Historic Haven THE BARKER HUDSON TEAM AT COMPASS Cover Story on page 60 ON THE Cover Space Age Creations The sci-fi inspired machines and furniture of Steve Heller Balanced Execution A timberframe home makes the most of its scenic location Hard Work in Paradise A historic cottage turned into a bed and breakfast/dream home Fall 2022 HUDSON VALLEY/BERKSHIRES/CATSKILLS
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DEPARTMENTS
The recent rise in interest rates could be signalling a recession, which may, in turn, eventually bring interest rates back down.
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4 • online at upstatehouse.com
70 THE MARKET INDEX OF ADVERTISERS / MAP OF THE REGION
FEATURES
30 HOME PROFILE: BALANCED EXECUTION By Hannah Van Sickle Greg and Dee Olsen waited 10 years to build their house on a raw piece of land atop Bald Mountain in the Columbia County town of Austerlitz. Working with timber frame design-build company New Energy Works, their dream home was worth the wait.
72 BACK PORCH: KINGSTON DESIGN SHOWHOUSE
THE MAKER: WEIRD Four high-profile artists (including Eleanor Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces) setting up shop in Ellenville is certainly a sign of the times
AREA SPOTLIGHT: KINGSTON New residents and entrepreneurs are bringing bright energy to the city.
By Marc Ferris Marianne Sutton and David Watson transformed a dilapidated historic cottage in Cold Spring into an enviable live/work endeavor, opening the West Point Foundry B&B last year.
A large photograph by Massimo Vitali anchors one end of the living room whose concrete floors are softened with a plush shearling rug. Webb assembled a mix of antique, vintage, and contemporary furnishings, which include acrylic tables from White Webb’s Clearly Classic collection.
Photo by Art Gray DESIGN PROFILE p. 50
60 HISTORIC HAVEN Claim an exceptional slice of Kingston history with this mixed-use, two dwelling compound with pastoral views. Teeming with history yet immaculately updated, the property comes with a circa-1810 main house and guest cottage currently in use as a rental.
28 AREA SPOTLIGHT: NEW PALTZ This college town continues to draw newcomers for its natural assets.
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6 MARKETWATCH: INTEREST RATES ON THE RISE
THE MAKER: FABULOUS FURNITURE
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40 HOME PROFILE: HARD WORK IN PARADISE
Sponsored House Feature FALL 2022
All Brad Lail has ever wanted to do is make a living as a ceramicist. His small-batch, wheel-thrown stoneware is now some of the most sought-after pottery in the region.
For close to 50 years, Steve Heller has crafted one-of-a-kind furniture and sci-fi creations in his Boiceville studio 13 THE SOURCE: AVAILABLE ITEMS
The annual designer showcase returns for a sixth time October 7-23.
50 DESIGN PROFILE: DESIGNING FOR MAXIMUM HAPPINESS By Joan Vos MacDonald Designer Frank Webb built a meticulously crafted home in Pawling that’s carefully aligned with its environment and filled with design flourishes meant to evoke joy and relaxation.
21 THE MAKER: LAIL DESIGN
At their Tivoli emporium, Kristin Coleman and Chad Phillips sell the art and furniture they’ve collected at estate sales and auctions.
How did we get here? During the pandemic, inter est rates dropped, which made housing much more affordable. “Buyers don’t buy based on price, they buy based on monthly payment,” said Domber. “Raising interest rates tempers the demand. As more housing comes on the market, there’s less of a sense of urgency and buyers are waiting a little longer now because they want the right house.”
“Buy within your means, and put as much money down as you can and be prepared to move fast,” Domber says. “It’s still a seller’s market and I think it will be, at least through the end of this year.” For sellers, inflation has helped to drive up their property values, a perk they are still enjoying.
DIGITAL EDITOR Marie Doyon
The rise in interest rates wasn’t unexpected. “We expected rates to go up this year but we did not expect rates to go up this quickly,” says James Moran, vice president of mortgage lending at MidHudson Valley Federal Credit Union. Moran says it’s really hard to predict how long this will last. “You have to increase rates to slow down the economy and to increase the supply of homes. But we are in a recession now, which is slow growth in the first two quarters, so interest rates should come down. However, we still need another two quarters to figure it out. By the first quarter of next year, things will be a little more stable.” Domber agrees that the country is in a recession, albeit a mild one. “Not like what we saw in 2008 where markets collapsed, and there was a systemic collapse of our financial system,” he says. “Supply chains will straighten out and we’ll get back on track and have more normal growth for the next 10 years, but there are always going to be bumps along the way.” Historically Low Rates, Still Should you buy or sell a home now? Fortunately for homebuyers, Domber says that housing is still a good, safe investment. “If the rates change and plummet from five and a half percent, which is still a really good rate, you can always refinance,” heHissays.advice to those still searching the market?
