Stacey Soloviev took a walk around The Chequit Inn on Thursday afternoon with the new general manager and general contractor, making an assessment before rehab of the iconic Heights structure starts Monday.
She and her ex-husband, Stefan Soloviev, closed the deal to purchase the iconic inn this week, having submitted the winning bid in an auction in April. With permits in place, Stacey Soloviev is moving ahead with plans for extensive rehabilitation of the 1872 inn in the heart of Shelter Island Heights.
While there’s a lot of work to be done, Soloviev said her goal was to rehabilitate the inn, not change it. She’ll be keeping the name Chequit (pronounced chee-kwit), which according to one historic reference derives from an indigenous word for weakfish that were once found in abundance here.
New roofing
“The roof is coming off,” she said Thursday, in a remark that has two meanings — shingles have been shedding on their own for some time and the roof is slated for removal when work starts Monday.
A new metal standing seam roof will be installed on the main inn at 23 Grand Avenue and the Cedar House annex just across Washington Street as soon as materials for it arrive on site. Meantime, repairs will be made on the roof substructure, said general contractor Justin Gennaro of Gennaro Renovations in Greenport.
The historic Summer Cottage, behind the Inn on Washington, is still awaiting permits so that it can be raised temporarily on jacks to allow a new foundation to be constructed. The building currently rests on locust posts, Gennaro said, and the roots of a tree growing very close to the house have caused it to shift off its supports. That tree will be removed.
Rehabilitation of that structure will begin when the foundation work is done and Soloviev says her goal is to retain all of the historic features of this charming building.
“I love the inside, I don’t want to change it at all,” she said.
Safety is top priority
Before any work begins, Gennaro said the entire site will be enclosed with safety fencing — probably black or green plastic mesh — with padlocks on all access gates to keep out the curious.
“All safety precautions will be taken,” he said. “I’m going to be putting up signs, no trespassing. We’ll put cameras out to keep an eye on things. We don’t want anybody getting hurt.”
Eventually, all three structures will be repainted in white with black trim. Power-washing, scraping, and sanding will begin next week on the Inn and the Cedar House and will take a few weeks.
Soloviev said the power-washing crew will use vacuum-fitted devices to reduce the spread of paint chips. But even with such precautions, Gennaro anticipates there will be some debris.
“A lot of chips are going to come off this,” Gennaro said. “At 3:30 in the afternoon, the power-washing is going to stop, the guys will come down and hit all of the sidewalks, come down to the street, they’ll get everything in one pile and sweep everything up.”
Restoring former grandeur
Soloviev operates the Peconic Bay Winery and Santa’s Christmas Tree Farm on the North Fork. She told the Gazette that when she saw The Chequit was for sale, she knew she wanted to restore it to its former grandeur.
“I love it,” Soloviev said. “I love everything about it.”
“We are thrilled that Stacey and her team will bring the Inn back to its original grandeur and develop a business that will complement this historic and unique community, said Stella Lagudis, general manager of the Shelter Island Heights Property Ownerse Corporation, in a statement to the Gazette.
Lagudis also notified SIHPOC members of the impending construction work.
A restaurant and bar
“Obviously we have to fix this broken porch,” Soloviev said during the walkabout Thursday, pointing out areas where the floorboards are soft. Among her goals is to retain all of the original design features, including the porch posts and decorative brackets.
She said that she and Levine are working out plans for food and beverage service.
“There will be a restaurant,” Levine said, “and there will be a bar.”
“There needs to be a very good design. There needs to be a change,” Soloviev said. She’s considered a noodle/sushi/sake bar, adding “we’re definitely bringing back the pool table.”
“I want to bring back eating on the porch,” she said. “I’ve been talking to a lot of people and that’s what they miss. So I want to bring that back.”
She said the team hopes to renovate the lower level restaurant this year, but the first priority for the budget is making repairs and upgrades to the structures. An overhaul of the primary restaurant space might have to wait a year, she said.
Other preparations for the work
Gennaro said he would install some portable storage units in the parking area off Washington, as well as two dumpsters. Contractors will use the area for parking, he said.
He said that throughout the project, work will stop for the day at 4 PM so that any debris can be cleaned up before the official stop time of 5 PM.
“Everything will go nice and smooth,” Gennaro said. “We’re going to get it done as fast as we can, and keep it as clean and quiet as we can.”
Of course, residents should expect some noise during the working day, and also some minor, temporary disruptions to traffic along the alley and side streets immediately adjacent to the buildings.
“We don’t want to inconvenience anybody,” he said, adding that he plans to speak with owners of neighboring properties to minimize disruptions.
Soloviev said the plans call for replacing concrete sidewalks along the Washington Street edge of the property. The asphalt sidewalk that runs along the Grand Avenue edge, however, is controlled by Shelter Island Heights Property Owners Corporation.
An overgrown privet hedge there — that significantly narrows the footpath — will be trimmed back immediately, and other plantings will be tended to, as well.
“We’re going to clean everything up, but we’re not doing landscape design until next spring,” Soloviev said.
“The most important thing for me this year is the bones — its the roof, its the porch, its climate control, its new boiler — everything that we really need,” she said.
