Upstate House Summer 2022

Summer 2022

HUDSON VALLEY/BERKSHIRES/CATSKILLS

ON THE

Cover

Sunlit Sanctuary HALTER ASSOCIATES REALTY Cover Story on page 60

Garden of Eating

Growing rare and endangered edible plants in Stone Ridge

Disappearing House A modern Hillsdale home blends in with the landscape

Made X Hudson

Small-batch textile production in Catskill aids indie designers

Engineering What's Next in Outdoor Living.

Rhinebeck • Hudson • Hopewell Junction • Tannersville Red Hook • Pleasant Valley • High Falls

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The site plan for Catamount House, a one-story modernist home in Hillsdale designed by Grigori Fateyev of Art Forms Architecture.

THE DISAPPEARING HOUSE p. 36

DEPARTMENTS MARKETWATCH: THE TREND THAT WON’T END

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The good news: Some aspects of the crazed market are settling down.

SUMMER 20 22

FEATURES 28

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THE SOURCE: QUIT TNER ANTIQUES

12

THE SOURCE: HOUSE SFW

Pippa Biddle and Ben Davidson are not typical antiques dealers. In addition to being millennials, they also do custom design.

GARDEN PROFILE: GARDEN OF EATING

By Karen Angel

At their 11-acre farm in Stone Ridge, Hortus Arobretum, Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano have amassed a large collection of rare and endangered edible plants. Their new book, Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts, offers an inside look for the home gardener.

36

New York City-based architecture and design firm Studio SFW has opened a retail space in Rhinebeck where it sells favorite products.

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A native son of Woodstock, Rennie Cantine combined his love of the outdoors with his woodworking prowess to create the Overlook bench.

HOME PROFILE: THE DISAPPEARING HOUSE

By Peter Aaron

Architect Grigori Fateyev designed Catamount House— essentially a custom-designed modular home—to blend in seamlessly with its surrounding hills.

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DESIGN PROFILE: FRESH PERSPECTIVE

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AREA SPOTLIGHT: BEACON

New businesses are popping up all over this Dutchess County city.

AREA SPOTLIGHT: WARWICK

The village vibe is a powerful attractor in this Orange County town.

SUNLIT SANCTUARY

Artist and graphic designer Joseph Caroff built his home in Lloyd as a creative retreat and backdrop for showcasing his artwork.

The open design, high ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling windows ensure that this Contemporary glows with light.

THE SOURCE: HINTERL AND

A creative collaborative for women expands in West Shokan.

26 60

THE MAKERS: MADE X HUDSON

In Catskill, a group of sewers are helping designers realize their creative vision via small-batch textile manufacturing.

By Joan Vos MacDonald

Designer Ghislaine Vinas brought a muted color palette as well as a whimsical array of art ands furnishings to an 1850 Gothic Revival on the Hudson River in Tivoli.

THE MAKER: RENNIE CANTINE DESIGN

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BACK PORCH: EDIFICE UPSTATE

45 A minimalist, solar-powered house is being prototyped in Roscoe.

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THE MARKET I N D E X O F A DV ER T I S ER S / MAP OF THE REGION

upstate HOUSE

| SUMMER 2022 • 5

M A RK ET WAT CH

The Trend That Won’t End

R

aise your hand if you’ve heard this before—the real estate market has too many buyers and not enough properties. The good news since the last time we checked in with the experts is that some aspects of the crazed market are starting to level off, including mega bidding wars and overzealous buyers. Some buyers are starting to reevaluate how they can buy properties, and are now looking at multifamily investments and weekend rentals.

Still Lacking Properties If you think there wasn’t a big selection of homes to choose from a year ago, you might not want to read what Hayes Clement, associate broker, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hudson Valley Properties has to say about the market right now. “Buyer traffic has plateaued from the height it was when COVID originally began, but the decrease in inventory is even stronger so there are fewer houses to even look at,” says Clement. According to Berkshire Hathaway’s first-quarter report for 2022, new listings in Dutchess County are down 14.52 percent, compared to the first quarter 2021. In Ulster County, new listings are down 13.58 percent. This brings up another problem.

“We’re waiting for the market to unfreeze right now,” he says. “There are a lot of folks who are interested in selling their house and taking advantage of the price appreciation, but until they have the next house lined up or a place to move to, they’re stuck.”

Special Markets Certain cities are reaping the unexpected benefits of such a strong housing market. “If you go back three years ago and compare prices, Kingston is on fire,” says Clement. “It’s far more popular than it ever was.

We’re seeing prices that longtime Kingstonians never thought they’d see in their lifetime.” (In early May, there were 26 houses available in Kingston and the average price was $400,000.)

Desire for Weekend Properties Barbara Korabel is still feeling the effects of an exodus from Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, but with a twist. “It’s not with the same goal of living full-time in the Hudson Valley,” says Korabel, a broker with Four Seasons Realty Group in New Paltz. “These are higherend clients that are looking for a weekend escape but would like to have income from short-term rentals.”

These same buyers, Korabel explains, want Hudson River views. “Those properties are mostly non-existent and, when available, are still receiving multiple offers,” she says.

Young, Savvy Buyers If you’re looking for your dream home, you may want to reconsider your approach. Instead, Clement explains that he is seeing younger buyers who are savvy with their finances and are looking for multi-family homes or even mixed-use commercial properties where they can live in one of the apartments and rent out the rest. “But even those are hard to come by,” he says. “Another interesting trend is seeing younger couples who have grown out of a starter home here in the Hudson Valley but, because they have a low fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage, they’re not selling the first house when they want to buy another home.

Instead, they keep the first house and rent it out as an investment property and move on to buy the second.

That’s going to have a tremendous impact on inventory up here, making it even harder for people to get into a starter home.”

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Clement doesn’t see a cooling down period just yet.

“We are a tiny market that sits two hours away from the most powerful economic city in the world, so even if the demand reduces to a trickle, that trickle is still big enough and financially powerful enough that it has an effect in smaller markets like Ulster and Dutchess counties.”

“Another interesting trend: seeing younger couples who have grown out of a starter home here in the Hudson Valley but, because they have a low fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage, they’re not selling the first house when they want to buy another home. Instead, they keep the first house and rent it out as an investment property and move on to buy the second. That’s going to have a tremendous impact on inventory up here, making it even harder for people to get into a starter home.”

—Hayes Clement, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hudson Valley Properties Foreclosure Forecast Not only has the cost of homes gone up, but unless you’ve been living under a rock that doesn’t need a car with gasoline or food, you might have missed that gas and food prices have gone through the roof. “We’re going to be in for a rude awakening because of gas and food prices affecting the housing market,” says Win Morrison, owner of Win Morrison Realty. “The number of foreclosures within the next month or so will be tremendous because people can’t afford to live the way they have been living.”

Pam Rodelli, president of Settle for Less, a Poughkeepsie-based foreclosure prevention company, says that Orange and Ulster have had a massive increase in foreclosure listings. Dutchess has been behind in their filings, but are expected to increase soon too. “A lot of people are late with mortgage payments because of the cost of living,” she explains.

“Crude oil has gone up and food is the number one expense right now in every home in every county, so you keep the kids warm and feed them or be late with a mortgage payment.”

In addition, Rodelli explains that homeowners who enter into foreclosure have a double struggle because rental prices are so high that they cannot afford to move anywhere else. “A lot of the foreclosures we’re looking at, as far as age group, are over 58 years old,” she explains. “They can’t afford rentals here, so they are leaving to go to Florida, the Carolinas, or Texas.”

Can’t say this is the happily ever after that homebuyers want right now, but hopefully when we check back in with the real estate experts in a few months, things will start to settle down and we’ll have better news to report for buyers who are looking for their dream home.

—Lisa Iannucci

EDITORIAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian K. Mahoney brian.mahoney@chronogram.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR David Clark Perry david.perry@chronogram.com DIGITAL EDITOR Marie Doyon SPONSORED CONTENT EDITOR Ashleigh Lovelace CONTRIBUTORS Peter Aaron, Jane Anderson, Karen Angel, Winona Barton-Ballentine, Anne Pyburn Craig, Lisa Iannucci, Joan Vos MacDonald, Hannah Van Sickle, Will Solomon PUBLISHING COFOUNDER & CEO Amara Projansky COFOUNDER Jason Stern EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Jan Dewey CHAIR David Dell Upstate House is a project of Chronogram Media.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING (845) 334-8600 MEDIA SPECIALISTS Kaitlyn Lelay kaitlyn.lelay@chronogram.com Kelin Long-Gaye kelin.long-gaye@chronogram.com Kris Schneider kschneider@chronogram.com SALES MANAGER Andrea Aldin andrea.aldin@chronogram.com MARKETING MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER Margot Isaacs margot.isaacs@chronogram.com ADMINISTRATIVE FINANCE MANAGER Nicole Clanahan accounting@chronogram.com PRODUCTION PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Kerry Tinger kerry@chronogram.com PRODUCTION DESIGNERS Kate Brodowska, Amy Dooley

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| SUMMER 2022 • 7

THE S O U RCE

Pippa Biddle and Ben Davidson in the living room of Davidson’s grandmother’s home in Germantown.

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The High Street Breakfast Boards were inspired by Biddle’s grandmother, who had similar boards in her home in Sag Harbor.

After telling Davidson about them, he designed Quittner’s refined version featuring brass, marble, and maple grown on his grandmother’s property in Germantown.

RESTORATION ROMANCE QU IT TNER ANTIQU ES

By Will Solomon Photos by Em McCann Zauder

P

ippa Biddle and Ben Davidson are not your typical describes growing up surrounded by antiques, spending time antique dealers. That’s not only because of their in the home in Dover, Delaware, that her family has occupied ages—Ben is 30, Pippa 29—but also because the since 1760—which, combined with Davidson’s academic backwork they do at Quittner Antiques in Germantown ground in history, has helped to produce their distinctive apencompasses quite a bit more than just collecting and selling proach to the field, which blends a lively engagement with the used objects. The couple has sought to create a space that past with an acute consciousness of the present and future. is “reflective of how we live our lives,” says Biddle, which The couple sees a strong link between the antiques that for them meant adding a custom design side to the business, they refurbish—they focus particularly on lighting fixtures— which complements their restoration and retail work. and the new items that they design and (on their own and Not that antiques aren’t the essence of it. “There’s an adwith the aid of local makers) create. “People often forget that venturesomeness in antiques that a lot of people don’t realize,” if we don’t make beautiful things now, that are well-made, says Biddle, describing how the couple’s youth intersects with there won’t be antiques in one hundred years,” says Biddle. an industry that is not conventionally understood to be young. “It’s sort of this amazing thing: We get to work with antiques, “[People] think of old as sort of staid and stoic. But it’s really and we aim to make things that will one day be antiques. It a rollercoaster adventure ride. It takes a lot of energy to be challenges us to raise the bar on our own designs, because we able to go to auctions, to be able to hunt things down.” Biddle see what it takes for something to last that long.”

upstate HOUSE

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Davidson, who takes the lead on restorations and honed his early skills during a post-college stint participating in the renovation of the Thunderbird Lodge outside of Philadelphia, discusses the history contained within antique objects—and what can be learned through them about craftsmanship. “We’ll open up a chandelier,” he says. “You’ll see it started as a gasolier, made for burning gas, and then someone converted it to electric in the ‘30s, and then someone rewired it in the ‘70s, and then someone glued wiring to the exterior of it in the ‘90s, because they didn’t want to dissemble it.”

“It’s like stripping back paint in a house,” he adds. “You [say], ‘Okay, I can see each layer of the mistakes that were made here, and [ask]: Why did they do this? And how can we do the original piece justice, and all of the iterations the justice that they merit?’”

While custom designs have been a consistent dimension of the business, this spring the couple is launching their first custom collection, which will include two table lamps, a pendant, homewares, and a print that the couple designed “based on a 1790 waistcoat” that will come as a tablecloth, napkin, and lampshades, explains Biddle. The porcelain for the table lamps and pendant will be made in collaboration with local ceramicist Aleah Stewart-Souris—part of their effort to keep close to the Hudson Valley community. “Right now, all of our production is either in-house or within 40 minutes of us,” Biddle says, mentioning Made X Hudson, Al Schulze of NY WoodworX, and textile designer Elizabeth Halpern as other nearby partners. “Even our linens are sewn 15 minutes away [and] the fabric is produced three hours away.

We’re really trying to keep things local.”

Despite these new plans, the couple does not intend to over-extend Quittner. “Our restoration work isn’t going anywhere. That’s something that we’re really proud to be able to offer to our clients,” says Biddle. “There are many people that we work with where we might do three or four custom fixtures for their house, that are themed around a piece that we restore for them that’s original to the house.”