SPONSORED CONTENT EDITOR Ashleigh Lovelace CONTRIBUTORS Winona Barton-Ballentine, Anne Pyburn Craig, Marc Ferris, Lisa Iannucci, Joan Vos MacDonald, David McIntyre, Hannah Van Sickle 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
“We just came off the past couple of years with an extremely low interest rate, so many people were refinancing their homes, maybe taking out cash to consolidate debts, whatever it may have been,” says Moran.
6 • online at upstatehouse.com
What goes up, must come down, right? Except when it continues to go up and up. When you’re watching the nation’s tumultuous economy and the insane housing mar ket, there’s no other way to describe the action. It’s a spinning wheel of rising interest rates, inflation, skyrocketing housing costs and, let’s not forget, the cost of gas. As a result, Hudson Valley residents are probably wondering how long this will go on, what’s next and how this affects the decision to buy or sell a home. We asked housing and mortgage experts to de scribe what’s happening, how long they believe this might continue, and what it means to the housing market in the next year. A little background. In July, the Federal Reserve enacted its second consecutive .75 percentage point interest rate increase, taking its benchmark rate to 2.25%-2.5%. According to Chuck Meier, senior vice president and mortgage sales director of Sunrise Banks, the Reserve’s interest rate hike means that a homebuyer’s purchasing power is reduced. “A rise in interest rates of, for example, even 1-½ percent means the buyer is going to need to earn about $12,000 to $14,000 more per year to qualify for the same mortgage,” says Meier. “However, when you look at the interest rates over the last few months on a 30-year-fixed rate mortgage loan, it has actually come down. It was up in the low sixes and now they are down to 5.75.” However, add in the rising cost of gas and groceries and potential homebuyers might decide that their monthly budget is being stretched a bit too much to bid for their dream home. “Inflation results in it being more expensive for people to live because they are spending more money on gas and food and have less money to allocate toward hous ing,” says Steven Domber, president of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hudson Valley Proper ties in LaGrangeville. “Hyperinflation is really what we have right now. As a result, people will stop spending, housing inventories will build up, and demand will slacken a little bit.”
CREATIVE DIRECTOR David Clark Perry david.perry@chronogram.com
A Quick Rise in Rates
If you’re on the fence as to buying a home because of rising interest rates, Moran agrees with Domber and says don’t wait to buy. “You just don’t know what will happen,” he says. “Rates could go up even more and you lose more buying power.
PRODUCTION DESIGNERS Kate Brodowska 45 Pine Grove Avenue, Kingston, NY 12401 (845) 334-8600 | fax (845) 334-8610 chronogrammedia.com All contents © Chronogram Media 2022
MARKETWATCH
EDITORIAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian K. Mahoney brian.mahoney@chronogram.com
—Lisa Iannucci
Interest Rates on the Rise
Don’t wait to see if they will come down. Rates are still relatively historically very low, even though five percent is a bit of a shock to people. If you saved your money, you’re ready to go.” The bottom line is that your decision to buy a home will come down to just that—your own bottom line. “With inflation, the buyers—and even renters—need to think about what they are comfortable with as a housing payment, with food and gas costs going up,” says Moran. “It’s definitely pushed a lot of first-time homebuyers who are mid to low-mid income to the sidelines of the market.” Right now, even if buyers are still looking, they don’t have much to choose from. “Historically, the average market has four to six months of inventory listed and that dropped down to about a month to a month and a half’s worth of supply, which has driven the cost of homes up,” says Moran. “That, however, can’t be sustainable. The supply and demand has to balance out.”
Lighten
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Hot water — Hot water is the second-leading use of energy in your home. Electric heat pump water heaters can save a family of four more than $500 a year. In addition, Central Hudson offers a $1,000 rebate on new units.
Recycling — Central Hudson will pick up your old working refrigerator and/or freezer for free and properly recycle it. We’ll pay you $100 and you’ll save an estimated $80 per year on operating costs with your new fridge. Water — Switching a showerhead to an efficient model can save up to 2,900 gallons of water annually. We offer reduced pricing at local retailers.
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Central Hudson offers $50 rebates.
Learn more CentralHudson.com/Houseat
Central Hudson is more than just your local power company. We’re also a partner in the effort to reduce home energy use and carbon emissions. We offer a suite of programs and incentives that allows our residential customers to save energy and money. Here are some of them.
