ALBANY – Artist Len Tantillo is breathing new life into the effort to restore the historic Guild House behind the landmark Cathedral of All Saints.
Tantillo recently completed a commissioned painting of the 1902 building designed by noted Albany architect Marcus T. Reynolds, a Dutch Revival gem that had fallen into severe disrepair after being unoccupied and neglected since 1978.
“I hope this painting becomes a focal point to draw attention to the Guild House and inspire more people to donate to the fundraising effort,” said Tom Curran, founder and CEO of Curran Wealth Management, who commissioned the Tantillo painting.
The painting was recently unveiled during an event at the Fort Orange Club attended by donors and local elected officials who have secured grants for its restoration.
“Marcus T. Reynolds was a great architect and a very talented artist. I wanted this painting to pay homage to him,” Tantillo said. “I wanted to honor his interest in Gothic architecture, but also to create a magical moment with a nighttime snow scene and the reverence of a religious space with a warm light shining from inside the building.”
Curran owns the 2-foot-by-3-foot original oil on canvas Tantillo painting. He agreed to allow limited-edition prints to be produced, which will be framed and sold to help raise funds for the $5 million restoration project. Curran is also a board member of the Pioneer Foundation, a not-for-profit organization spearheading the Guild House project.
“We’re grateful to Tom Curran for having this idea, for sponsoring the painting and for Len Tantillo, who applied his creative imagination and creative skills to show people a vision for restoring the Guild House and bringing it back as a resource for the community,” said the Very Rev. Dean Leander Harding, the 21st dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints.
Harding and John Zagame, former state assemblyman and chief of staff to former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, a Republican from New York, are catalysts for the restoration effort. The two have been effective in securing state Dormitory Authority grants through state legislators: $250,000 from former Sen. Neil Breslin; and $100,000 each from Sen. Patricia Fahy and Assemblywoman Gabriella Romero. They also received a $15,000 grant from the New York Landmark Conservancy Sacred Sites Fund. In addition, a $20,000 matching grant from the Preservation League of New York State, with $20,000 from the Pioneer Foundation, will cover the first phase of roof repair.
The Preservation League included the Guild House on its most recent roster of “Seven to Save,” a biennial listing of the most at-risk historic sites around the state.
“The building is in such rough shape, a bad storm could cause it to collapse,” Curran said.
I got a guided tour of the Guild House with Harding and Zagame in January and it was a heartbreaking sight of dereliction. Rainwater had poured in for decades after thieves stripped copper gutters and downspouts, causing interior brick walls to bulge and buckle, and joists and sections of the ceiling and floors to rot away.
The $40,000 roof repair and stabilization is expected to prevent additional rainwater damage.
“This will be the first step to bringing the Guild House back to life,” Zagame said. “This is part of the fabric of the city and it is worth saving, especially since it is just one block from the Capitol.”
Harding and Zagame stressed that the Guild House restoration is being undertaken by volunteers and does not compete with the adjacent cathedral, which faces its own financial challenges due to declining membership and costly upkeep.
The Guild House was donated to the cathedral by member Oscar Lawrence Hascy as a memorial gift in honor of his son, Clarence, who died in 1877 at 19 of typhoid. Like a settlement house, it was a community center that provided education, social services and assistance to newly arrived immigrants in need.
“There is a lot of need in the surrounding neighborhood and we want to return the Guild House to its original function,” Zagame said, noting that some of those services are currently squeezed into limited meeting space in the cathedral’s basement.
“This has been a collaborative effort and labor of love by many people,” Zagame said. “It feels like divine providence brought us all together.”
Tantillo, who is known for the meticulous research he does to create his acclaimed historical paintings, took a fresh approach to his Guild House painting. Bishop William Doane, Albany’s first Episcopal bishop, hired the young British architect Robert Wilson Gibson to create a magnificent American Episcopal cathedral as grand and ornate as its European counterparts. It was completed in 1888 after four years of construction.
New York’s first commissioner of education, Andrew Sloan Draper, was an ambitious bureaucrat who wanted to leave a legacy and bought land along Washington Avenue across from the Capitol and cheek by jowl with the cathedral. In a battle royale between church and state, Doane and Draper battled over the height and scale of the State Education Building. Draper won the epic showdown.
Draper’s monumental building, completed in 1912, featured the longest continuous colonnade in the world. It also completely eclipsed Doane’s magnificent cathedral.
“As an artist who started out as an architect, I found the actions of the state reprehensible in the way they punished the cathedral,” Tantillo said. His painting’s point of view shifts from the overpowered original front entrance of the Guild House along a narrow alleyway pressed close to the State Education Building. Tantillo reimagines a new entrance on the Elk Street side of the cathedral.
“When you view the Guild House from Elk Street, it becomes a little hidden gem like you might happen upon in Manhattan,” Tantillo said. “I wanted to create a story for the painting, so I have a choir boy running across the snow in an evening winter scene.”
Tantillo’s painting is titled “Late for Practice.”
“Len’s artistry helps us envision this historic building in a fresh way,” said Curran, who has commissioned five Tantillo paintings. “We’re committed to bringing back the Guild House, however long it takes.”
To order a framed, limited-edition print of Len Tantillo’s painting, “Late for Practice,” to support the Guild House restoration, go to the website https://guildhousealbany.com/ The price has not yet been determined but is expected to be between $400 and $500.
Paul Grondahl is the Opalka Endowed Director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com
This article originally published at Grondahl: Len Tantillo painting of Guild House aids restoration efforts.