Biddle and Davidson also seek to keep their designs as inclusive as possible. “We’re not looking to scale up to sell to everyone,” says Biddle.

“We are looking to produce a special collection of pieces that people really treasure and care for for a long time.”

QUITTNERANTIQUES.COM

Hand-thrown porcelain pendant featuring semi-translucent porcelain and cast brass hardware designed and manufactured in partnership with Aleah StewartSouris of Clay Pond Studios.

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THE S O U RCE

Rachael Stollar, Ward Welch, and Erin Fearins of House SFW

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Among the color-saturated offerings at House SFW are porcelain and printed linens by Ted Tyler.

SOUTHERN GRACE IN A NORTHERN SPACE H O U S E S FW

By Hannah Van Sickle

G

athering, as in both collecting and coming together, ranks among the favorite pastimes of a trio of new business owners in Rhinebeck. And if the chaos surrounding the past two years cultivated the seed for Studio SFW—a New York-based architecture and interior design firm that sprouted in January 2021—then robust (and decidedly Southern) roots caused its principle creatives to converge upon a shared mission: to bring lived-in luxury to interiors and lifestyle projects, no matter the zip code. To date, the aesthetic influence of Rachael Stollar, Erin Fearins, and Ward Welch spans the myriad miles between Manhattan and Rhinebeck, where House SFW, their newest gem of a collaboration, offers upstate homeowners a delightful edit of their most favorite things—for the home.

“It’s about trying to be welcoming and inviting [while] layering the space enough that people feel comfortable— nothing is too precious, but everything is special,” explains Welch. upstate HOUSE

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“The store is meant to feel like a room that is expertly appointed with layers of color and texture to inspire both the trained design eye and the casual observer” says Rachael Stollar.

This set of swivel chairs is upholstered in a Métaphors fabric called Zanzibar Cayenne. The tufted detailing is reminiscent of a mid-century design. “We wanted the chair to be quite tailored but also incredibly comfortable which is sometimes difficult to achieve in a larger scale chair.” says Ward Welch.

The Dutch Canal House Screen (in the photo with the swivel chairs) features a stepped top with Ted Tyler Indiene fabric. The Federalist House Screen (pictured in rear) has a straight top with Ted Tyler Pineapple fabric.

upstate HOUSE

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A large-scale modern artwork by Brazilian painter Juvenal Reis provides a mesmerizing backdrop for a bird-form urn.

“It’s about trying to be welcoming and inviting [while] layering the space enough that people feel comfortable— nothing is too precious, but everything is special.”

—Ward Welch, House SFW

“And has its own story,” interjects Fearins, who speaks to her colleagues’ shared commitment to bringing “that storied life of things,” that imbues otherwise commercial goods with personal meaning, to clients and customers alike.

The team brings a hands-on approach to design implementation, inspired by their respective, rural upbringings south of the Mason-Dixon line—and each brings something distinctive to the table. Fearins grew up scouring east Tennessee for vintage memorabilia, the kind on display at her father’s fully restored vintage gas station, innately inspired by the consummate “lifelong collector of things.” Stollar developed a penchant for antiquing in West Virginia’s “hole-in-the wall shops,” chock-full of rare finds; this, coupled with “the sense of gathering” absent from her upbringing, urged her on to create spaces for friends and family to converge. Welch, who grew up on a farm in West Virginia’s tobacco country, ultimately came to appreciate architecture in the massive, albeit deteriorating, Victorian homes around town. Each of these individual experiences fed their collective desire to eschew the new and seek out everyday objects that tell a story.

“There’s just so much out there that is wonderful and beautiful and should be used as opposed to thrown away,” Welch says of an approach reflected in the carefully curated collection at House SFW. Since opening in July 2021, the imaginative new retail showcase has piqued the curiosity of locals and tourists alike.

A New Appreciation for Timeless Finds “Oh, my mom had one of those,” is an oft-repeated phrase heard around the shop—one Stollar hopes will evoke “a new appreciation” for how certain timeless finds, when placed in a new context, become “instantly relevant” again.

During the pandemic, Stollar retreated to Rhinebeck. Several vacant storefronts beckoned, presenting an opportunity to get involved in the downtown retail culture. “[Unlike] other upstate towns, [Rhinebeck] is not just for weekenders,” Stollar said, citing the allure of a community where kids attend school and individuals are involved in what’s happening, as creating a palpable sense of momentum.

A visit to House SFW is akin to a discovery journey, the kind one might take while visiting a friend’s home and studying their menagerie of things. “When objects are arranged in a certain way, things [inevitably] catch your eye,” said Stollar, pointing to a wide array of wares including fun fruit- and veggie-shaped Limoges boxes and mini cocktail shakers, platinum-rimmed wine glasses, and covered soup tureens. There’s newly imagined taxidermy, lamps and furniture gleaned from the many great artists, fabricators, and vendors with whom Stollar, Fearins, and Welch have created relationships over the years.

“We try to be thoughtful about who each of our clients is and to bring things to them that help them build on, or start to tell, their own story,” says Fearins, who underscores there is no one-sizefits-all approach to design or decorating. This gets tricky when building a brand, which is why certain items—like upholstered pieces of their own design—are being made in Brooklyn and peppered throughout the store as a signature of sorts.

In the absence of proper entertaining (and we’ve all experienced the dearth), setting a beautiful table gives the notion of something grand and inviting—call it a Southern sense of graciousness, if you will. And this, at the end of the day (literally!), is what Stollar loves most about the change of pace synonymous with being upstate: “[The ritual of ] hanging out, having people over, and setting the table for dinner every night—I love that.”

Inspired to deck your dining hall (or communal living spaces, for that matter) with something swoon-worthy? Head to House SFW, in Rhinebeck’s Montgomery Row, where a panoply of tableware—including porcelain French knife rests (yes, people are using them again!) and other nostalgia-evoking rare finds— awaits.

HOUSE-SFW.COM

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upstate HOUSE

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T HE M A K ER

BLURRING THE LINES BETWEEN ART AND FURNITURE RENNIE CANTINE D ESIGN

By Hannah Van Sickle

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R

ennie Cantine was born and raised in Woodstock and has called Byrdcliffe—one of the earliest utopian art colonies in the United States—home. There, he learned the craft of carpentry from his father as they fixed up the family’s circa 1902 house together. By age 15, he was running all the saws and was rather adept at building. Following a stint on the West Coast studying environmental design and architecture at the University of California Santa Cruz, he returned home to raise his son—the 11th generation of Cantines in Ulster County.

Upon his return to the Hudson Valley, Cantine found work as the house carpenter at Byrdcliffe. Inspired by the woodworking shop and the furniture designs he found there, he began building benches—a whim that grew into teaching furniture-making workshops, receiving commissions (one, from Byrdcliffe, remains permanently installed on site), and pulling together a solo show featuring a dozen benches of his own design.

When the pandemic hit, Cantine turned to a lifelong love of nature and hiking while in isolation. As a kid, he hiked almost every peak in the Catskills—counting Mount Guardian and Overlook Mountain among his favorites (and for good reason: The latter peak rises over 3,000 feet and offers one of the best views in the Catskills). On one of his 2020 treks, Cantine reached a realization: “I decided my next bench project would reflect on the mountainscapes,” he says, before setting off to photograph the topography of his youth.

Storm Clouds over Overlook Mountain, part of the Overlook Bench series Opposite: Bluestone stool Replica of 1902 Byrdcliffe lamp stand; lamp by L&M studios Joe Veillette-style guitar sculpture with African Zebra wood

“I had this vision of being 1,000 feet above the [Ashokan] reservoir looking north, over the top of Ohayo [Mountain],” Cantine explains of the sweeping vistas, complete with crags, that became the back of each bench. As to the translation process?

Cantine put his chosen image on a plotter, blew it up to the size of a four-foot bench, and traced it out. “It’s pretty accurate,” he says of the largely intentional design process that allowed him to capture the Catskills’ irregular ridgelines.

Cantine points to a pair of legendary local carpenters—Roger Shultis and Tim Schussler—both of whom influenced his work.

When Shultis retired at age 94, he sold Cantine all of the wood from his shop, much of it harvested by his grandfather on the slopes of Ohayo Mountain. When Schussler died, Cantine bought all the boards his mentor had stockpiled.

“It was just this amazing treasure trove of wood,” says Cantine of his haul—which included a dozen species ranging from maple and oak to walnut and zebrawood, aptly named for the characteristic striped wood derived from various trees. “It was a one-in-a-million kind of thing,” he adds of the 10 truckloads— some milled, and some with live edges intact. From these options, Cantine fashioned the sprawling mountain scenes depicted in his Overlook benches and mirrors; those made of slabs with the bark left untouched by tools or hands are particularly dramatic. This eclectic oeuvre also includes bluestone stools, lamps, and—in a nod to another of Cantine’s passions—guitar sculptures.

Two decades ago, the lifelong lover of music (who plays in the local band Sabrina & the Gems) was tapped to lend his talents to

an outdoor sculpture competition and fundraiser for Byrdcliffe.

Having developed a reputation for bringing guitar players together—“the best in the world”—he was asked to serve as music director for the benefit concert. Full of ideas, Cantine struck a different chord.

“I drew up 12 sculpture designs,” Cantine says, recounting a process that involved laying his Stratocaster on a slab of oak to make a template. The jury snapped up his first design. That year, Cantine brought each of the remaining sculptures to fruition—a move that morphed into the Woodstock Guitar Sculpture Exhibition. Every other year for the past decade, Cantine has provided blanks for local artists to embellish; the sculptures are showcased in village shop windows, then auctioned for charity.

One year, Cantine bumped into Shultis at the Bearsville Post Office; turns out he had a small collection of antique, two-handed saws he envisioned making great guitar necks. Cantine thought them too priceless to accept, but Shultis insisted: “Have fun, create some cool sculptures, and make me smile when I drive through town.”

Suffice to say, Cantine’s done just that. From an innocuous studio that’s too small for visitors, he continues to connect the dots among Woodstock’s claims to fame as an eclectic community of artists, an oasis for music lovers, and a veritable playground for outdoor enthusiasts—to which Cantine feels blessed to belong. “I mean, it’s just the most beautiful place on earth.”

RENNIECANTINEDESIGN.COM

T HE M A K ERS

SMALL-BATCH TEXTILE PRODUCTION FOR DESIGNERS MADE X HUDSON

By Marie Doyon

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A

fter less than a year in operation, Catskillbased Made X Hudson is already proving both the demand for, and the viability of, a centralized manufacturing facility for the Hudson Valley’s small-scale textile producers.

A lot happened in the freshman year of the pandemic. Businesses closed and opened. People mass-migrated to the Hudson Valley from the city. We learned how to unmute ourselves on Zoom. And a group of people got together to address the growing demand for local production.

In July 2020, Hudson Community Incubator founder Eric DeFeo started hosting a series of twice-monthly calls with local creatives and entrepreneurs to explore the growing need for manufacturing capacity to support the region’s burgeoning maker class. “In the Hudson Valley, there are predominantly design and food

small businesses—those are the easiest to get up and running,” DeFeo says. “We eliminated food pretty early on because of the complexity of getting a commercial kitchen space and the licensing around it for something that would only serve a few companies. Whereas the garment businesses…” Well, in the artisan garment and soft goods industry there was room to expand in spades, helping even the smallest of maker operations.

It was through these calls that DeFeo eventually met Sirpa Cowell, who would go on to collaborate with him on Made X Hudson as a board member and head of design, development, and production. Cowell, who brings over 25 years of experience in international design, product development, and manufacturing, was a perfect partner for this project. After all, she had already

Made X Hudson sewing facility in Catskill. From left, stitchers Charline Myers and Danielle Eve with Mathew Gnagy, pattern maker and production manager.

Opposite: Stitcher Rachel Marino will be studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan this fall.

tried her hand at a similar vision. Teaming up with Tsia Carson, just got an order today from Nashville. We’ve worked with in 2017 Cowell opened Factory & Main, a sustainable, slowcompanies in Texas, California.” fashion co-op in Catskill with both retail and production space, including a sampling room, cutting space, and photo studio.

