone walls pierced with small round windows, and by low seating walls. The patio’s large slate pavers, lovingly collected piece by piece over Reilly’s stonemason career, are punctuated by mammoth pots of elephant ear plants during summer. Indoors, gargantuan 200-year-old slate slabs, formerly Pennsylvania sidewalks, cover tubing for radiant-floor heating, and guests can additionally warm themselves before one of the barn’s four fireplaces. In summer, the stone floors’ natural cooling is enhanced by air conditioning.
To the uninitiated, the venue often comes as a surprise: “truly like something out of a magazine or a movie” was how one guest described it. Another found it “chic, elegant and fun,” and found its location “gorgeous […] on the edge of a field and forest close to one of the most beautiful state parks in the region, but also close to town and with easy access and plenty of parking […] special, lovely, unique.”
While wedding receptions and rehearsal dinners help keep the lights on and are, according to the center’s raft of thank-you notes, a joy to bridal couples and their families, the center continues to be a draw for all sorts of events, large and small. It has been an inspiring setting for Educate the Children’s and others’ fundraisers, a Cornell Information Science retreat, a couple of Flamenco festivals (one with artists from Spain, the other with performers from Taiwan), teaching sessions conducted by Qi Gong masters from China, a retreat for Cornell’s architecture faculty and a semester-long charette for its students, events for Cornell’s hotel and management schools, a retreat for Ithaca College’s Student Council, painting classes offered by Cornell Professor Terry Plater, and dozens of other gatherings and events. It can host up to 150 for meetings or conferences, and has many options for break-out session locations. In addition, it is handicap-accessible on both first and second floors, and has four comfortable bathrooms.
The place bursts at the seams with surprising amenities. A Steinway grand piano provides support for concerts and cocktail music. Gathering places include areas around the four indoor fireplaces, the reflecting pool, the stone fire pit, and dozens of nooks and crannies throughout the building and grounds. In summer, the lawn, enclosed by 535 feet of dry-laid stone walls and stone steps leading to Hines Road, is home to a towering beige stretch tent imported from South Africa.
In the spring, apple trees’ blossoms spread their fragrance around the grounds. And the property across the street, also owned by Reilly and Carrère, while as yet undeveloped, is home to an additional 500 feet of dry-laid stone wall and a chorus of stone columns, both round and square. In the center’s three short years in existence so much has been created, and the possibilities are endless for continuing to shape both a property and a community.
