The owners of Hampshire Oil Company have bought and will restore a building adjacent to theirs on South State Street that has been vacant since a fire 17 years ago.
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Randy and Linda Ross, whose company repairs, restores and sells antique gas pumps, gas signs, gas globes, oil cans and other automotive items, bought the building from the owner of Dreymiller & Kray Inc., an artisan meat market at 140 South State Street. Hampshire Oil Company, 106 South State Street, shares a wall with the building.
“I will install a new roof, new windows and new garage doors,” Randy Ross said. “I plan to rent it.”
The approximately 3,000-square-foot Hampshire Oil Company building was a Mobil station until the 1960s, he said. The building was purchased in the 1980s by Maynard Petersen, founder of the Petersen Propane Company which developed convenience/gas stations in Hampshire, Burlington and Genoa. The company’s name later changed to Petersen Fuels and was run by Les Petersen, son of Maynard Petersen, who died in 2011.
The Rosses bought the Hampshire Oil Company building in 2013.
The Hampshire Village Board approved reimbursing the couple for a third of the cost for replacing 48 feet of sidewalk along State Street and 29 feet of sidewalk along Rinn Avenue. Village ordinance limits reimbursement to no more than one third of the total cost.
“Randy Ross has made a fantastic effort toward improving the property,” said Hampshire Village President Jeffrey Magnussen.
Denise Moran is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.