Scaling Up Factory & Main was a pandemic casualty, but even after Made X Hudson got its start in an old firehouse in Leeds—a letting go of the space, Cowell held onto the dream of a vibrant friend’s unused gallery space. But as the orders came in and center of sewers revitalizing Main Street businesses and the waiting list grew, the team knew they needed to find a empowering makers. “I have a big dream that we could one bigger space. “It was not properly insulated. Winter was day have a big hub with cut-and-sew, digital printing, pattern coming and we were getting busy,” Cowell says. They found making, and a studio where we can photograph items so clients what they were looking for in a second-floor space on Main can just put them directly on their e-commerce platforms,” Street in Catskill—a big, open space with lots of windows and she says of Made X Hudson’s future. “If we could do all that room to spread out. and offer it to smaller clients—that is my dream.” Here, DeFeo In its first year, Made X Hudson has collaborated with over jumps in to add, “That is our collective dream. We want to two dozen brands, hired six people, and overseen interns from make this an innovation hub for the region. There are not that two regional colleges, including supervising Marist’s fashion many facilities like that in the region or in the country.” program seniors for their capstone projects. Some local Through Factory & Main, Cowell had met many of makers they’ve worked with include Marvin Ruby, Quittner the region’s makers and was aware of the need for small Antiques Hanoux, Katrin Reifeiss, and Katrina Rodabaugh. manufacturing. “There is garment manufacturing in the “Having really experienced staff up here is still really hard,” city, but there are higher minimums,” she says. So they Cowell says. “We’re willing to train—it’s more about being tailored Made X Hudson’s offerings to suit. “We try to be comfortable sitting in front of the industrial sewing machine. friendly to small designer labels, so that we can help them The rest can be learned.” Speaking of learning, future plans for offer something other than fast fashion,” she says. And when Made X include holding sewing classes and other events that she says small, she means it. Made X Hudson’s production are open to the public. minimum is 24 pieces of a single style—a sample quantity “We’ve basically been in pilot mode,” says DeFeo of the selfaccessible to even the most micro of makers. funded undertaking. “Now that we’ve worked with at least 25 By removing the barriers to entry—namely production brands, we feel we’ve validated the concept and demand and minimums and accompanying costs—Made X Hudson hopes we’re looking to grow and scale.” This year Made X Hudson to fill the market with ethically made soft goods and clothing will be looking to fundraise, all the while playing the delicate from independent designers and brands, providing a bevy balancing act between workload and employee count. “We’ve of local alternatives to mass-produced garments. Per their had to believe in ourselves to invest in certain machines,” mission statement, Made X Hudson is dedicated to developing DeFeo says. “But so far, we can comfortably say it’s been “local, small-batch, high-quality manufacturing prioritizing paying off. We’ll be looking for more support to grow and make ethical labor practices and the creative design and production this a bigger hub for the area.” talent of the Hudson Valley.” But with values like that, it didn’t take long for word to get out. “It’s locally focused, but we work with small brands all over the country,” Cowell says. “We MADEXHUDSON.ORG upstate HOUSE

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THE S O U RCE

CATSKILLS CREATIVE COLLABORATIVE HINTERLAND

By Marie Doyon

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F

or almost a decade, Jennifer Salvemini nurtured the nebulous idea of a utopia she called Hinterland, where all her disparate passions, from music and design to cooking and flower arranging, could flourish. A place that included a creative studio for design projects, a kitchen for large shared meals, a space for gatherings. “In my mind, it was this fantasy of a playground where I could get to do all the things that bring me personal joy, and hopefully, through that, bring joy to other people,” says Salvemini.

The New Jersey-raised interior designer studied anthropology at Pace and worked in hospitality, fashion, and event planning in New York City before finding her way back to her lifelong love of home design. A thirst for nature drew her upstate, where in 2017 she found a property that gave wing to her Hinterland dreams.

“I grew up in the suburbs, so everything felt very sterile and structured. After 20 years in the city, I didn’t know how badly I needed to be in nature,” she says. “The wild child that was always in there is truly at home up here.”

Located in Shokan, Salvemini’s 2,500-square-foot, cedar shingle-sided rambler sits on almost two acres sandwiched between the Ashokan Rail Trail and Route

Hinterland’s showroom features the work of 10 women artists and artisans.

Photo by Phil Mansfield Opposite: The stoneware of Erica Recto.

Photo by Winona BartonBallentine

28. When the COVID lockdown hit, she moved upstate fulltime. She didn’t take long to plug in. Amid social distancing orders, she bought a vintage ice cream cart, got a peddler’s permit, and started scooping sundaes from the end of her driveway in summer 2020 with the rest of her COVID pod.

Aside from her own steady stream of design clients, Salvemini is also the strategist for the Kingston Design Connection’s annual showhouse (as well as frequent participator).

A Playground for Many Salvemini had originally planned to convert her Shokan home’s former garage into a studio space for her own design work and meetings with clients—the first inklings of Hinterland in the real world. “As the concept developed and as I matured as a person, I came to understand bringing joy to other people is how I bring joy to myself—not the other way around,” she says. “That is where the urgency about forming the co-op came in—a collaboration to give voice and access and a platform to other creatives.”

As her web of connections with area creatives grew, so did the cooperative of women artists and artisans. Today Hinterland has 10 members, including Salvemini. The current roster includes visual artists Katie Westmoreland and Marcie Paper, ceramicist Erica Recto, metalworker Alison Zavracky,

textile artisan Nancy Geany, wildcrafted skincare maven Babs Mansfield of Phoenicia Soap Co., stained glass maker Brenna Chase of Willow Deep Studio, event planner Sophie Grant, and singer-songwriter and clothing designer Nyamka Ayinde.

“We have this shared worldview of cocreating as a way of thriving, not just as an economic tool, which it does function as, but as a support system for our emotional and creative lives—it is a sisterhood,” Salvemini says. “To keep your craft yours while leaning on the talents and resources of a group of others that are mutually interested in your well-being and success without it being competitive is really a remarkable thing.”

The Hinterland co-op is as much about emotional and creative nurturing as it is about practical support. The group embraces resource sharing—from software and online tools for accounting to workspace and materials. The members collaboratively manage the Hinterland social media accounts, contribute to its blog, and produce products for the showroom.

“The reason the co-op is exclusively tailored to makers of homewares and lifestyle products is because that is how I can drive business to it,” Salvemini says, referring to her own interior design and lifestyle consulting clients. “The real intention of the showroom is to operate as an example of collaborative custom work rather than as a purely retail shop.” upstate HOUSE

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The showroom is a departure point; an invitation to engage; a sense-based, immersive Rolodex of potential creative collaborators who are capable of customizing everything from wall coverings, drapery, upholstery, and art to hardware, tableware, and clothing.

To guide the cooperative’s collaborative creation, Salvemini puts together biannual mood boards with colors, textures, words, and imagery to serve as inspiration. “What comes back to me is however they want to interpret that direction,” says Salvemini, who piloted this approach for fall/winter 2021. “For the first season, I was completely shocked when that last bit of product arrived and I was staging it. I was able to step back and say, ‘Holy shit, it worked!’ There was so much cohesion. Without having to be super directive about what I was requesting, they were able to run with loose directions and when we plugged it all in, this magic happened.” Salvemini hopes that when the infrastructure for collaboration is more fleshed out, the artistic direction will come from a more emergent place or that members will take turns in they curator’s seat.

For now, the makers are each at work on their contributions to the spring/summer 2022 collection. The showroom is currently only open by appointment, though Salvemini hopes to have regular weekend hours by the end of June.

The cooperative recently participated in Field + Supply’s annual Memorial Day weekend market at Hutton Brickyards.

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While there were some smaller items for sale, the concept of the booth, like the showroom, was primarily to serve as an example for future custom collaborations.

This summer will also mark the launch of a variety of Hinterland programming, with multiple art exhibitions on the horizon. In June, the Shokan property will host “Rhythm of Light,” a collaborative installation featuring the work of co-op members Katie Westmoreland and Nymaka Ayinde exploring the vibration of the summer solstice through light, sound, and color. In July, Hinterland will participate in the third-annual Upstate Art Weekend, with an immersive, multisensory concept designed to highlight art as a dialectic between the external world and internal processes—a dance between the art and the experiencer. In August, Hinterland will host a one-day Fungi Funday with talks, demonstrations, a market, a multicourse mushroom dinner, and a dance party.

“It’ll be a one-day festival in honor of mushrooms because we love them so much,” Salvemini says. “Because we really believe they are a fantastic symbol for what we do— information and resource sharing, supporting the ecosystem around themselves. And then the creation of these beautiful fruits. We’re captivated by that as a symbol for the co-op. And I didn’t need an excuse to throw a party.”

THISISHINTERLANDNY.COM

Members of the Hinterland cooperative, from left: Nyamka Ayinde, Babs Mansfield, Alison Zavracky, Jennifer Salvemini, and Erica Recto.

427 warren, hudson, ny • the gallery at 200lex, nyc info@finchhudson.com • 518.828.3430 • @finchhudson

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COM M U N IT Y

BEACON A Seductive Signal

By Anne Pyburn Craig Photos by David McIntyre

T

he area that became Beacon was first appropriated by European colonists in the early 1680s, when two fur traders purchased it from the Wappinger tribe for about $1,250 in merch. It was, and remains, an exceptionally advantaged spot, backed up to the highest mountain in the Hudson Highlands and a four-season creek running through it to a commodious bay.

One of the patentees left his share to his daughter Catheryna, who married a British naval officer named Roger Brett and built a homestead (now a museum) before he drowned in the river.

Widowed at 31, Catheryna carried on, organizing the area’s first produce cooperative, building a road along the Fishkill Creek, and helping to organize a storehouse on the shore.

During the revolution, the summit of Beacon’s mountain achieved iconic status for signal fires visible from West Point. In 1902, a funicular railway was installed with a 74 percent grade, the steepest of its kind and not for the faint of heart.

Beacon faced a familiar litany of challenges in the mid-20th century, with urban renewal devastating its downtown while deindustrialization sucked the surrounding economy dry. The 1970s saw the closure of both the incline railway and a short-lived ski area.

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But more change was already waiting in the wings. A local named Pete Seeger founded the Beacon Sloop Club. Beacon’s downtown began to flourish in the 2000s, when the Dia Art Foundation’s opened its 160,000-square-foot museum in a former Nabisco box factory, kicking off a trend of adaptive reuse and reinforcing the city’s growing reputation as an artist’s haven.

Besides the irreducible assets that were familiar to Madame Brett, the town had gained a MetroNorth stop, an interstate highway interchange, a castle on an island just offshore, and, much more over the intervening decades. Nowadays, you can tour Pollepel Island, hike to the of summit Mount Beacon, and brunch in a historic textile mill overlooking the creek—or down on the shore at Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park.

The Scene Christina Montaldo, a horse trainer and single mom, watched Beacon transform while growing up in nearby Wappingers Falls. Five years ago, she picked up and moved there. “I’ve been coming to Beacon my whole life, and I remember when it was a total mess,” Montaldo says. “It’s turned into something remarkable—very welcoming and a great place to live, and every single year it’s better and better.”

With its densely packed mile of Main Street commerce and a riverfront remodeled by Scenic Hudson, Beacon does seem to have come into its own as a spot where dreams of all kinds can bear fruit. “Beacon is very community oriented, but it’s also very future oriented,” says Aimee deSimone of Berte, the handmade design shop she opened in October of 2020. Before opening the store, deSimone worked in television production, which involved a lot of traveling around the country and shooting B-roll of various main streets. It carries particular weight when she says that Beacon’s mile-long Main Street sticks out. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says. There’s a cat cafe (Bean’s); the sustainable bulk retailer Refill Restore has just opened up, a long overdue place where Beaconites can buy cleaning products and other home goods in bulk without the packaging; and a handful of provisions shops have also hung out their shingles recently. There’s also the Hudson Valley Food Hall, where restaurant concepts are incubated in a communal environment and cocktails designed around Hudson Valley spirits are served.

Montaldo loves Beacon for its “diversity of atmospheres, she says. “You can grab a bite and some coffee and then walk down to the river for nature and quiet time. Whether you’re in a beerand-pool table or a coffee-and-art gallery mood,

THE FACTS ZIP CODE: 12508 POPULATION: 13,968 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $78,350 PROXIMITY TO MAJOR CITY: New York City is 60 miles to the south.

TRANSPORTATION: Beacon has its own MetroNorth Station. It’s a little over an hour to get to Grand Central Station by train. I-84 runs across the north end of Beacon, Route 9D runs through the city’s west end, and Route 9 is about a mile to the east. Stewart International Airport is 14 miles west in New Windsor. A commuter ferry makes regular runs to Newburgh.

NEAREST HOSPITAL: St. Luke’s Cornwall is six miles over the Hudson River in Newburgh, Vassar Brothers is 15 miles north in Poughkeepsie SCHOOLS: The Beacon City School District has four elementary schools (Glenham, Sargent, J. V. Forrestal, and South Avenue), one middle school (Rombout), and the Beacon High School. Private schools are Hudson Hills Academy Montessori (Pre-K-7) and New Covenant Learning center (Pre-K-4).

