The old Blue Barn property in Sloatsburg is set to change hands and become the French Resistance, a European-style coffee house and cafe, complete with gardens — a Michael Bruno and Tuxedo Hudson Company signature effort.

Edith and Henry Knoblick are longtime Sloatsburg residents who invested heavily in revitalizing Sloatsburg’s village center. Back in 2013 the couple purchased the old Waldron property directly across from the Sloatsburg Library with a vision that it could again serve as an important part of life and help spark some downtown renewal.

Edith and Henry Knoblick invested heavily in the Blue Barn property to bring it back to life – and have sold the historical property to Michael Bruno.

Overgrown and under loved, Henry Knoblick hauled and hauled piles of debris from what was once a popular regional antiques center that had a 70 foot long barn for storage.

The barn burned down under mysterious circumstances in the 1990s and the property slipped into disrepair. Known as the Waldron place before it became the Blue Barn, the property has roots in the horseshoe and carriage days of yesteryear, serving as the village livery stable, complete with Victorian house and smithy (visit the Waldron blacksmith display at the Village Hall).

The Knoblick’s invested time and TLC in the property and just recently sold it to Michael Bruno’s Tuxedo Hudson Company. Bruno too saw something in the building. Edith and Henry didn’t have to hard sell Bruno, who walked the property and was transported to another place and time where people huddle around coffee and conversation and good food.

Bruno’s newly launched Tuxedo Hudson Company will take control of the two-acre Waldron property with European coffee house and cafe in mind, complete with gardens and outdoor tables that will serve as the Sloatsburg anchor to Bruno’s foodie vision for the Sloatsburg/Tuxedo corridor.

A sampling of look and style THC has in mind for the proposed French Resistance Coffee House & Cafe at the old Blue Barn property across from the Sloatsburg Library.

“We live at the entrance to one of the richest food producing regions in the country,” said Michael Bruno, head of the Tuxedo Hudson Valley Company in a signature statement on the THC site. “I believe the re-imaging of our communities’ commercial district should begin with food as the major draw.”

THC will work to turn the Blue Barn into the French Resistance Coffee House & Cafe that will serve breakfast and lunch and cater to commuters and hikers and locals, offering fresh breads, soups and foods prepared to go. The idea is to open this summer.

The old mortared walls and entrance of the burned-out barn from the Waldron property, which is scheduled to become a sort of outdoors cafe.

Part of the THC plan to invest heavily in the Sloatsburg to Tuxedo corridor, the French Resistance is part of a 13-property renewal effort that includes the Stewart Farm in Sloatsburg, the Tuxedo Junction and old IGA property in Tuxedo.