OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford The Lanford House on Central Avenue, the residence of SUNY Fredonia presidents, is under renovation and not currently occupied by current campus head Stephen Kolison.

SUNY Fredonia’s Lanford House is not ready for its intended resident, College President Stephen Kolison.

A renovation effort that was supposed to be done at the end of August is still unfinished, Vice President of Administration and Finance Michael Metzger said at the College Council’s recent meeting.

“They are already behind a month and don’t look to be catching up,” Metzger said of the construction workers. “Right now, they’re telling us the end of October (to finish), but I’m not optimistic.”

Metzger said the house’s kitchen still needs significant work before the place is livable.

Kolison has lived in Hamburg since taking over as SUNY Fredonia’s president in August 2020, commuting to work. He acknowledged to the College Council that he wants — and needs — to move to Fredonia very soon.

“It’s impacting me. Most people don’t know the circumstances but wonder why they don’t see me,” Kolison said.

“The very day that I can live there, I will be there,” he said of the Lanford House.

Formerly known as the President’s House, the Central Avenue house was renamed in 2015 after Oscar Lanford. He was campus president from 1961-71 when it had a massive expansion effort.

SUNY Fredonia bought the house in 1964 and Lanford was its first presidential inhabitant. Donald MacPhee did some remodeling while president in the 1980s.According to a 1997 Fredonia Preservation Society article by local historian Kathryn Silliman, the house was built in 1855. It saw major alterations in its first seven decades, but “structurally the exterior of the house today looks much as it did when Josephine Van Buren Nixon Keena and her family took possession of it in 1922,” Silliman wrote.