POINTS OF INTEREST: Dia:Beacon, Long Dock Park, Dennings Point, Madam Brett Park, Nia and Haile Thomas of Matcha Thomas, a wellness teahouse on Main Street serving vegan and gluten-free drinks and sweets.

Opposite: Stella Serpico filling a bucket of popcorn at Story Screen movie theater.

Mount Beacon, Quinn’s, Howland Cultural Center, Hudson Beach Glass, Towne Crier Cafe, Bank Square Coffeehouse, Yankee Clipper Diner, Hudson Valley Brewery, Binnacle Books,

it’s all close by. There are all different kinds of shops—soaps, clothing, art, music, books, toys, instruments—and right down the street there’s a music and theater venue with shows three nights a week. It’s just very nice, living a block and a half from Main Street when there’s always something exciting, cool, and new going on— and being able to walk to hiking and waterfalls.”

The Market Growing up nearby in Garrison, Charlotte Guernsey saw Beacon’s next wave coming and began renovating her own Main Street building in the late ’90s, then opened her real estate office in 2001. A designer by training, Guernsey has been instrumental in several of the city’s major renovations. “We have been turning the whole city around, and it’s beautiful being part of it,” she says. “Market conditions here are still pretty wild; there’s still very low inventory, and it’s still driving prices to be pretty high. People still want to be here. It’s a little less frenzied than a year ago, but until inventory builds back up, that’s where we are.”

That said, Guernsey believes several factors point to further cooling. “The new [higher] interest rates mean that buyers can no longer afford certain price ranges, which lessens demand. Then too, some of the people who moved up from the city now have to go back,

and there are some for whom it just wasn’t what they thought it would be,” she says. “We have a reciprocal relationship where we feel the market downstate—when prices are strong down there, people have the money to buy up here, so we get a wave.”

Guernsey says a touch of cooling is a healthy thing at this point. “We had a perfect storm of a housing shortage, people moving up and not having to commute for a long time. At this point it’s gone up so much so fast that it needs to level off, and people know that. It’s nicer when there are opportunities for people to get a deal, and with everything super-high, that opportunity’s not there.”

That said, the opportunities existing in Beacon at press time included a couple of one-bedroom condos for $145,000. A quarteracre wooded lot was offered for $125,000. A 765-square-foot, two-bedroom fixer-upper at the foot of the mountain was offered at $299,900, and there was a smattering of newer three- and four-bedroom ranches between $300,000 to $600,000.

A renovated four-bedroom Victorian that pairs a rocking-chair porch and original bay window with a modern dream kitchen had just come on the market for $825,000; a fourbedroom, two-and-a-half-bath Colonial built in 2016 was listed for $985,000.

Two-Way Brewing, Industrial Arts Brewing, Happy Valley Arcade Center, Glazed Over Doughnuts, Peaceful Provisions, One More Bite, Trax Espresso, Big Mouth Coffee, Melzingah Tap House, Hudson Valley Food Hall, BJ’s Restaurant, the Snooki Shop, the Roundhouse, Story Screen Beacon Theater

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COM M U N IT Y

WARWICK

Pastoral Scenes With a Village Vibe

By Jane Anderson Photos by David McIntyre

T

he town of Warwick is known for cute hamlets and villages, lots of open space, and family-friendly amenities. With pandemic pressures and the evolution of “work from home” innovations, the real-estate market here, as elsewhere in the Hudson Valley, has exploded. However, there’s no influx of big housing developments and no culture wars between longtimers and newbies: Here in Warwick, there’s a shared sense of home and harmony.

“Even before COVID, there were the beginnings of bidding wars,” says Susan “Shine” Onderdonk, a licensed real estate salesperson with Howard Hanna Rand Realty in Warwick. “Warwick has been able to maintain its suburbs, farms, and cute little villages, along with good schools.”

A conscientious eye toward growth is the town’s hallmark. “We have a balance of responsible development that respects our open spaces and quality of life,” says Michael Sweeton, supervisor of the town of Warwick. “And people sense that we respect where we live.”

That responsibility came to the forefront 20 years ago, when the town implemented its Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program.

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the PDR has preserved 4,400 acres of land with 38 farms. Eight more farms, totaling 750 acres, are in the application process. For local homebuyers, the knowledge that the bucolic setting outside their front door won’t change into a bustling housing project is a major draw.

The Scene Danielle Williams-Bell and her wife, Charlie Williams-Bell, were living in Westchester before they bought their home in Pine Island in 2017.

Although Danielle had family in the Middletown/ Scotchtown/Bloomingburg area, they weren’t interested in the Pine Bush or Middletown school district for their four children. Pine Island—in the heart of the town’s Black Dirt farmland—offered the perfect mix of pastoral beauty and Warwick Valley schools, where their children now attend public elementary and middle schools.

“We wanted to find somewhere that would be a reasonable commute to Westchester, had an LGBTQ-friendly community, and where we could have a little bit of property,” Danielle says. “We were sold on Pine Island because of the Black Dirt flats and the farm areas around us. We also liked the bonus of lower property tax by being in Pine Island but still part of the Warwick school district.

We knew we wanted to have kids, so a good school district was important to us.”

Their Cape Cod-style home is a bit small for their growing family of four children, so the Williams-Bells may eventually sell. But for now, they’re loving it. “The farms, the community, those are our favorite aspects,” Danielle says. “We have chickens, and we are trying our hand at some larger-scale gardening this year. We’re in the area for it, and that’s what we wanted for our family, so it’s working out well.”

The Town of Warwick, which includes Pine Island, is full of sweeping farmlands and pretty vistas (thanks to the PDR). And its three villages— Warwick, Florida, and Greenwood Lake—are each distinctive.

Warwick village’s Main Street is chock-full of boutiques, restaurants, and upscale watering holes.

But residents can also get their prescriptions filled at CVS near the iconic Clocktower, or at Akin’s just a couple blocks down Main Street. St. Anthony’s Hospital is at the gateway to the village. And if you need a kitchen pot, a gift, a toy, even just a pair of socks, you can rely on Newhard’s, the department store that’s been helmed by Village Mayor Michael Newhard and his family for 35 years. Walking trails, playgrounds, and other family-friendly activities are mere steps away. It’s safe to say that Warwickians don’t need to leave the village to get their needs met.

The Village of Florida is a little sleepier, but still offers restaurants (including the Florida Bakery

THE FACTS ZIP CODE: 10990 POPULATION: 32,065 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $86,241 PROXIMITY TO MAJOR CITY: Warwick is 58 miles from New York City and 118.2 miles from Albany.

TRANSPORTATION: Warwick is located 17.2 miles from Route 17. New Jersey Transit provides commuter bus service from Warwick to New York City and the surrounding areas, and a free Parkn-Ride is located on Route 17A. The public-use Warwick Municipal Airport is located within the town.

NEAREST HOSPITAL: St. Anthony Community Hospital is located in Warwick.

SCHOOLS: Warwick Valley Central School

Sunset at Penning’s Farm Market, an agritourism destination with garden center, pub, grill, ice cream stand, bakery, and beer garden.

Opposite: A dozen restaurants participated in Warwick’s outdoor dining program in the past two years.

& Deli, serving up authentic stuffed cabbage, pierogis, and other plates in a nod to the village’s historically Polish heritage—it’s no surprise that polka king Jimmy Sturr is a village resident), a hardware store, and other shops.

Greenwood Lake began as a playground for the rich a couple of centuries ago. It’s gone through its ups and downs, but the restful water views and boating opportunities have piqued the interest of an avalanche of people lately, according to Onderdonk.

The Market At press time, in Greenwood Lake—where children attend either Warwick Valley or Chester schools—19 homes were actively listed in a price range of $75,000 to $9.5 million.

In the entire area served by the Warwick Valley school district, there were 60 active homes on the market at press time, ranging in price from $219,900 to $3.5 million.

“People are gravitating toward the area; the ability to work from home, also, has opened up many more possibilities,” Onderdonk says.

“In the past, it was rare to see a million-dollar listing. Yet between June 2021 and May 2022, there have been three homes listed between $900,000 and a million dollars, and eight listed between one and two million dollars.”

The reasons, according to Onderdonk, are

three-fold: inflation, scarcity of inventory, and the “post-COVID attitude”: the need for fresh air, good schools, and safety.

Interest rates are still at historically low levels, fueling the home-buying efforts, and there’s a big need for rentals, as well. “We even have bidding wars on rentals,” Onderdonk says in amazement. People are also buying second homes and renting them out as Airbnbs. That, in particular, has greatly improved the perception of some areas, like Greenwood Lake.

“We’re dealing with a large number of people, but very little inventory,” Onderdonk says.

“It’s a major sellers’ market. Buyers have to be creative and accommodating. Homes are listing at a high price point, but are selling quickly.”

How quickly? Onderdonk has seen houses listed and sold within a week. Others sell almost as fast as they are listed. And bidding wars have hiked home prices sky-high. The median sale price of homes in the area in January 2012 was $292,000. A decade later, that median was $475,000. By April 2022, the median climbed to $538,000.

The walkability of Warwick village, especially, has played a big part in the real estate boom.

“Many new residents are coming from the city, and they aren’t looking for a three-acre spread,” Mayor Newhard says. “Here, everything is accessible and doable on foot.”

District serves over 3,000 students in five buildings: Pine Island Elementary, Park Avenue Elementary, Sanfordville Elementary, Warwick Valley Middle School, and Warwick Valley High School. Students living in and around the village of Florida attend Florida Union Free School District, which serves about 840 students in two school buildings: Golden Hill Elementary (pre-K through grade 5), and S. S. Seward Institute (grades 6-12). Greenwood Lake students attend Greenwood Lake Union Free School District at Greenwood Lake Elementary and Greenwood Lake Middle School, after which families may choose between Warwick Valley High School and Chester Academy High School. Nearby independent school options include Calvary Christian Academy (Baptist, K-12 and homeschool program), St. Stephen St. Edward School. (Roman Catholic, pre-K through grade 8), and Tuxedo Park School (pre-K through grade 9).

POINTS OF INTEREST: Appalachian Trail, Wawayanda State Park, Greenwood Lake, Wickham Woodlands, Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge, Glenmere Mansion, Warwick Inn, Applewood Winery, Clearview Vineyard, Landmark Inn, Pennings Farm and Cidery, Demarest Hill Winery, Warwick Village Historic District, Mt. Peter Ski Area, Warwick Mountain, Bellvale Farms Creamery, Warwick Valley Winery and Distillery, Shalimar Alpacas, Florida Farmers Market, Warwick Valley Farmers’ Market, Long Pond Ironworks, Frazzleberries Country Store, Old Stone House Inn, Fizzy Lifting Soda Pop Candy Shop, Warwick House of Antiques.

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T H E G A RD EN

GARDEN OF

EATING

Hortus Arboretum in Stone Ridge has amassed a large collection of rare and endangered edible plants. Founders Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano share their growing secrets in a new book

By Karen Angel

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The Moon gate at Hortus Arboretum, Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano’s 11-acre garden.

Opposite: Mulberries can’t be sold in food markets because of their short shelf life and are generally made into jam, wine, or pie.

A

llyson Levy started gardening so she would have a supply of seeds, leaves, and petals to incorporate into her encaustic artwork. Her husband, Scott Serrano, relied on wild black cherry and hickory trees to attract the silk moths he wanted to draw.

Now, more than 20 years later, their Stone Ridge garden is a nonprofit organization and has become their main form of art. Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens contains many unusual, rare, and endangered plants, many of which are edible. It consists of 11 cultivated acres and an additional 10 acres behind the couple’s house that they bought last year and plan to start planting this fall.

“We became obsessed with the plant world and with diversity and species that might disappear,” says Serrano, noting that the couple will nurse as many as 200 plants indoors until they are strong enough or it is warm enough for them to go outside. “We are beyond full-time. That’s when there are plants all over your windowsill and your floor, and piles of seeds and packages on your dinner table.”

To help make their style of cultivation accessible to others, Levy and Serrano wrote Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts (Chelsea Green Publishing), which features 50 types of fruit and nut plants that can be grown in the Hudson Valley.

“The book was our give-back,” Levy says. “We wanted to show people some quick tips to grow things on their own.”

A Common Gardening Mistake Most beginning gardeners select fruit trees that are available at local nurseries, like apple, peach, and cherry trees. “That’s a mistake, because nurseries have to be conservative or they’ll go out of business, and there’s a huge range of what’s edible in the world,” Serrano says.

Common types of fruit trees also tend to get diseases and attract pests like Japanese beetles and aphids, while Serrano and Levy specifically cultivate plants that are “about 90 to 95 percent disease- and pest-free,” according to Levy. In upstate HOUSE

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addition, they focus on creating a diverse food supply that will help growers adapt to the effects of climate change.

