Most were exteriors, and the few interiors used were dim, perhaps to conceal the building's decline. It was in such serious disrepair that by the 1980s Stewart's Shops was considering buying it and demolishing it to build one of their convenience stores on the property. A petition drive led by a local resident, Dianne Bingham, led the company to reconsider and instead build across the intersection. A Long Island architect bought the property instead, intending to renovate it, but did nothing for several years. Several years later, Larry Stevens, who met and married Bingham during the petition drive, decided to buy the hotel. The couple spent weekends repairing it. They repainted it, reinforced the walls, put in a new septic system and gutted the interior with the intent of opening it as a bed and breakfast for tourists visiting the nearby home of Grandma Moses and Bennington Battlefield. During those renovations, they found late 19th-century posters for vaudeville acts on the second floor, and have kept them there.