Solar energy — If you’re looking for the benefits of solar without the installation costs, you can subscribe to a share of a local solar farm through Central Hudson’s Clean Energy Marketplace and save 5 to 10 percent on annual electricity costs.
Lighting — According to ENERGY STAR® estimates, upgrading just six incandescent light bulbs to LEDs can save up to $90 annually — and LEDs last 15 times longer. We offer reduced pricing at local retailers.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 7
8 • online at upstatehouse.com THE MAKER
caption tk
Mr Blue is made from vintage auto motive test equipment, wrenches, chrome shock absorbers, and a 1950’s back-up light.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 9
T he word fabulous can be defined as “wonderful,” but also “extraordinary, having no basis in reality or Fabulousmythical.”Furniture on Route 28 in Boiceville fits both definitions. Drive by the showroom and you’ll understand why it’s extraordinary. It could be the alien spaceship—that lights up at night—or the one-of-a-kind life-size stegosau rus made out of rusty shovel blades. Both flank the store’s entrance, alongside a wrench-osaurus, a dinosaur made from wrenches that can project flames. Fabulous Furniture is part furniture showroom, part robot art gallery, and home to a collection of attractively reconfigured cars.
FABULOUS FURNITURE
SPACE AGE CREATIONS
“Most of our work is actually commissions,” says Heller. “If you come into the gallery here and if there’s something you like, and you can take it home, great. Otherwise, ev erybody always wants the table longer, lower, wider. They want this table but they want it in cherry, not walnut.”
By Joan Vos MacDonald Photos by Franco Vogt
Steve Heller is the inventive mind behind all these cre ations, and he runs the store, together with his wife, writer Martha Frankel. Despite owning Fabulous Furniture for 47 years, Heller has not run out of ideas, and he’s usually working on 20 projects at the same time. Heller might be crafting a live-edge table from a distinctive piece of wood or assembling a larger-than-life robot from vintage car parts, or he might be welding exaggerated fins onto one of his latest automotive finds.
The same goes for the robots and sculptures. “A friend of mine called once and said, “‘My friend collects giraffes,’” says Heller. “‘Don’t you have a giraffe sculpture?’ Mine was only about six feet tall and was made out of found metal, rusty stuff. She liked it but wanted something really shiny, made out of chrome, so I made her a 15-foot-tall chrome giraffe out of car bumpers and grills.” While much of what Heller sells is furniture, there is no Fabulous Furniture line—the pieces he creates are one of a kind. He favors working with wood from trees that were
Fido, made of chrome, stainless steel, and motorcycle taillights, is mounted on wheels for easy walking!
10 • online at upstatehouse.com 427 warren, hudson, ny • the gallery at 200lex, nyc info@finchhudson.com • 518.828.3430 • @finchhudson
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 11 previously felled or have to come down. “What I’m after is trees that are dead, diseased, or misformed, trees full of burls, or a tree that was hit by lightning and they had to cut it down,” Heller says. “Those trees have incredible grain and patterns. Lumber companies want everything exactly the same. That’s why they use oak for furniture, because wherever you get oak from—Virginia, Maine, or any place in between—it all looks exactly the same, while black walnut looks different from different areas and is the king of woods. That’s what we use. We don’t use any oak, we don’t use any pine. We do use different kinds of maple. Our specialty is diseased maple, which looks like a pen and ink drawing—it’s unbelievable. We use cherry, which is a beautiful deep-red color. We’re after something that you wouldn’t see anyplace else.”
His fascination with robots dates back to his childhood, when robots abounded in popular culture. Fabulous Furniture features robot lights, robot clocks, and robot sculptures. There are tiny robots and larger-than-life-size robots, some inspired by 1950s robots, others inspired by the films Robots and WALL-E. Many are made with vintage car parts. Customers for his robot creations span the globe. “There’s a whole robot culture out there,” he says. Heller’s robot sculptures have been exhibited at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, and the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.Hellersays he’s rarely flustered by commissions, no matter how out-of-this-world the requests might be.
“If you can think it up, we can build it,” Heller says.