“We loved that the book presented such a deep dive into perennial crops in the Northeast,” says Brianne Goodspeed, editorial director for Chelsea Green Publishing. “The amount and depth of information that Allyson and Scott offer about growing and propagation goes beyond the coverage you’d typically find in a home-gardening book.”

Each plant is accompanied by a short history, a “taste profile,” and a “growth difficulty rating” to prepare gardeners.

“Some things in our area, like maypop, are going to take coddling and protection,” Serrano explains. “Black raspberry is easy. Maypop is frost-sensitive. We’d put that at three. Black raspberry is a one.”

Gardeners who invest the extra effort will find maypop has “a deliciously mild, tangy flavor,” according to the book, and the vines “are spectacularly beautiful. Any garden would be improved with a trellis of maypop flowers, even if you never got a single fruit!”

From San Francisco to Stone Ridge The couple moved from San Francisco to Stone Ridge in 1999 and started gardening on the three acres that came with their circa 1840 house, originally a cooperage where barrels were made. They planted peach, apricot, and cherry trees on the property, which sported only a few daffodils and some

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boxwood and forsythia when they arrived. Those fruit trees have since been replaced with pawpaw, persimmon, medlar, and Cornelian cherry trees, which tend to remain disease- and pest-free. They preserved a large patch of low-bush blueberry and added a mulberry tree, a concord grapevine, seaberry bushes, and ornamental plants like purple and red salvia.

Serrano later created the couple’s first hardy-cactus collection, including flowering specimens like prickly pear and claret cup, which are typically found in the Southwest.

“But it was a heavy lean toward food,” says Serrano, noting that the edible-versus-ornamental distinction is often meaningless because fruit trees produce beautiful blooms.

“When we’ve grown something for many years, we can say with some confidence, ‘You should try growing this at your place.’

We’re testing things out and seeing if it’s worth all the effort; can it grow on its own without being coddled too much? All of these things are factors.”

He adds, “You have to screw up a lot to learn things.”

Diversity became the couple’s watchword. In 2004, they started sourcing plants from all over the world from mailorder companies “after we’d exhausted everything around us,” Levy says. Five years later, when they had filled their original three-acre plot, they bought eight acres across the road. A nut grove, an area dedicated to native plants, a collection of Chinese decorative and edible plants, and a Southwest desert wildflower and cactus bed now reside there, along with a

Hortus Arboretum grows a collection of cold-hardy cacti.

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Above: While Hardy orange is mostly skin and seeds, this native of Northern China ia an interesting landscaping addition.

Right: Unlike its tropical South American relatives, pawpaw trees will not bear fruit without a minimum of 400 hours of temperatures below freezing each year.

greenhouse to shelter vulnerable plants during the winter.

Meanwhile, they launched a landscaping business called Hortus Conclusus to support their gardening habit and had a cottage built on the plot that they use as an Airbnb. They also use the cottage to exhibit work by local artists who focus on nature and for artist and writer residencies.

A Hidden Gem Eric Stewart learned about Hortus Arboretum through a garden design company he owned about a decade ago. Then an organizer for the Rondout Valley Business Association’s tours of area gardens, Stewart invited the couple to participate.

Later, in 2017, the Garden Conservancy, a national nonprofit, also included Hortus Arboretum in its garden tours.

“Hortus Arboretum is a wonderful place to see and learn about gardening, native plants, trees, edibles, and exotic species from all around the world,” says Stewart, now an Ulster County legislator for District 18, which includes Stone Ridge. “It’s an amazing resource and a true hidden gem.”

Levy and Serrano began to open Hortus Arboretum to the public outside the tours and also created gardens at the local elementary and middle school that their daughter, Zoe, now 27, and son, Emmett, 19, had attended. They taught a monthly class called Edible Landscaping through Wild Earth, a nature

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Top: Che, also known as Mandarin melon berry, has a flavor that mixes qualities of mulberry and fig with watermelon and lychee.

Bottom: Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano at Hortus Arboretum in Stone Ridge.

immersion program based in High Falls, and started selling plants to members of the community, which they now do through an e-newsletter (the sign-up link is posted on Hortusgardens.org).

In 2012, the garden was accredited by ArbNet, a nonprofit group that establishes standards of professional practice for tree-focused public gardens; in 2017, Hortus achieved a Level II accreditation, which requires a minimum of 100 species or varieties of trees or woody plants. As the garden grew, the couple hired part-time workers to help them with maintenance.

Three years ago, Hortus Arboretum gained nonprofit status, making it eligible to apply for grants and receive donations. “Prior to us being a nonprofit, when Scott and I wanted any plants or any improvements or wanted to pay the people who worked for us, we just worked extra jobs putting in trees or other horticultural work for clients,” Levy says. Last year, the couple was awarded a $20,000 grant from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust for educational signage and is working on a second grant application to make their pathways more accessible.

Today, Hortus has about 10,000 plants, representing 4,000 species, and about a third are edible. It is open to the public on weekends from Mother’s Day through Halloween (hours vary and are posted on their website). Many of its visitors are locals, but there are also “random plant addicts who look us up and say, ‘Oh, there’s a little arboretum here’ and are quite surprised by what we have,” Serrano says.

A Berry with a Mango Custard Taste Some of the couple’s favorite edible fruits include American persimmon, whose taste they liken to butterscotch, and pawpaw, a berry with a mango custard flavor. “Another one in the book that’s really esoteric is mayapple,” Levy says. “It doesn’t have a big following because you can only eat the pulp, but it tastes like tropical passionfruit.”

Adds Serrano, “We also eat medlar, which is called horse’s anus. It looks like a horse’s butt from behind, but it tastes like cinnamon applesauce.”

The couple is already at work on a second book that will focus on edible tropical houseplants that can be transitioned outside during the growing season. The book will include a section on spices.

One of Levy’s favorites, spicebush, “produces a red berry that tastes like a combination of coriander, allspice, and black pepper,” she says.

In the past three years, they have doubled down on planting endangered species to help ensure their survival, sometimes by snatching seeds from other gardens. “When we think of leaving this place behind as a legacy, that’s what I think of,” Serrano says. “I want this place to be on the map knowing we have a large collection of endangered species from all over the world.”

“That’s our third book,” Levy quips. upstate HOUSE

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HOUSE PRO FILE

THE DISAPPEARING HOUSE A Modern Home in Hillsdale Offers Grand Views While Blending in with the Environment

By Peter Aaron Photos by Lisa Vollmer Photography

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The horizontal bar of windows set between log walls is perched on a crest of the small knoll and surrounded by distant hills and a view of Catamount mountain.

T

here’s a reason it’s called Hillsdale, after all.

Established in the late 1700s and centered around the intersection of what are now routes 22 and 23, the tiny Columbia County town encompasses nearly 50 square miles that undulate with gracefully arcing slopes and folds of rolling knolls.

Positioned on the crest of one of those mounds is Catamount House, a sleek, modern, one-story, 1,680-squarefoot, two-bedroom home designed by Grigori Fateyev of Art Forms Architecture. The house is named for the nearby Catamount Mountain Resort, a skiing complex on majestic Mount Fray, which is part of the stunning panorama that surrounds the site.

“Since I live in town, I drive down the road that goes by the house fairly often, and because of how the windows on each side are aligned you can see right through it,” Fateyev says.

“From a certain angle, the house just seems to disappear. It’s kind of amazing, really.”

A signature element of Catamount House’s design is its use of a CLT (cross-laminated timber) log wall system, which combines ancient and modern methods to create an exterior enclosure that’s energy-efficient, airtight, and breathable.

Although the CLT practice itself was developed in Germany and Austria in the early 1990s, the logs used were imported from Finland, where they were fabricated by Lumi Polar using a technique that combines smaller pieces of wood; the resulting components are more stable and have cleaner lines than raw, traditional logs. “We created an airtight but breathable envelope,” Fateyev explains. “The air moves through at a micro level, but there are no drafts.”

Although the 12-inch-thick pine log walls use no standard thermal insulation, they boast a formidable R-17 energy heatflow value, while the low-slope rubber mineral, wool-insulated roof caps the warmth-containment factor with a super-efficient R-70 and two Mitsubishi air-to-air heat pumps help to maintain a comfortable climate inside no matter how cold it gets outside.

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A pale pickled finish to the interior walls gives the home’s living space a light, airy atmosphere that makes the inside feel much larger than it physically measures.

“Yes, it feels very roomy and is very cozy in the winter,” says the client, Ilya Bykov, a New York-based financial, legal, and real estate advisor. “We also put in a cast-iron fireplace that burns small pieces of wood, for added warmth. Before building this house, I didn’t know about Passive House design like [CLT]. It’s all very organic, how it works.”

Above: The tall window aligns with a custom roof scupper. A curtain of water falls from the scupper into a catch basin during the rain.

Below: The whitewashed log walls define the perimeter of the building. The windows function in specific ways, balancing the need for privacy and connection to the outdoors in front of the bedrooms.

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Looking Out Through a Waterfall Although Fateyev has designed numerous other residential properties, his notable work on arts facilities, such as the TurnPark Art Space in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and artists Tony Thompson and Margaret Saliske’s studio in Hudson, came into play while devising Catamount House’s unobtrusive interior. “When I was first started studying architecture, I was more interested in theater design,” says Fateyev, who was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and attended Cooper Union. “But after going through the unique curriculum that I studied, I guess you could say I emerged a different butterfly. I realized that the eye is perpetually aware, so with art spaces I understood that the best ones are the ones that ‘fade away’ when you install the art in them. I saw that with this house the idea was that the ‘art’ is the environment that surrounds the house, and so we wanted to guide the eye to that. We designed the house specifically for the site. It’s perched on a knoll, and the landscape around it falls away, so it feels like it’s sitting on a little mountain. When it rains, the position and flow of the metal fascia and scuppers next to some of the windows make it feel like you’re looking out through a waterfall. It’s really special and beautiful.”

Essentially a custom-designed modular home, most of the project’s materials were shipped to the site via container

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In contrast with whitewashed log surfaces, the interior walls are made of painted gypsum. The wood stove flanked with bookshelves anchors the living room side opposite the kitchen. upstate HOUSE

| SUMMER 2022 • 4 1

from Finland by Lumi Polar. To help oversee construction, the manufacturer even sent a representative—who happened to speak fluent Russian, which, being both Fateyev and Bykov’s native tongue, was very convenient. “The build took about a year, mainly because of the shipping delays with materials in general,” says Justin DeBonis of Hudson-headquartered construction company DeBonis LLC, which assembled the house. “I’d never really done anything like this before, but it really turned out great. Even though it was basically prefab there were some things that had to be fabbed up, like the interior walls: I framed those with wood and used slotted metal tracking where the walls meet the ceiling, to allow for shrinkage to the log walls over time, and metal levelling across the trusses. The drywall hanging was done by a company out of Albany called Upstate Acoustical Corporation, which is run by Bob Williams. With the original kit, the basement was supposed to be very minimal, really just a place for storage. But Grigori and Ilya decided to make it part of the living space and kept adding to it, and it just kept getting nicer and nicer as we worked on it.”

Construction Challenges The low-slung, rectangular, shoebox-like structure has a basement level containing a two-car garage, two multipurpose rooms (currently outfitted as guest rooms), a steam room, and a home theater/screening room. The lower level mirrors the square footage of the ground floor and utilizes an ERV (energy recovery ventilation) system, which exchanges the energy contained in the normally exhausted air of a building or conditioned space, using it to precondition the incoming outdoor ventilation air. “The basement is finished in dark colors and has ambient lighting, which gives it a very sexy feel,” says Bykov.

The lift-and-slide doors in the kitchen and living room open onto the south-facing deck, protected from sun and wind with a deep soffit overhang and sidewalls.

The soaking tub is at the center of the primary bathroom, opposite the window to a private garden.

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For maximum privacy, the upper floor’s two bedrooms are situated at opposite ends of the house’s spacious open-plan living area, which is lined with triple-pane, high-efficiency, floor-to-ceiling, metal-clad windows with lift-and-slide components made by Pro-Form.

Echoing the Scandinavian, put-together-kit origins of the house itself is the kitchen cabinetry, which was sourced from Ikea. A large, U-shaped kitchen counter/sink area is illuminated after dark by recessed lighting and an innovative hanging fixture made by WAC Lighting. During the day, the space is brightened by the natural light coming in through the eight-foot-tall, two-inch-thick glass sliders that access the large patio, which offers ample seating for seasonal entertaining. One of the major challenges of the construction, says Bykov, was the installation of the home’s well and sewer system, which was made difficult by the rural spot’s rough, stone-laden soil and totaled $50,000 upon its completion.

