& JIM KEVLIN

ONEONTA

Just as things wane, so do they wax.
“We bought the house 43 years ago and thought we would be here for three or four years – obviously that didn’t happen,” said Virginia Pudelka, shortly after learning she and her husband Len’s house at 248 West St. was to be honored by the Future for Oneonta Foundation on Monday, Oct. 26, as a Property of Merit.
The Property of Merit program is one of many the FOF has devised to ensure the City of the Hills is waxing rather than otherwise.
Since then, it has raised funds and sought donations and distributed $400,000 to area causes.
The Properties of Merit program – this year’s honorees received certificateS at the FOF’s annual luncheon Monday, Oct. 26, at Foothills Performing Arts Center – started in 1991.
The original committee included people like Anne Moriarty, Adele Youngs, Meg Argo, Steve Pindar, Celeste Leone and others, including the late Bob Squires, longtime FOF executive manager.
“It was a great program,” said Mahon, “very well received.”
In 2004, after Squires’ retirement, the program lapsed, but one of the goals of the FOF board when it hired Mahon was for her to revive the effort.
The process works like this: In the fall, the call goes out for nominees, and people from around the city send in applications in nine categories.The committee – this year, it included Angie Eighler, Christy Hunter, Barb Jass and Daryl Schwartz, as well as Mahon – divides up the city, and members go forth to examine each nominee.
The committee then sits down and picks the winners.
“People are very excited when they win,” said Mahon.
Take the Pudelkas.
The couple was away on vacation when awards were announced.
“When we checked our messages, there was one from a man who owned the house in the early ‘50s who had seen it in the paper and said it looked much different than when he owned it.”
Like many Properties of Merit winners, the Pudelkas said they’ve just done what needed to keep the home in good shape.
At one point, they painted their white house red, and all the neighbors were in a tizzy. Now, Pudelka said, her neighbors use the red house as a landmark to give directions.
Sometimes the charm of a house comes as a surprise to one’s neighbors; this was the case when in 1996 Lorraine and Mike Miller moved their children Madison, now 12, and Mackenzie, now 15, just around the corner from their home on Madison Street to a new home at 49 West End Ave. The Millers’ property was names as a Property of Merit in the Most Improved Residential category.
“When we bought the house there were two 50-foot pine trees in the front lawn, you couldn’t see the house,” said Mike.
“When we cut them down all of our neighbors set up chairs in front of the house to watch and when we were done they said ‘oh my god, you bought a house with those trees,’” Lorraine added.