Walls in old houses can hold secrets and surprises, as Maura and Andy Zalikowski discovered while renovating a derelict Hamburg home into a book-filled pub reminiscent of the European countryside. The new Foxglove Pub in Hamburg offers nearly 20 bourbons and whiskeys, plus wine, apéritifs and beer. The Zalikowskis were stripping the building – sunken and damaged from a water main leak – to its original post-and-beam construction.
They got to the staircase, which they planned to replace with a smaller, spiral version. “That’s where we found the curse,” Andy Zalikowski said. Penciled on the wall behind the staircase was a note dated June 17, 1965, written by a previous owner who brought the house back to life after a fire.
It read: “Remodeled with hard work and money that was hard to get to do this, a couple of dollars at a time, who tears this down, curses will be upon thee forever." Owners Andy Zalikowski, left, and Maura Zalikowski spent three years renovating an old home into the new Foxglove Pub in Hamburg. After three years of refurbishing, they could empathize.
The Zalikowskis gutted the home to become a cocktail bar, the Foxglove Pub, that looks like it was plucked from Victorian England, somewhere Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson may have met to drink brandy. “I don’t think we knew what we were getting into,” Maura Zalikowski said.
The Foxglove Pub (20 S. Buffalo St.) hosts a grand opening party from noon to midnight on June 22.
Hours will be 2 to 10 .
