Skidmore grad utilizes artistic eye to beautify the 'dogs on the block'

Reprinted with permission from the Sunday Gazette, July 29, 2007
By Kelly de la Rocha

SARATOGA SPRINGS—Lisa Bates enters the airy kitchen at 158 Phila St. breathless, downing a banana. "I didn't get to eat breakfast," she apologizes. It's now noon. Wearing a black, paint-smudged apron, her blonde hair escaping from her ponytail in wavy wisps, her stress level and exhaustion are evident, but both are overshadowed by her pride as she appraises the nearly finished space.

"This place was virtually a brick shell when we started," she tells me, as I take in the soaring ceilings, the crisp white paint, the expansive marble island, the gleaming hardwood floors.

Six months ago, the circa 1869 Saratoga home we're standing in looked much different than it does now.

"Over the years it was a one-family, but it was turned into a fourfamily and then hodge-podged up by two different owners. Nothing made sense. The floors were off, everything was off," Bates recalls.

But then Bates got ahold of the place. With the help of architect John Muse, she and her restoration company, Bates and Good Company, worked magic, transforming the world-weary structure into a singlefamily dwelling fit for the pages of House Beautiful.

Foundation in art

The daughter of a builder, Bates' background is actually in art. She majored in ceramics at Skidmore College, segued into faux finish painting, then opened an antiques business.

In 1995, she purchased a partially restored house in Saratoga and set to work completing it in her spare time.

"I restored that very slowly and decided, 'Oh, I really like doing this,' and that led me into my first [home restoration] business, which was Ludlow Restorations,' " she recounts. "My formal training is experience only."

Bates currently co-owns Bates and Good Company with her sister, Cindy Ziegler. "My sister is 'good company' and I consider all of the people that work for me to be 'good company,' " Bates says.

Together, the sisters search for worn-out homes on Saratoga's East Side—Bates' favorite part of town—and with the help of their team of contractors breathe new life into the ailing structures.

"I'm basically the one who does the interior design—and I don't mean curtains and things like that. I don't do that kind of designing, but I design the spaces. I pick out the flooring materials, wall colors, the stone, the kitchen cabinets, the lighting, all the interior look," Bates explains. She also orchestrates and directs each project, constantly fielding questions from the contractors working on-site.

Ziegler, who lives on Long Island and comes to Saratoga intermittently, does the books.

"My sister and I, our partnership is perfect, because she is the budget and numbers person, which I am not. I'm the creative one and she is the business-minded one," Bates explains, noting that Ziegler also steps in to play "bad cop" from time to time. "She doesn't live around here, and I know everyone. I've lived here for 30 years, so if we have problems with someone that we've hired that I've known, she is the hatchet woman," she says with a grin.

Bates has built one house from the ground up, but she much prefers rehabbing those that have gone to ruin.

"I feel there's more merit in restoring; it's almost like recycling, and I'm a big recycler. If the house is sad and forlorn and is falling down, I'd love to be able to be part of resurrecting it," she says.

And she's proud to help beautify Saratoga one house at a time. "I have to say the houses I've picked have usually been the dogs on the block and I've been fortunate enough to really change the complexion, perhaps, of that surrounding area. And I get great pleasure in doing that," she says.

Building a reputation

Ten resurrected homes later, Bates has built a reputation for herself. Tracy Savage and Jeremy Jones, the new owners of 158 Phila St., bought their house from Bates and Good Company before renovations even began.

"They got to see this house in its worst state and because they had seen the house [I redid] on North Broadway, they said, 'We want it.' We settled on a price, we agreed that they would give me total [design] control with the exception of asking about personal effects. It was a dream job," Bates says.

Lemons to lemonade

Two of Bates' completed restoration projects have been featured on the glossy pages of high-profile national magazines, but Bates will be the first to admit that the process of turning old lemons into lemonade isn't a glamorous one. There are crumbling joists to contend with, problem roofs to fix and countless other issues that pop up as the restoration process unfolds. And then there are the deadlines.

"When you're in the middle of it, sometimes it isn't fun, you know. There's lots of stuff that is not fun about this work," she admits.

But despite all that, in the end, she says, it's worth it.

"The owners are already moving things in [to the house on Phila Street] and they're just absolutely thrilled with the house," she says. "When someone moves in and starts to cry because they're so happy, it's like, OK, now I remember why I'm doing this."

---

©2007 the Sunday Gazette