The Orange County Chamber of Commerce will soon re-locate its headquarters to a historic Maybrook address.

“After our last Village Board Meeting, I received a phone call from Heather Bell-Meyer. She is the President of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce,” Mayor Dennis Leahy reported at last week’s Village Board meeting. “They will be officially moving the Orange County Chamber of Commerce Office to the Village of Maybrook and residing at the Blake House (the former Ms. Claire’s Montessori) on November 30. They plan on hosting a Grand Opening planned in the spring of 2022. This is positive news and I’m hoping to have more in 2022!”

The main office was previously located at 40 Matthews Street in Goshen.

“We are so pleased to be finding a new home at the historic John Blake House in Maybrook. We will have our own building to welcome visitors which will also allow us to offer office space to our members who may need a place to work and run their business,” said Bell-Meyer. An outpouring of support for this relocation has come from Mayor Leahy, Supervisor Brian Maher and County Executive Steve Neuhaus, among many others.

Like many businesses and non-profits, the Orange County Chamber of Commerce is working to sustain business coming out of the pandemic. Bell-Meyer explains, “We found a way to downsize our office footprint while remaining available to our membership and the community at large. A perfect solution to serving our members and future members was for us to move our main office location and add a new satellite office as well.”

For the Chamber, the move marks a return to the Town of Montgomery. Following the merger of two chamber organizations in the late 1990s, the chamber constructed an office building on Scott’s Corners Drive. In a downsizing move several years ago, the Chamber sold the building to Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson, and moved its headquarters to Goshen.

In addition to the new main office location, the Orange County Chamber of Commerce will now have a satellite office at 380 Broadway in the City of Newburgh. The single office space is made possible by generous donation from William A. Smith & Son, Inc. who has been a long-time supporter of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce.

This satellite office will be open on Mondays beginning mid-December and additionally by appointment based on the needs of the community. The chamber will be hosting a ribbon cutting to mark the occasion for this satellite office on December 14 at 4 p.m., all are welcome to attend.

“This is a sign of growth and provides us with the ability to greater extend our reach throughout Orange County and beyond,” Bell-Meyer said.

The John Blake House, likely the oldest house in Maybrook, dates back to the late 18th century. It was part of a larger homestead built by John Blake, a deputy sheriff of Ulster County (which at the time included the present day Town of Montgomery). He would later serve as an Orange County Sheriff when the line was redrawn and then serve 15 terms as Town of Montgomery Supervisor, according to Wikipedia.

As Maybrook grew, the Blake farm was broken up into smaller and smaller parcels, owned by others. The house would undergo renovations in the 1820s and 1840s, the latter adding a kitchen wing to the rear. When the village transformed into a railroad town in the late 19th century, the house was home to workers building the nearby connecting spur off the Erie Railroad main line later used by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.[4] The front porch was added sometime in the 20th century.

In 1984 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a well-preserved example of the kind of home built by settlers of English descent in the early years of the Federal style of American architecture.

A Grand Opening celebration for the Maybrook office is being planned for the Spring of 2022 which will also be open to the public for attendance. The Orange County Chamber of Commerce would like to thank their members, ambassadors, corporate partners and Board of Directors for their ongoing support and commitment to the Chamber and business community.