Still Standing After 100 Years

In 1920, Lothar Fieg established his business, Fieg Builder, at 3 Lewis St. in Oneonta, N.Y.  He went on to build some of the most elegant residences in the city.  As this year marks the 100th anniversary of his entry into the business world, grandson Greg Fieg has put together a photo spread of some of the lovely places that remain standing today.

Still a citizen of Germany, Lothar had been fired as an "enemy alien" from his supervisory position at the Corbett and Stewart Acid Factory, which supplied components for the making of munitions during World War I.

"G" for Gardner

106 Chestnut St.

 Lothar found work with the then-booming  Delaware and Hudson Railroad in Oneonta, drawing from his similar experience as a young man with the Union Pacific in the Far West.  In 1920 he struck out on his own, building his first home, a 1,262-square foot revival Tudor-style at 106 Chestnut St.  The chimney was adorned with the letter G, for the Gardner family, owners of the former Gardner Music Store, who first lived there. 

Another neo-Tudor at 148 East St. was at one time owned by the head of the journalism department at the State University of New York in Oneonta.  It is a 2,180-square foot quaint and cozy home in an fairly affluent part of town.  Lothar built it at the height of the Depression in 1932.

148 East Street

 Because much of the economy was crippled, woodwork such as sashes, wood frames, windows and other pieces were very hard to come by, and the builder had to make do with odds and ends as he could find them.  A self-taught architect, he made the components of the house come together like a jigsaw puzzle.  It recently listed in excess of $200,000.

It's not difficult to imagine that once word got around about Lothar's old-world craftsmanship that he became much in demand by discriminating individuals with deep pockets.  Thus, he was contracted to build the elaborate six-bedroom, 5,200-square foot Thornwood mansion for Edwin W. Elmore, the founder of Elmore's Milling. Thornwood is now the residence of the president of Hartwick College.  

Thornwood

In an affirmation of the laudatory recognition that Lothar had achieved, one of his final homes was the relatively palatial Duncan Briggs residence at the mouth of the rugged Glenwood Gorge.

Briggs, owner of the Briggs Lumber Company, was the scion of a family whose history can be traced to the creation of hundreds of homes dating back to the 19th century.  As such, he had an acute, discriminatory judgment concerning every builder in the area and, from among them, chose Lothar to build his own personal home.

Lothar had previously constructed Woodchuck Knoll, the sprawling edifice on the grounds of Emmons Farms.  Woodchuck Knoll today is owned by Marty Patton, a multi-millionaire restauranteur and the founder of the Cooperstown All-Star Village, a travel baseball camp.

Another very large structure, with a more utilitarian purpose, was built on the campus of the Upstate Baptist Home, now Springbrook, an institution for people with mental disabilities.  

One of the more recent homes, the Russell House on Union St. was built to withstand an earthquake or tornado, with a steel I-beam frame. 

A house was built at 6 City View Dr. for Elizabeth Lewis, a dietician for Homer Folks Hospital.  It was the second of two houses of a planned development that was scuttled when Lothar died in 1958.

Woodchuck Knoll

The Russell House

6 City View Dr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE FARMER'S MUSEUM IN COOPERSTOWN

Todd's General Store

Never one to stymie his ambition, Lothar Fieg not only took on the construction of well-built houses and big mansions such as Thornwood and Woodchuck Knoll, he even tackled the piece-by-piece disassembly, transport and rebuilding of historic structures for the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown.

Among them was Todd's General Store, which had been operated by Lemuel Todd of nearby Toddsville. Built in 1819, it was moved to Cooperstown at the end of World War II, with each joist, crossbeam, brick and sash painstakingly numbered for exact reassembly at the museum.

Filer's Corners Schoolhouse

 In a similar fashion, Lothar transported and reconstructed the Filer's Corners schoolhouse, circa 1829, from the town of Butternuts, and the blacksmith shop, built in 1827, from the New Berlin area.  He also built the original display for the Cardiff Giant, a hoax perpetrated by charlatans to be the petrified remains of a huge human being. 

Blacksmith shop