“Sometimes I think the building talks to me, saying, ‘Save me,’ ” says Dodge, manager of Bell-Ans and wife of owner James Dodge. “I have a real affection for the place.” The property has been in the Dodge family since 1897 when John Lanphere Dodge, a businessman specializing in pharmaceuticals, bought the 150-acre parcel with proceeds from his wildly successful remedy for indigestion, a concoction of sodium bicarbonate, ginger and papaya enzymes called Bell- Ans (“Bell” after the name of the chemist Dodge worked with and “Ans” for the papain enzyme). He built the main factory building, several outbuildings and a stable and racetrack to indulge his passion for harness racing.

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Son John Griswold Dodge took over the business in the 40s, and in the 1960s his son Joseph Griswold Jr. took the reins. But as governmental regulation of the pharmaceutical industry tightened, small companies were squeezed out and the Bell- Ans patent was sold to Grandpa Brands in the 1970s. Parcels of land were sold off or donated over the years to lighten the tax burden, but when Joe Dodge was tragically killed in a car racing accident in 1986, his wife Catherine and son James held on to the remaining twelve acre complex. They named it the Bell-Ans Industrial Park and rented commercial space to small companies such as Udelco, a vintage clothing warehouse, and GSW Cabinetry, an architectural millwork company. The stables were rented out and run by Clausland Mountain Stables and, more recently, West Carbery Stables. By the 90s a few artists had discovered the main building’s sun drenched, high ceilinged spaces and the Bell-Ans compound continued to survive - barely.

Painter Patti Mollica, a tenant since 1997, moved from New York City to Rockland after she and her husband, a jazz musician and also a tenant at Bell-Ans, fell in love with the studio spaces. “It’s quiet,” she says in her tiny studio packed floor to ceiling with small vibrant cityscapes. “Everyone does their own thing. It’s kind of a sanctuary.”

Painter Joan Hooker, another longtime tenant, agrees. “I’m blissfully unaware of what other people do until I run across them.”

But in 2000 Phyllis Dodge, a CPA who describes herself as “just a bean counter,” noticed that painting and drawing helped regulate her seven-year-old autistic son’s anxiety. She educated herself about art, heading into the city to visit museums and galleries. By 2007 she worked part time showing space at Bell-Ans and took a real interest in what the artists were doing. “It just opened up a whole new world for me…I can’t tell you how happy they make me,” says Dodge.

She crunched the numbers and actively marketed any empty spaces to artists. By 2010 she and her husband were fulltime managers of the compound. They renovated the entryway of the main building, cleaned up the floors and carved more studios out of the cavernous space. They renamed it the Bell-Ans Center of Creative Arts. “We gave the place a pulse,” says Dodge.

Currently over twenty artists rent space including “A League of Our Own,” a consortium of painters sharing a communal studio. Monthly rents range from $120 for a spot in the League to $2,000 for a large studio.

Painter and sculptor Lori Shorin, a tenant for a year and a half, credits Dodge with the revitalization going on at Bell-Ans. “There’s a real shift in energy,” says Shorin. “I see a lot of good things happening. Who knows what will spill over?”

Dodge’s desire to keep Bell-Ans financially sound while providing affordable studio spaces for artists is infectious. The building’s tenants are getting to know one another and understand they have an advocate with Dodge.

“What I wanted to do was to make Bell-Ans known,” says Dodge. “Now I have people calling and I have a waiting list.”