Catamount House is located on the edge of the 40-acre property where the owner originally commissioned the home to be built as a guest house/caretaker’s cabin. With the advent of COVID, however, he’s taken advantage of the urban flight among New York’s well-to-do, renting out the house and seeing very healthy returns on his initial investment. “For the first year, I was able to rent it to a family from the city for $10,000 a month,” he says, adding, with a tone of further disbelief, “but then they moved out and bought their own local house, and I’ve since been renting it to another tenant family for $12,000 a month. They really love the house.”

Viewing this gorgeous and distinctive Hudson Valley home, it’s certainly easy to understand why they do.

In contrast with the lightness of the main level, the basement spaces, specifically the screening room, are finished in dark tones with splashes of color from paintings, back-lit onyx counter, and an antique rug.

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| SUMMER 2022 • 4 3

SP O NSO R E D

OUTDOOR LIVING & ENTERTAINING AT ITS FINEST Prep for a Super Summer Season with Three High-Impact Investments in Your Outdoor Space

D

reamy summer days hosting backyard barbecues, chillin’ by the pool, or making s’mores by the fire pit with family and friends is the ultimate. Your own backyard affords you a daily escape to unwind, relax, enjoy, and make memories that will last a lifetime.

Dreaming of upgrading your deck, patio, or adding an outdoor grilling station? Williams Lumber & Home Centers can guide you through each project so you can create an outdoor retreat that you will be proud of for years to come.

With seven locations, including two kitchen and bath showrooms in Pleasant Valley and Rhinebeck, Williams has been a go-to source for home improvement in the Hudson Valley since 1946.

Much More Than a Deck Adding or expanding a deck to your home is an investment in time and money. Kim Williams, 44

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online at upstatehouse.com

Senior VP of Williams Lumber & Home Centers, recommends building with USA-made Trex.

Trex is an eco-friendly composite decking that is an innovative blend of 95 percent reclaimed wood and plastic film. It’s beautiful, durable, and sustainable. Unlike wood, Trex decking resists fading, scratches, and almost anything Mother Nature has to offer. Unlike real wood, Trex requires no sanding, staining, or painting, and it’s splinter-free. Clean up is a breeze with simple soap and water.

“So often people think that composite decking is out of their price range,” Williams says. “While the upfront price of pressure-treated lumber can be lower, an investment in composite decking, like Trex, breaks even after a few years, because it saves you the time, labor, and money you would otherwise spend over the years maintaining a wood deck.”

Trex offers peace of mind with 25-year limited residential fade and stain warranties. Its deck starter tool, deck design tool, and cost calculator assist you in the decision-making process. Besides decking, Trex offers railings, outdoor lighting, furniture, pergolas, and much more.

Make Your Outdoor Dreams Come True Cambridge Hardscapes and Outdoor Living Products can be a terrific way to expand your backyard and create a “resort-like” feeling that you will never want to leave.

Cambridge pavers and wall systems can be installed around a pool area or to create a patio, driveway, steps, stairs, or retaining walls.

Cambridge offers prepackaged kits for fire pits and fireplaces, outdoor grilling areas and kitchens, pizza ovens, and wet bars. Williams states, “The possibilities are endless.” Most importantly, you

Nothing says summer like the opportunity to enjoy your own backyard to the fullest. Whether it’s finally building that deck you’ve always wanted, getting creative with your hardscaping using pavers and wall systems, or upgrading to a fancy new grill for your poolside bash, Williams Lumber & Home Centers can guide you through creating an outdoor retreat that you’ll be proud of for years to come.

don’t have to accomplish everything at once. That is the beauty of hardscapes. Each year you can expand your project to accommodate your needs and achieve your ultimate paradise.

Williams likes Cambridge with ArmorTec because they are 100 percent natural and sustainable. Cambridge interlocking pavement systems with ArmorTec and wall systems are Earth-friendly, recyclable, and provide many environmental, sociall, and economic benefits.

In addition, Cambridge offers a fully transferable limited lifetime warranty.

Upgrade Your Grilling Game Investing in a high-quality, easy-to-use grilling or smoking station for the summer is sure to keep your culinary flame burning.

For the charcoal enthusiast, Williams recommends going with a Weber original kettle grill, which comes in a range of snazzy colors to match any style. For the veteran grill master, go all-in with Weber’s Summit multi-burner gas grills. Williams says the Summit grills have

enough bells and whistles to put your indoor range to shame. Weber Smart Gas Grill, which allows you to monitor and manage cook times and temperatures through your smartphone, makes cooking a breeze and allows you to enjoy more time with family and friends.

Want to explore the wide world of smokers?

Williams recommends investing in one of the new styles catching on with backyard chefs. Electric pellet grills available from both Traeger and Weber burn wood pellets made of compressed sawdust from hardwoods like pecan, hickory, or cherry, adding delicious wood-fired flavor to anything you are cooking. In addition, don’t limit yourself to just smoking meat—these all-in-one options have the ability to grill, roast, braise, barbecue, and even bake!

If traditional smoking is more your speed, try a Japanese kamado-style smoker like those from Kamado Joe. These egg-shaped smokers are made of ceramic, which is known for evenly distributing heat and holding in moisture. This allows them to maintain a more consistent temperature that can

sustain the low heat needed for smoking—but rest assured they are great for higher-heat charcoal grilling, too.

“You can never have too many grilling accessories,” Williams states. Quality tools like a chimney starter, tongs, and a basting brush for marinades, vegetable and fish baskets, and an instant-read thermometer will help you get the most out of your new grilling station.

Outside the world of grilling, an Ooni pizza oven is a necessary addition to your backyard. The Ooni is a portable pizza oven that offers a wood-fired flavor powered by gas or pellets for amazing pizza in just 60 seconds!

No matter what projects you choose to tackle this summer, make sure to take time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Intimate dinners on your new deck with family or friends or toasting marshmallows over the fire pit. It’s all about building lasting memories that you can pass on from generation to generation.

WILLIAMSLUMBER.COM upstate HOUSE

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PRO FIL E

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FRESH PERSPECTIVE A Tivoli Mansion Updated With A Touch Of Whimsy

By Joan Vos MacDonald The Gothic Revival house was originally built in 1850 for Eugene Augustus Livingston. It currently sits on 100 acres. Trimble Architecture worked on the restoration for the home’s previous owners 10 years ago, including expanding the porch 360 degrees.

Opposite: The entry greets guests with a black pig table by Moooi The staircase runner is from Aronson’s Floorcovering.

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Ghislaine Viñas designed the custom solid ash cocktail tables with inserts lined in wallpaper. Hoff ottomans upholstered in Ms. Quilty color Fickle fabric designed by Ghislaine Viñas for HBF Textiles. Porcelain coupe plates

by Kehinde Wiley juxtapose a 19th-century portrait in the living room.

S

tained glass, somber hues, and heavy medieval furnishings were interior design fixtures in the heyday of the Gothic Revival style, but that’s not what award-winning designer Ghislaine Viñas imagined when tasked with updating an 1850 Tivoli estate. Instead, she whitewashed the interior walls, coated wooden floors in a glossy ivory, and incorporated pale furnishings and fixtures. Rather than focus attention on a darkly hued interior, the white walls dramatically shift the focus to views of the neighboring Hudson River and frame the home’s surrounding acres in their shifting seasonal colors.

Built during the height of the Gothic Revival fervor, the home was originally owned by Eugene Augustus Livingston, who named it Eversleigh. In 1923, new owners Howland Davis and Laura Livingston renamed the property Teviot, after a river in Scotland. When Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and his partner Matt Nye purchased Teviot in 2006, they engaged architect and designer Sam Trimble to renovate the property, which included extending a porch around the house.

Viñas’s clients asked her to look at the house in 2018 and she immediately fell in love with it. The house was in great shape and needed little architectural alteration. upstate HOUSE

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“We really didn’t do very much at all,” says Viñas, who worked alongside her team of Zoe Hsieh, Natalie Kean, and Laren Mercuri on the project. “No sheetrock was taken down or put up. No bathrooms were altered, the kitchen was kept intact.”

The home did require a fresh look. While Viñas thought the existing muted beige walls were beautiful, they did not align with her vision. “We dabbled with trying to put up toned walls, but ultimately decided to whitewash and it was definitely the right decision,” she says. “Because it gives it such a fresh, fresh, beautiful look. So, that’s really the main thing we did. The house came with the same linen oatmeal curtains and a lot of very thick woven sisal rugs. That was kept in place.”

It’s not as if Viñas dislikes colors. Quite the opposite. She has drawn inspiration from colors since childhood. “Opening a box of crayons just filled my heart,” she says.

Animal House Viñas is known for her colorful award-winning residential and commercial projects, as well as the stylish products she creates. Those products include fanciful wallpaper designs for companies such as Wolf Gordon and the Brooklyn-based Flavor Paper, plus textiles for HVF Textile. In the Tivoli house, she chose white walls not only because they showcased the structure’s clean architectural lines, but also to serve as a background for the clients’ extensive art collection.

“They have their finger on the pulse in the art world and they love collecting,” says Viñas.” Every now and then I get to 50

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share something, but it’s absolutely their collection.”

The white walls also provide the perfect contrast for the often whimsical colorful design elements Viñas chose to feature. An aqua deer head sculpture is placed on a wall next to a Gothic window, a life-size black pig sculpture serves as a table base for the entrance, painted red Victorian chairs feature seats with cat images, a black bunny serves as a lamp base, and a bird’s head sculpture pokes out of another wall.

The animal heads are reminiscent of the taxidermied heads that might have graced the walls in an original Gothic Revival home, only no actual animals were harmed in the process.

Viñas chose the pig-based table because she knew the homeowners would love it.

“In their New York home they have the horse version of that pig table,” says Viñas. “So that was an easy go-to. The deer head was something we already had from a previous house.

The bunny lamp is from Front. It’s something that we bought.

I don’t know why I designed with so many animals. It was definitely part of being out there, but I’m just naturally drawn to animals. I didn’t even know this. People do stories on me and call the project Animal Kingdom and I’m like, whoa, I didn’t even realize that.”

Her creatures do make the house seem as if animals just wandered in and settled down, which would not be inconceivable given the surrounding wooded acres. Except that her creatures are fanciful and vividly colored.

“There’s just something lovely and charming and engaging about incorporating animals. I am really into animals and

Art in the living room includes a Roberta Thornley photograph over the mantel and a piece by Jacky Tsai over the B&B Italia sofa.

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A Jill Greenberg photograph overlooks the dining room, which features two Viccarbe trestle tables through Mondo Collection and Saarinen dining chairs for Knoll in Maharam leather.

adore them.”

Sofa, So Good Viñas, who was born in the Netherlands and spent part of her childhood in South Africa, is drawn to what she sees as a Dutch aesthetic, especially when it comes to design. Both she and the clients favor the furniture of Dutch industrial designer Hella Jongerius. “In the piano room there’s a blue sofa called Oval Sofa by Hella Jongerius,” says Viñas. They loved that sofa. They had a green version of that sofa before.

They love that sofa and I love that sofa, so we kind of knew we were going there. That piano room is one of my favorite rooms. It actually has a lot of Dutch design in it.”

The room also features a Polder Sofa from Hella Jongerius, two wall sconces aptly named Tit Lamps by Studio Job, crafted from Murano glass and gold-plated steel, and a Moooi Console.

“There’s a lot of Delft-y kinds of Dutch aspects in it. I think that the blue of the sofa kind of led me to that, but it also has three vintage piano stools that are covered in navy blue Hermes scarves that are actually from the clients. They are from New Zealand and the scarves are patterned from traditional Maori patterns. It’s a lot of bits and bobs that pull it all together.”

One wall is decorated with a collection of plates. In its day a Gothic home might feature a plate collection imprinted with

colorful transferware, but these unpatterned plates glow in subtle pastel tones.

“We’ve done many of these plate collections for different clients,” says Viñas. “We did one in New York for these clients as well. It seemed to me that whatever I put next to the very, very haunting and beautiful portrait on the fireplace, also by a Dutch artist [Hendrik Kerstens], it couldn’t contain a lot of energy, so it was the perfect place for one of those plate installations.”

The client loves collecting plates, says Viñas, so it was fun to undertake such a personal project. “It definitely is a nod to traditional plate hangings that you might find in a Gothic Revival house. We’re always twisting things around and trying to look at new ways of doing old things.”

Calm and Collaborative While incorporating elements of surprise and discovery, Viñas’s main design focus was to promote a peaceful calm.

