Liverpool — When Val LaMont died during the early morning hours of Monday, Nov. 16, his passing at age 86 marked the end of an era.

The big-boned balding man was a lifelong resident of the Liverpool area, one of its most successful businessmen and its most prolific property owner.

At the time of his death, LaMont owned 44 properties in the village, according to the village clerk’s office. The village contains a total of 1,102 parcels. He also owned plenty of property in the town of Salina and the city of Syracuse.

Val’s Commerce Park at 200 Salina St. has 10 businesses and covers 2.46 acres. LaMont’s commercial properties in that village neighborhood total 5.67 acres and 15 businesses, according to Village Codes Enforcement Officer Bill Reagan.

By any measure, Val LaMont was a self-made man.

He worked for many years for Carrier Corporation, from which he retired, and he and his family operated Val’s Paving and V&V Realty. The other “V” was his wife, Victoria, who died in 2011.

Val’s softer side

Like any active businessman and landlord, Val suffered his share of complaints and accusations from disgruntled tenants and discontented competitors, but let’s face it — to climb the ladder of success, you have to be hard.

LaMont also had a soft side, however, which became evident early this year when he acquired the house at 107 Lake Drive that had been declared an unsafe structure on Dec. 1 by the village board of trustees. National Grid had shut off the home’s natural gas and the house was plagued by plumbing problems.

During the first week of January, however, LaMont relocated the homeowner, 81-year-old Estelle Linehan and her 39-year-old son Geoffrey Linehan to a house LaMont owned on Hiram Avenue off Old Liverpool Road.

“She loves it,” LaMont told me at the time. “The house has four bedrooms, a sun room and a nice porch.”

continued — LaMont took it upon himself to relocate the Linehans, said Bill Reagan. 

“Val deserves a lot of credit not only for helping the Linehans find a safe place to live,” Reagan said, “but he also rented two trucks and used his own people to assist in their move.”

One of his former employees, Debbie Bush of Cicero, said she’ll miss Val very much.

“I’m so blessed that I crossed his path and met him and his family,” she said after he died. “He was a great boss to work for and very caring man.”

Grandson died in March

LaMont may have been a no-nonsense landlord and a fierce and clever competitor, but he was human and he felt the sting of tragedy as we all do. Four years ago he lost Victoria, his devoted wife and business partner of 62 years, and this year he lost his right-hand man — his grandson, Tommy Juliano. The 38-year-old Juliano, who had largely taken over the operation of Val’s Paving and V&V Realty, succumbed to a rare form of cancer on March 28.

Now that Val and Tommy are both gone, Val’s daughter and Tommy’s mother, Valerie Kosdrosky, is expected to take over the family business. She’s going to have her hands full untangling the boondoggle of businesses and rental properties that comprised his empire.

Meanwhile, it’s highly unlikely that Liverpool will ever again experience another man quite like Val LaMont.

Giving thanks on lakeshore

At 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving, Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON) and Onondaga citizens will gather at Willow Bay on the north shore of Onondaga Lake to give thanks for the goodness of the Earth and to each other for our ongoing friendship. The event is free and open to the public.

NOON is a grassroots organization of Central New Yorkers which promotes respect for the Onondaga Nation, as well as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and all indigenous peoples. The gathering takes place on the shore of Onondaga Lake because that’s where the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was founded more than 1,000 years ago.

For information, contact Lindsay Speer, [email protected], 383-7210.

The columnist can be contacted at [email protected].