Heller began his wood carving/sculpture career when he was only 12, finding pieces of wood in a park and carrying them home on his bike. Since then he’s mastered diverse projects, creating heirloom furniture such as naturallyedged tables, with butterfly joints that look like actual butterflies, and chunky end tables cut from lightning-scarred wood. “I did a really cool walnut staircase for Robert De Niro,” says Heller. “I did a really big staircase for a place in Roxbury, made all out of twigs. I’ve done headstones and caskets, mantelpieces, tables, andAsbeds.”ateen he also began tinkering with cars. He was 14 when he purchased his first car, took it apart and put it back together. Heller likes to dress up cars with vivid images of flames and details such as exaggerated fins and headlights. “A school teacher brought us a brand new 2016 Honda minivan and said she always wanted a flame car,” says Heller. “We flamed it for her and it changed her life. She’s so thrilled and happy.” He welded the fins from a 1957 DeSoto onto a Mercury Grand Marquis and painted it two-tone white and turquoise. “It was such a great cruiser car,” says Heller. “I had the Marquis and then it got written up in the New York Times and a collector called and had to have it. So I sold it. I cried when I put it on the truck to California.”
ThisSteveFABULOUSFURNITUREON28.COMHellermakesmorethansci-ficreations.book-matched,live-edge,spaltedmaplediningtablewasdesignedforabanquettesetting.
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But after two years of pandemic-era art and furniture collecting and an impromptu real estate opportunity, their shared passion for design won the day and the couple opened Available Items in Tivoli in June.
Kristin Coleman, Chad Phillips, and Evie at their eclectic shop in Tivoli, Available Items.
By Marie Doyon
THE SOURCE
D
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 13
The home-centric shop, located on the first floor of a circa-1900 house on Broadway, is a repository for the loot the pair avidly amassed since moving to Germantown full-time in 2020. There are treasures handpicked from yard sales, scouted at estate sales, and won in online auctions, as well as items purchased during their work and personal travels. The inventory spans books both new and used, vintage magazines, furniture, folk and out
espite their combined decades of experience in the design industry, newlyweds Kristin Coleman and Chad Phillips had far-ranging ideas about what their first joint venture might be after moving upstate. “We had a laundry list of things we could do,” Coleman says. “At some point, we wanted to open a weird international snack shop; we were looking to go in with numer ous friends on an Airbnb property; then we were going to do a beer shop like a wine store with taste profiles [shelf talkers]. We were just thinking about all these different sce narios, romanticizing running our own thing together.”
FAVORITE THINGS AVAILABLE ITEMS
There is a handcrafted quality that unifies the disparate items in the shop, from the unsigned, ab stract wall art to a mid-’80s DIY take on a German Bauhaus chair. “With the pandemic and shipping getting messed up, we thought it was a great idea to encourage people to buy something that already exists,” Phillips says. “It’s new design mixed with vintage, quirky, weird, left-of-center stuff that kind of fits within the design world that I have been in. We wanted to take that idea and show older pieces that were already doing that.”
Phillips, raised on a farm outside Nashville, manages to marry an urbane aesthetic with a scrappy, rural sensibility, tempered and balanced by Coleman’s own eclectic taste. (“I had to stop him from buying all the primitive stuff in the world,” she says.)
The name Available Items is repurposed from a retail pop-up Phillips did several years ago, when he pulled together a collection from designers’ existing studio stock. When he and Coleman considered the name for the shop, they found they liked its open-ended flexibility—something that could grow with them as the concept evolved. They imagined Available Items, Available Classes, and Available Rooms, during the brief period that they considered making the space above the shop a vacation rental. “It’s a prefix,” Phillips says. “It’s veryTheall-encompassing.”AvailableClasses concept will likely launch this fall and focus on design-adjacent practical crafts and skills ranging from knot tying to lamp rewiring. “We want to activate a lot of this stuff for kids,” Phillips says, “so they can see how easy it is to make a chair or a lamp or a pillowcase. It demystifies it and makes it more accessible.” They also plan to host seasonal art exhibitions and group shows later this year.
OneAVAILABLEITEMS.COMoftheroomsatAvailableItems, featuring a mix of vintage and modern furniture and ephemera.
Both Coleman and Phillips still maintain their remote nine-to-five gigs during the week, with the shop open on Saturdays and Sundays. Coleman is the senior vice president at Novita, a New Yorkbased PR and marketing firm specializing in design and architecture. Phillips is the director of buying for the curated multibrand website Afternoon Light, which he describes as “Net-a-Porter for the home.” His design resume is lengthy and varied and includes reimagining retail for the shops at Brooklyn Museum and the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum; developing toys and apparel at Kidrobot; as well as stints at Fab.com and the now-closed SoHo design mecca Moss. When friends sent them the real estate listing for 64 Broadway last summer, Coleman and Phillips immediately fell in love. It took six months to close on the property, in which time the idea for Avail able Items gestated. The couple describe the shop’s aesthetic variously as “psych folk,” “folk art—but furniture,” “a little odd on purpose,” and “pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get it done—but through a New York City decorative arts lens.”
14 • online at upstatehouse.com sider art, home decor, objects, and oddities.
