RIDE-CT – Classic Cars Celebrating Classic Cars in Connecticut
MILLERTON, NY – It was an opportunity that Rob Cooper couldn’t resist. After restoring an old Mobil service station in Millerton. NY to how it looked back in the 1950s, complete with period gas pumps and signage, he’s now doing the same with another gas station nine miles to the south in Amenia, NY. Both spots are close to the border with Connecticut.
“We just had the opportunity. I didn’t even know the place was there. It was buried in the trees and then somebody told me there was an old gas station there. I had to go look for myself,” said Cooper on Friday evening as he hosted a first-ever car show at the non-functioning Mobil station.
“I had to use like a machete to get to it and we found it, and a friend of mine, Norm Fontaine, and I bought it. ”
The abandoned station in Amenia is on Route 44 just west and up the hill from downtown. “We’ve just been fixing it up. It was an Esso station, as far as we know. It was a Sinclair station and it was a Sunoco station over the years. We think it was in operation back in the ‘40s,” Cooper said.
A decision hasn’t been made yet on how the new station will be branded. “Whatever we have the most signs of, I guess, and I think it’s Sunoco right now. I have a number of Sunoco signs so we’ll probably make it a Sunoco,” he said.
For more than a year, the Mobil station in Millerton has been attracting classic car enthusiasts who drive in and up to the pumps to get photos of their vehicles in the old-time setting. The station features a huge Pegasus flying red horse sign on the building. RIDE-CT first wrote about it a year ago.
“Everybody loves it. I get real positive reaction from everybody,” said Cooper, who is still working on his initial project. “We’ve been putting in the heat and air conditioning system. That’s going in now. We ran all new pipes in the floor. We busted out the concrete floor and ran pipes for the septic system,” he said.
Unlike a year ago, the office portion of the station is now filled with memorabilia. “We have a lot more stuff inside now; more cans and signs and there’s still more to come,“ Cooper reported.
Friday night’s small car show was an impromptu event and attracted some interesting models. Cooper said he has no plans to try and monetize the throwback gas station. “Not at all. Not at all. It’s just a very fun hobby,” he said.
Cooper did allow that bringing in food trucks might be a possibility in future but emphasized, “I I don’t want to hurt the brick and mortar stores around, either. There’s a lot of people who have delis. There’s a coffee shop in town. There’s a diner in town. I don’t want to take anything away from those guys.”
—
As for the timetable for getting the gas station in Amenia looking like a gas station again, Cooper said it will take “probably six months to a year. We don’t have any deadline on it or anything. It’s just a fun hobby. Just like this one.”
(Photos by Bud Wilkinson)
