On the second story, an early partitioning system to allow the merging or division of classrooms as necessary, complete with blackboards on the paneling, is still in place.

He decided to pay for a new school building that would combine the populations currently attending Palenville's two small schoolhouses.

[1] He hired Newburgh architect John A. Davidson to draw up plans, and local mason George Holdridge began cutting stone from the nearby Empire Quarry.

On September 3, 1900, a dedication ceremony featuring a children's choir and fireworks display was attended by the state's deputy superintendent of public instruction.

Lawrence had paid the $50,000 construction cost himself, but the community would have to pay the annual upkeep for the new school, which could accommodate five times as many students as the district then had, and some residents did not think it could afford to do so.

For several years it deteriorated until jewelry designer Steven Kretchmer and his wife purchased it and remodeled it into Ringing Metal Studios.