Retired volunteers claimed ‘potential ownership interest’
A state judge ruled on Friday (July 25) that the City of Beacon is the sole owner of the decommissioned Beacon Engine Co. fire station at 57 East Main St.
Judge Maria Rosa dismissed four requests from retired members of the volunteer fire company that had used the station as its headquarters for 136 years, including an appeal from the firefighters to conclusively determine who owns the facility.
The basis of the complaint was the most recent operation and maintenance agreement, from 2019, between the city and the company. In it, the city agreed to pay for most insurance and all utilities and maintenance of the building while acknowledging what the volunteers and city officials had believed for decades: that Beacon Engine owned the 1889 structure, which comprises 62 percent of the 4,688-square-foot station. The city was believed to own an engine bay added in 1924.
However, after the City Council voted in February 2020 to close the station, Beacon officials in 2023 conducted a title search that they say revealed municipal ownership of the entire site. The volunteers disputed that, saying ownership was unclear because of “aged, handwritten deeds” and “incomplete searches and conclusory assertions” by the city.
The firefighters alleged that the city abandoned the operation and maintenance agreement in November 2020. Mayor Lee Kyriacou told the court that the city notified the volunteers that it was terminating the agreement in February 2021 but permitted them to use the building until city’s the $14.7 million central station opened last fall.
On Jan. 22, city officials sent a notice to the retired firefighters directing them to vacate Beacon Engine by March 31. The firefighters, who had continued to use the building as a headquarters for charitable efforts and a social hub, argued that the eviction came without due process.
Rosa noted that the issue had already been “partially litigated” when the volunteers sought an injunction to halt the eviction and stop the city from selling the property. Rosa denied that request on March 31, saying that the volunteer company had “provided no evidence of ownership” of the station.
A week later, the firefighters filed a complaint asking for judgment on whether the company or city owns the historic structure. The volunteers submitted an amended complaint on May 14 claiming they had commissioned a title search that “created a potential ownership interest in [the fire company’s] favor.” The complaint referred to language in two deeds which “exempts and reserves the lot occupied by the Old Engine House,” although no deeds were submitted to the court. The fire company asked to be declared the owner of the property.
City attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the complaint a day later. In addition to numerous deeds, the city submitted the testimony of Paul Conrad, president of the Poughkeepsie-based Real Property Abstract & Title Services.
Conrad said the firefighters had misinterpreted the two deeds and that a dozen documents, dating from 1860 to 1921, establish the city’s ownership. “Beacon Engine at one point in time owned a portion of the property, which it subsequently conveyed to the city over a century ago,” he said. “Beacon Engine was never in title to the entirety of the property, and it last had an ownership interest in the property in 1920, almost 105 years ago.”
Rosa wrote in the July 25 decision that Conrad had “set forth in detail” the chain of title and provided evidence to back it up. The volunteers, she said, failed to assert ownership, while their argument relied “entirely upon [the 2019] agreement as demonstrative of a ‘potential ownership interest.’ ”
Rosa also dismissed the volunteers’ claim of adverse possession, or “squatters’ rights,” a legal principle that allows a party to gain ownership of a property by occupying it for a specific period, saying the volunteers failed to prove that their occupancy of the station was “under claim of right.”
Finally, she denied claims that the city was unjustly enriched by the volunteers’ use of station and for wrongful eviction.
“Now we all can move forward,” Kyriacou said after the decision. “As always, I express my deep gratitude to the volunteers of all three companies for their service to our community.”
The Beacon Engine firehouse remains on the market. It was listed in 2004 on the National Register of Historic Places, which limits what can be done by a private buyer.
A Westchester County buyer signed an agreement on June 24 to buy Mase Hook & Ladder, the city’s second decommissioned fire station, at 425 Main St. That deal is expected to close by the end of August.