“I definitely wanted this house to be a lot quieter and more sophisticated,” she says. “I knew that their art would bring a lot of energy. So, a lot of the house is very calm and subdued, especially for me. I was very happy at that time to work in more subdued tones and not as many bright colors. I know for some it might be energetic, but for me it is quite peaceful in many ways.” upstate HOUSE

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A Gucci wallpaper encases the attic bedroom. The "I Love New York Catskills" poster is by Milton Glaser. A light by Horne sits atop a Tom Dixon table.

The TV room has a plush Clic sofa. Art by Raymond Pettibon and an Apple Art print by Andy Warhol adds color to the space.

The coffee tables are Muuto.

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The bed is custom designed by Ghislaine Viñas, upholstered in Holland and Sherry’s Ellie fabric in Sail Blue. The chair is by Ligne Roset. The room features artwork by Geoffrey Notman and Magda Archer.

The design process was very collaborative. “It’s not a sort of ‘a-designer-coming-in-and-waving-a-wand’ process and then the client showing up and saying, ‘What is this?’ They are design junkies. They love design. They love having a home that feels very unique to them.”

Viñas is currently revamping a bar and small hotel in Philadelphia. While her firm mostly does residential projects, Ghislaine Viñas, LLC, also engages in bespoke commercial design.

“We’re good at creating environments that feel very special and very different,” she said. “There’s always a story. There’s always a history that we’re following or a narrative that we’re creating for the project. There’s always stories behind everything we do and sometimes the stories are evident and sometimes the stories are much more subtle. The commercial work does allow us to be kind of theatrical, and maybe sometimes a little bit more blatant, but it’s the same process for us, it’s not widely different.”

When asked to sum up her design ethos, Viñas cites a simple concept: happiness.

“I think that the work that we do is really based on the aesthetics of happiness, creating spaces that feel good. You don’t know why you feel good when you walk into them, but they do just simply make you feel calm or energized or happy or make you smile or make you feel at home or welcome or anything that gives off good vibes. This is something I want to do. It just comes very naturally. Just to feel happy and content and very good in interior spaces.”

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S PO N S O R E D HOUS E FE ATURE

SUNLIT SANCTUARY AN AIRY ARTIST’S RETREAT IN LLOYD WAS DESIGNED FOR INSPIRATIONAL COUNTRY LIVING PHOTOS BY WINONA BARTON-BALLENTINE

A

rtist and graphic designer Joseph Caroff commissioned the construction of his Lloyd home in 1985. He built a retreat that would both inspire creativity and serve as a backdrop for showcasing artwork. Caroff is best known for his iconic design of the James Bond 007 gun logo and the West Side Story film poster. His agency, J. Caroff Associates, created art for over 300 films, including classics such as Cabaret and Last Tango in Paris, and his hand-drawn lettering has inspired the creation of several typefaces.

Two decades later, when artist and entrepreneur Kira Karmazin purchased Caroff’s home, she was introduced to his architectural vision by the artist himself. Caroff told her that he wanted light to shine throughout every room.

His architect positioned walls and windows accordingly, and the resulting open design, high ceilings, and floorto-ceiling windows ensure that the 2,137-square-foot Contemporary home glows with an abundance of sunlight.

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Designed for artist and graphic designer Joseph Caroff in 1985, this two-bedroom 2,137-square-foot Contemporary home in Lloyd is the epitome of a peaceful artist’s retreat, featuring plentiful windows that let in an abundance of natural light and plenty of space to hang artwork throughout.

“Every single room has light, and it streams throughout the house,” says Karmazin. “At the same time, the home was designed to showcase artwork.

It’s extremely rare to find a home where you can display such large pieces among so much natural light.”

Situated at the end of a long private driveway, the two-bedroom home offers another much-needed quality for an artist’s retreat: privacy. The property’s four acres are richly wooded in oaks, maples, elms, and firs and the beautifully maintained grounds contain low stone walls, a seasonal creek, and a historic barn. A walk on adjacent Bellevue Road affords expansive Hudson River views.

The home’s surroundings are so forested and serene that it’s easy to forget that it is only a 15-minute drive to the Poughkeepsie train station and a short commute to New York City.

“It’s a magical property,” says Karmazin. “Whether you’re sitting at the kitchen bar looking down the lawn at the antique barn or seeing wildlife play in the front yard—it’s just incredibly beautiful and peaceful outside,” she says. “Even just walking through the house and feeling the sunlight come in is so special.

Some of my favorite moments are waking up in the morning to the light streaming in.”

Preserving Artistic Integrity Karmazin has beautifully cared for the home, with any necessary renovations respecting its artistic integrity.

As a result, Caroff’s vision has been meticulously maintained. “I wanted to bring things to current sensibilities,” she says, “while maintaining the original aesthetic vision of the house.”

In the kitchen, she replaced the original elongated Formica countertops with a bright white granite that is more durable. Bathroom tiles were replaced with octagonal tiles of the same style in a soothing medium gray, while the bathroom vanities and mirrors were replaced with custom replicas. “The vanities were precisely designed to follow the original concept, because they were so utilitarian and perfect for that space,” Karmazin says. The house was also recently updated with smart home technology, including thermostats, doorbells, locks, and a sprinkler system.

One significant addition Karmazin made to the home was to ask New Paltz architect David Murray to transform a two-season garden room into an all-season sunroom in 2019. “Originally [Joseph’s wife] Phyllis had a garden room, and it was more of a spring-summer room,” says Karmazin.

“It was such a spectacular space, but it was showing wear over the years, so I hired David Murray to redesign it using the same design principles of the original architect.” upstate HOUSE

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The resulting room is light, airy, and inspirational, featuring full picture windows on two sides of the space that open up the home to the outdoors and an overlook of the home’s spacious rear deck and fencedin 40-foot lap pool. The sunroom was also upgraded with radiant heat. “The space is glorious,” says Karmazin.” It is one of my favorite places in the entire house. You can work from one area or just cuddle up and read a book. It’s a four-season cozy room.”

A Creative, Inspiring Space After buying the home, Karmazin continued to collect Caroff’s works, which she describes as both architectural and emotional. When she met the 100-year-old artist again recently, they discussed the artistic process. “One of the things he said was that creativity requires energy, and I feel that the house does that for you,” Karmazin says. “It has a restorative and inspirational quality. Whether you live there fulltime or just part-time, it’s an energy source.”

The home is a realization of Caroff’s vision to build a magical artist’s retreat, though you certainly don’t need to be an artist to appreciate its serenity and inspirational atmosphere. “The way the house is designed and the way it flows has the ability to lift your spirits, “says Karmazin. “It literally elevates your mood when you walk into the house. It’s something I felt when I walked into the home 20 years ago. I just felt different—it moved me.”

373 Red Top Road Lloyd $ 1 , 1 9 5 ,0 0 0 Gary Heckelman Licensed Real Estate Salesperson

Halter Associates Realty Woodstock and Kingston NY gary.heckelman@gmail.com O: (845) 679-2010 C: (845) 532-1178 Halterassociatesrealty.com This spectacular two-bedroom, two-bath, 2,137-square-foot Contemporary is offered fully furnished and features bright, open spaces, high ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling windows sure to inspire. As in any artist’s home, light is paramount: Here, changing sunlight plays across light oak floors, crisp white walls, and the silver-gray theme of the elegant yet casual kitchen. The view from the kitchen bar encompasses a graceful lawn, sweet pond, and antique barn. Close to the Mid-Hudson Bridge and both MetroNorth and Amtrak train services to Manhattan, this lovely property can be enjoyed as a weekend retreat or full-time home (perfect for remote work and perhaps the occasional trip into the city for business or pleasure). While this property is very private, the social and adventurous will find much to explore nearby: farm-to-table restaurants, vineyards, orchards, Walkway Over the Hudson, Minnewaska State Park, the famed Shawangunks, vibrant college town of New Paltz, Kingston Waterfront, and other desirable Hudson Valley attractions.

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Hudson Valley Properties Millbrook Real Estate SERVING ALL COUNTIES IN THE MID-HUDSON VALLEY

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$2,499,000 | Clinton | 215+ Acres This property has it all: views, pasture, forest, water, wildlife galore and an orchard, all bordering on Wappinger Creek. Falling within the Millbrook post office district, there is a site development concept for cluster housing along with a larger parcel division. Property crosses the Clinton/Washington line with quick access to surrounding towns and easy commuter access to the Taconic State Parkway and Route 82. Perfect for subdivision or private estate. MLS#398262. Diana Wiemer m: 845.234.0038 | o: 845.677.3525

$2,350,000 | Red Hook | Invite the Outdoors In! One-of-a-kind, 3-bedroom home on 6 wooded acres with designer features that exude luxurious modern simplicity. Open living spaces on main level share views of courtyard with covered porch. Primary suite has freestanding tub, shower, 2 vanities and walk-in closet, all on radiant heated flooring. Chef’s kitchen with Danish cabinetry and Bosch appliances. Detached 2-car garage. Available upgrades: outdoor kitchen, pool and patio, greenhouse, gardens. Adjacent 6-acres available. MLS#406105. Sean C. Eidle | m: 845.546.6077

$2,225,000 | Saugerties | Open Skies, Peace and Tranquility Log mansion on 60 acres with privacy but convenient to all amenities, plus skiing and boating on the Hudson River. Enjoy the wraparound covered porch and outdoor dining area off the kitchen. Enter the grand, open floor plan living room/dining/kitchen with floor-to-ceiling fireplace and wall of windows capturing the mountain views. Lower level has a wet bar, pool room, movie theater and more. Trails meander throughout the property. MLS#20220894. Lisa Cooper m: 914.388.0624 | Melissa Mayes m: 646.246.7310

$1,695,000 | Town of Newburgh | The Delano Family Estate Now available for the first time in over 60 years. This 9,007 sq.ft., meticulously maintained home has 6 bedrooms, each with its own fireplace and ensuite bath. Unique features include a 43 ft. library lined with original built-in walnut bookcases. Set on almost 2 parklike acres with views of the Hudson River, this estate is a perfect blend of old-world craftsmanship and modern comfort. Additional adjoining properties also available. MLS#6131003. Michele Rios m: 845.242.5762 | John Ruggieri m: 917.608.2980

$1,674,000 | Town of Woodstock | 44 Secluded Acres Bordering forever-wild land, this rare estate is where peace and quiet rule. This 3-bedroom, 3.5-bath barn-style home with 4,400 sq.ft. is grounded by a spacious living/great room with a cathedral ceiling, exposed beams, first floor main suite, bluestone fireplace and wall of windows with views of Cooper Lake and the Catskill Mountains. A separate 3-bay garage with a full, finished second floor includes a bathroom and space for guests, an art studio or gym. MLS#20221191. Sharon Breslau m: 845.901.6978 | d: 845.901.8236

$1,400,000 | Town of Wappinger | Dutchess County Gem Unobstructed river and mountain views run throughout this conveniently located Dutchess County classic colonial home with 4,032 sq.ft. Included in this sale is a 5.4-acre property that guarantees you the views forever, with a total of 14.7 acres. Don't miss out on this “once-in-a-lifetime” property! Minutes to Metro-North trains, shopping, parks and schools. MLS#407375. Joan Sanford m: 914.475.2090 | o: 845.244.2118

$700,000 | Stanfordville | Beautiful Former Train Depot If you crave a unique property, love history or dream of hosting short-term rentals, this property may be your ticket to ride. Built in 1889, the landmark Train Station in the hamlet of Stanfordville is the only station left along the former P&C line that ran alongside Wappinger Creek (one of the top 10 trout streams in NYS).

Originally, the buildings consisted of the main passenger station, coal shed and freight shed each of which have been transformed into 3 cottages. MLS#407326. George Langa m: 845.242.6314 | o: 845.677.3525

$680,000 | Millbrook | A Charmer Built for Entertaining!

This fully renovated 2-bedroom, 3 bath home is minutes from the village of Millbrook. As you enter, you will notice the spacious feel, high ceilings and flow that allows guests to circulate freely. The home features a large bright kitchen with butcher block countertops and hidden pantry. The large deck is accessible through French doors that lead to a custom-made table for 20. A path to a large outdoor entertainment area offers a variety of seating arrangements. MLS#406627. George Langa m: 845.242.6314 | o: 845.677.3525

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$3,100,000 | Rosendale | Lakefront Masterpiece Take refuge on this 8-acre lake, one of the last ones still in private hands in the Hudson Valley. This 41-acre estate features 2 hand-crafted houses: the multi-level lake house overlooks the water, rock ridges and forests, plus the unique mahogany-paneled admirals house, a wonder of design and efficiency, tucked out of sight for privacy. A 1-mile road surrounds the lake and connects it all. 5 minutes to Kingston; 15 minutes to New Paltz. MLS#20213800. Robert Airhart m: 917.304.3864 | o: 845.340.1920

$2,550,000 | Gardiner | The Ultimate Live-Work Experience This is a rare opportunity to own almost 80 pristine acres near New Paltz, with no less than one-third of a mile of frontage on the most picturesque stretch of the Wallkill River. A long driveway, buried utilities and a spectacular state-of-the-art ICF house and studio (3,300+ sq.ft.) are already in place, ready for a variety of dreams, including expansion. It’s the perfect one-of-a-kind estate for an artist or collector.

