Glen Sanders to get $1M makeover

PHOTOGRAPHER: James Schlett

Village landmark Glen Sanders Mansion will undergo $1 million in renovations this winter as Schenectady restaurateur Angelo Mazzone attempts to raise the profile of the business he launched almost 20 years ago.

The Mazzone Management Group will close Glen Sanders’ banquet hall on Feb. 15 — but keep open its restaurant, inn and catering operations — while the mansion is fitted with new chandeliers, lighting and coloring. Its front entrance and patio will also be renovated. The mansion will reopen March 7 — just in time for a Schenectady tricentennial celebration.

“We’re going to keep it as traditional as we can. It’s a very traditional building,” said Mazzone, who two decades ago purchased the mansion that overlooks the Mohawk River and dates back to 1658.

In 1989, Mazzone opened Glen Sanders’ catering and restaurant arms. The mansion, which has grown to 70,000 square feet, is just one of nine businesses he runs in the Capital Region. They include Angelo’s Aperitivo Bistro in Schenectady and the Ayco Cafe in Latham.

The overhaul of Glen Sanders follows Mazzone’s recruitment of Union Graduate College MBA students, who developed a 100-page report outlining strategies for raising the mansion’s profile. Mazzone said he will pursue many of the Union students’ recommendations, such as branding the restaurant and increasing its Internet marketing.

Mazzone would not reveal the new name for the restaurant, which will also feature a new menu. The restaurateur in spring said he chose to work with Union’s Capstone business plan development program partly because the mansion had “become a household name, but a lot of people still don’t know we have a restaurant.” He also previously worked as the Schenectady college’s director of food services.

“They’re continually making that place better and it’s nice people see something like this as they enter the village,” Scotia Mayor Kris Kastberg said.

Kastberg said the village Planning Board has already approved Mazzone’s proposal to replace the canvas awning at Glen Sanders’ front entrance with a permanent portico-style covering. The change will allow tour buses to drive up to the mansion.

The mansion-wide overhaul will not be the largest at Glen Sanders, which had the inn added to it in 1995. But it comes at a time when economic pressures are hurting the region’s leisure and hospitality sector. Due to slowing business, Mazzone six months ago stopped serving lunch at the restaurant.

“It’s time for a new look,” Mazzone said.