08/19/2026
FROM THE ARCHIVES 🗞📰📜
The Warren House
One of Warrensburg’s earliest and most important landmarks, the Warren House began life in 1789 as Pitts Tavern — the town’s first public house — built by James Pitts on the land now occupied by New Way Lunch and the adjacent bottle redemption center.
James Warren (for whom the town of Warrensburg was named) purchased the building in 1804 and renamed it the Warren House. It quickly became known for quality accommodations, a general store, post office, and surrounding barns and outbuildings. Warren also operated a profitable potash works nearby on the current site of George Henry’s.
Warren drowned in the Hudson River in 1811 while returning from an election with his young son Nelson. His widow Melinda carried on the business for many years. The first official town meeting was held at the Warren House on April 4, 1813, shortly after the Town of Warrensburgh was established.
The original structure burned in 1888. A larger hotel designed to accommodate about fifty guests opened in 1892 and continued under the Warren House name. That second building was destroyed by fire on April 21, 1921 — widely suspected to be arson after a town-owned hose reel stored at the hotel was found deliberately slashed (and its brass nozzle damaged) the week before. The fire helped spur the organization of a formal Warrensburg Fire Company later that year.
In the decades that followed, the site gradually filled with smaller businesses, including Pete Prespare’s Taxi Service and Gas Station, Young’s 5 & 10, and eventually a Stewart’s shop in 1969.