Hayes Clement m: 917.568.5226 o: 845.340.1920 | Donna Brooks m: 845.337.0061 o: 845.255.9400

$749,000 | Kingston | Uptown Convenience + Privacy Located on one of Uptown Kingston’s quietest residential streets, this 3,000+ sq.ft. contemporary cape sits privately alongside a babbling brook. The main level has a roomy living room, enclosed sun porch, media room with woodburning fireplace, eat-in kitchen (with patio to the pool) half bath and primary suite with private bath. The second level includes 3 bedrooms and a full bath. Minutes to the Stockade District and Trailways station for easy access to NYC. Harris Safier m: 914.388.3351 | o: 845.340.1920

$699,000 | Woodstock | Tranquility with Major Views Don’t miss this opportunity to feel like you live on top of the world! 65+ acres with potential views extending over the Hudson Valley. Calm and tranquil are words used to describe this area.

Just minutes to the Village of Woodstock, shopping, restaurants, and no less than 3 ski areas within 30 miles. Property also features a right-of-way for the driveway entrance off Abbey Road.

MLS#20212150. Donna Brooks m: 845.337.0061 | o: 845.255.9400

16 HURLEY AVENUE, KINGSTON, NY 12401

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KINGSTON 845-339-1144 KINGSTON COMMERCIAL 845-339-9999 • CATSKILL 518-800-9999 SAUGERTIES 845-246-3300 • WOODSTOCK TINKER ST. 845-679-9444 WOODSTOCK OLD FORGE 845-679-2929 • PHOENICIA 845-688-2929

We’re Everywhere You Need Us! - www.WinMorrisonRealty.com 54 Overlook Drive, Woodstock, NY MOVE IN READY! This Beautiful 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom Ranch located in the town of Woodstock. Built in the fi fties, and completely gutted and renovated in 2020! All new Kraftmaid cabinets, stainless steel appliances, granite countertop, and all new plumbing. During the cold winters enjoy the warmth of this home, not only from its natural sunlight, but the installation of blown-in insulation. Electric baseboard heaters with individually controlled thermostats in each bedroom. 200 Amps. Roof is approximately 5-6 years old. Drive into your attached garage and enter into well lit mudroom. $460,000.

For more information, contact Kathy Shumway, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson – (845) 901-6555 108 Bridge Street, Hunter, NY Perfect for AirBnB. Relax by any of the four fi replaces and watch the fi rst snow fall of the season on the mountain! Enjoy your very own private country home, located on .69 acres at the base of Hunter Mountain. Stunning Adirondack style, hand peeled Custom Sculptured Log Home has mountain views to enjoy while relaxing on the expansive front covered veranda. Wrap around deck overlooks custom koi pond with two waterfalls. Enter into a large foyer leading on to the oversized Great room with impressive 19-foot ceilings, a high-end kitchen w/ Viking commercial appliances, custom rustic cabinets, granite countertops, a center island with seating for 8, plus a custom spalted maple dining room table w/ additional seating for 12. $1,350,000.

For more information, contact Karen Stanbrook, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson – (917) 566-9021

654 Broadway, Kingston, NY Great Business Venture! The Sea Deli has been in the seafood and restaurant business for approximately 47 years. Sale of this well-established location includes all restaurant equipment. Currently operating 6 days a week. Sea Deli is located within the newly revitalized Midtown area, with newly paved roadway and new sidewalks. Convenient storefront is within walking distance to UPAC, pubs, and coffee shops. Hospitals, high school, and YMCA are also nearby. $250,000.

For more information, contact Kathy Shumway, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson – (845) 901-6555

3645 County Route 67, Freehold, NY The owner says, let it go! Huge price drop on this fantastic retail, income generating property. The historic Freehold Inn affords a terrific opportunity to own an inn and tavern that has been a mainstay of life in this Greene County town for generations. The inn dates to 1795 on the heavily traveled route from the Hudson River to the Catskill Mountains. This property consists of the main building featuring three separate dining areas and separate bar, as well as a huge commercial Kitchen with two walk in coolers on the main level. On the second floor has been converted to two apartments. Across the ample paved parking lot, is the old barn, most recently used as a banquet facility, two floors of dining space, a service bar and its own commercial kitchen. The entire property was thoroughly renovated in 2000 and was operated successfully at the Freehold Country Inn for a decade. Given the flexible space, location and parking, there are countless possibilities for other commercial or retail uses. $584,900.

For more information, contact Patrick Sheehan, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson - (845) 876-7653 66

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RESIDENTIAL • COMMERCIAL • LAND • INVESTMENT • MULTI-FAMILY

Inventory may be going quickly, but there is still time to spend the summer in your dream home.

169 Maple Ave, Greenville $525,000 Brett Snider C: 323.301.8312

s Greenville NY 5 BR/3 BA 3,844 sf | 25 acres

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11 King Street, Catskill $585,000 David King C: 518.929.0755

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White Bridge Farm c1775 Old Chatham N. 7BR. 8BA. 160 acres. $15,000,000. Web# 21112461 Nancy Felcetto & Robin Horowitz 917-626-6755

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200 Acres of Meadows and Fields Cooperstown, NY. Y. 3BR. 2 Bath.

Y $645,000. Web # 20445725 Michael Stasi 518-660-1303

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Solid Mid-60’s New Paltz NY. Y. 3BR. 2BA. 15 acres.

Y 3 acre pond. $555,000. Web# 21398562 Simone Consor 214-588-2115

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Prime Hudson 5 Shops / 8 Res + & 8000SF Yard Y Hudson NY. Y. Commercial / Residential Y $2,950,000. Web# 20740891 7 740891 Nancy Felcetto & Robin Horowitz 917-626-6755

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Chic Modern Country Claverack NY. Y. 4BR. 4BA. 16 acres.

Y $1,875,000. Web# 20644918

4

Jean Stoler 518-755-4298

5 6.

Hillside Lake Direct Waterfront Wappingers Falls, NY. Y. 4BR. 2BA. Y $325,000. Web# 21194064 Joseph Lorino 212-452-4513

7.

78 Acres Awaits Y Your Vision Y. Beautiful Views.

Y Claverack NY. $375,000. Web# 20373671

6

Michael Stassi 732-241-1723 8.

West Wind Hill Wassaic, NY. Y. 6BR. 8BA. 66 acres.

Y $8,995,000. Web# 21197812 Joseph Lorino 212-452-4513

7

8

w

6 8 • online upstatehouse.com All information is fromatsources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, prior sale or withdrawal without notice. All rights to content, photographs and graphics reserved to Broker. Equal Housing Opportunity Broker.

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LAZY SWAN GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB, SAUGERTIES $13,000,000

WOODSTOCK $825,000

119 ACRES

SHOKAN $799,000

STONE RIDGE WOODSTOCK $650,000

KINGSTON $589,000

HURLEY $698,000

KINGSTON $585,000

WOODSTOCK $549,000

STONE RIDGE $379,000

$965,000

WOODSTOCK 845 679-2010 I KINGSTON 845 331-3110 I HALTERASSOCIATESREALTY.COM upstate HOUSE

| SUMMER 2022 • 69

INDEX O F ADVERT IS ERS INDEX O F A DVERTI S E R S Adirondack Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Herrington’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Pinkwater Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Apex Remodeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Herzog’s True Value Home Center . . . . . . inside back cover

Pioneer Millworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Athens Fine Art Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Hollenbeck Pest Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Quatrefoil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Augustine Landscaping & Nursery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Hudson Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Raven 3 (Hudson Valley Luxury Resorts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Barbara Carter Real Estate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Hudson Valley Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Rennie Cantine Overlook Benches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Berkshire Hathaway Home Services

Hudson Valley Goldsmith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Roman Professional Engineering / Roman Driveways . . 42

Hudson Valley Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64, 65

Hudson Valley Green Homes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Brown Harris Stevens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Jane St. Art Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Cabinet Designers, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Janson Scuro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Conklin Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Jeff Wilkinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Country House Realty & Red Cottage Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

J. Harwood Architect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

EvolveD Interiors & Design Showroom LLC . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Kimlin Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Exposures Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Larson Architecture Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Finch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

L. Browe Asphalt Services Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Four Seasons Realty Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Malcarne Contracting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty . . . . . . . 58, 67

Milan Case Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Whalen Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Freestyle Restyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Mise en Scene Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Williams Lumber & Home Center inside front cover, 46, 47

Glenn’s Wood Sheds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

New Energy Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

William Wallace Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Halter Associates Realty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

OXM Realty Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Win Morrison Realty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Hammertown Barn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Phinney Design Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

WJFF Radio Catskill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Sash and Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Scott Swimming Pools Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . back cover Stinemire Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Studio SFW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 SunCommon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Third Eye Associates Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Tip Top Furniture Flooring and Bedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 vonDalwig Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Pittsfield Kinderhook Coxsackie Windham

Chatham

Cairo

GREENE

MA Stockbridge

Hudson

Catskill

COLUMBIA

Hunter

DELAWARE

Lenox

Ghent

MASSACHUSETTS

Fleishmanns Livingston Margaretville

Shandaken Phoenicia

Sheffield

Saugerties Woodstock

Ashokan

Red Hook Millerton Kingston

Rhinebeck

ULSTER

CONNECTICUT

Sharon

Stone Ridge

Liberty

Millbrook

Hyde Park Fallsburg

DUTCHESS

New Paltz

Ellenville

SULLIVAN

Highland

Monticello

Salisbury

Kent

Poughkeepsie

CT

LaGrange

Thompson

Wappingers Falls Pawling Beacon

Newburgh Middletown

Cornwall-on-Hudson

PUTNAM

ORANGE Harriman

Peekskill

Warwick Stony Point New City

M A P O F TH E REG I ON 70

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online at upstatehouse.com

ROCKLAND Nyack

Yorktown Heights

Croton-on-Hudson

WESTCHESTER Ossining Tarrytown

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1119 Main St., Fishkill, NY 12524 | 845-489-0382

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| SUMMER 2022 • 7 1

B ACK PO RCH EDIFICE UPSTATE

Edifice Upstate is a design and build agency prototyping minimalist, completely solar-powered homes in the Hudson Valley and Catskills.

Invisible Architecture

I

n the Sullivan county hamlet of Roscoe, architect Marc Thorpe is piloting a sustainable building project that seeks to provide contemporary homes completely powered by solar energy at an affordable price point. Edifice Upstate is the design and build agency Thorpe has launched with his partner, Claire Pijoulat, a co-founder of WantedDesign, in collaboration with Kingston-based solar energy provider Solar Generation. A 1,000-square-foot prototype Edifice house will be completed this summer.

Ten years ago, the couple bought land in Roscoe and built a minimalist, 500-square-foot, off-grid cabin, looking for a simpler, remote lifestyle.

The couple made the cabin their main residence during the pandemic and the larger concept of Edifice Upstate took shape. “We want to develop a turnkey solution for people who don’t want to spend a million dollars on a suburban development home,” says Thorpe. “We don’t need McMansions anymore.

There are four Edifice models in development, all completely solar-powered.

They range in size from a 500-square-foot, single-level cabin with one bedroom, one bath, kitchenette, and living room to a 2,000-square-

72

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online at upstatehouse.com

foot, two-level house with three bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen, and a study. Prices run from $250,000 to $450,000. “We believe that we need to take responsibility for our energy consumption by taking control of our own power,” says Thorpe.

“We should be building smaller, self-sustaining houses and focus on quality, not quantity. Our goal is to build a future systemically integrated with nature for ourselves, our children, and future generations.”

According to Thorpe, the set of original designs are not an end point but a direction in which to guide clients toward building self-sustaining homes using renewable technology. “We expect to appeal to people who want something modern, minimalist, and renewable,” Thorpe says. “We can start with these designs and generate more ideas that utilize solar. Solar is the key here—the houses are designed, especially the roofscape, specifically for the solar panels.”

Thorpe’s contention, borne out by the architecture, is that homes of the future should be less, not more. “It’s a bit of invisible architecture,” says Thorpe. “When you reduce a house’s footprint and are not sucking energy off the grid, you’re doing something that’s relatively invisible.”

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