After a falling out among the brothers, Sterling not only cancelled such plans but also withdrew his share of the family fortune from the collective trust. He established his own foundation and sold off or donated all of his property holdings in Cooperstown. He donated the Ernest Flagg designed neoclassic YMCA building commissioned by his mother, Elizabeth Scriven Clark, in 1898 to the village in 1932, and it now houses village offices, the library and the Cooperstown Art Association. Almost no communication between Stephen and Sterling occurred again.