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T he reality of four high-profile artists setting up shop in Ellenville is certainly a sign of the times. The wave of change that has slowly rolled over the region in the past two decades is finally touching Ellenville in the wake of a path cleared by the village’s longtime cultural bastion, Shadowland Stages, and nurtured by local community members eager for their town to forge new glory days. In June, singer-songwriter Eleanor Friedberger and visual artists Michael Berryhill, Milton Carter, and Hally Erickson opened Weird in a Mid-Century space in the middle of town that had once been an annex to the historic Wayside Inn, the rest of which burned down in the ’60s. More recently, the space was the showroom for the Nevele in its brief but vigorous campaign for one of New York’s casino licenses. If you ask around, opinions are mixed on the subject of the failed bid, but what’s sure is that the space’s current tenants point toward a new direction for the town and a future that doesn’t involve slot machines and roulette tables. Friedberger, known both as a solo artist and one half of the Fiery Furnaces, moved to Ellenville in 2019. She has long been friends with artist and designer Milton Carter. For many years, they both lived in Greenpoint, where Carter ran a lifestyle brand called M. Carter. Both relocated to Kerhonkson in 2013. Together with their respective partners, the creatives turned to art making and experimentation when the pandemic hit.
By Marie Doyon
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 17
THE SOURCE
CURIOSITY SHOP WEIRD
The project of a quartet of high-profile artists, Weird, located in downtown Ellenville, is as much an artmaking enterprise as it is a retail space.
The retail aspect of the endeavor doesn’t cheapen the artistic exploration for the group—it is another facet to work with. To that end, thought is put into every detail, down to the garment tags. “Everything we do in the space is considered,” Carter says. “This is part of the experiment and art project aspect. How do you want people to respond to what they see and what they hear to create an overall environment? How do you put the price tag on the object? How do you want people to feel when they pick it up?”
ITSAWEIRD.WORLD
Left: Eleanor Friedberger models cotton knitwear made by her mother for Weird.
While Carter and Berryhill have historically worked in 2D visual art and design, the two are now applying themselves to lighting and furniture, while Friedberger, a musician by trade, has begun dabbling in painting. “I have been living with a painter for the past however many years. It’s embarrassingly infectious,” she says with a selfeffacing chuckle. “That has been my journey last few months: Trying to make stuff on paper and canvas that is personal to me.”
When the Canal Street storefront became available, it provided a place to display and sell all of the wares the group had been creating. In a rejection of the sober neutral palettes and blackstained modern farmhouse aesthetic that has proliferated upstate in recent years, Weird is an explosion of color. “The four of us have a sense of humor about things,” Friedberger says. “Hopefully the playfulness is coming through.”
How do we create a retail space and then run it? It’s a learning process. We’re going to keep adding to it as we keep experimenting, and hopefully it will continue to grow throughout its lifespan.”
Right: The hand tie-dyed Ellenville T-shirt employs the font of the Nevele hotel.
18 • online at upstatehouse.com “It started with some casual get-togethers with the group of us, experimenting with making stuff,” Friedberger explains of the seed for Weird. “We’re all artists of some sort. A few times after dinner, we would get together to try out things that were maybe outside of our specific mediums.”
The shop’s Instagram is a fun, far-out, living mood board for the store itself, which pulses with brightly colored sculptures, furniture, ceramics, wall art, lighting, and crocheted garments made by Friedberger’s mom. There are also posters, hand tie-dyed tees, pillows, and more, all made by the four owners.
“It was a big push to get it open and we’re still kind of figuring out what we are trying to achieve,” Carter says. “Overall, it’s an art project. We are trying to create an experiential space for the visitor, but making the things to sell, tailoring the sound.
The group takes inspiration from nostalgic reference points in the not-so-distant past of the region. Describing the vibe, Carter says, “It’s what we imagine upstate to be like if we go back in time—think of the Band hanging out in Woodstock. They look like farmers.” Friedberger points to the Fallsview Hotel in Ellenville (now Honor’s Haven), whose main hall was a Tropicana riot of fuchsia and red. “We are presenting an alternative narrative of creative life in the area,” Carter says.
There is a possibility that other artist friends will come onboard to sell their wares at the storefront, and Weird might even host live music and other events if the owners can get the approval. But for now, the focus is on the production of the objects and on the space itself as a fourdimensional interactive work. Everything from the display shelving to the tables was custom made by the group for the space. “When we were getting together originally, it was an opportunity to experiment outside of our mediums and disciplines,” Carter says. “For me, asking ‘How can I apply the things I’m interested in right now to designing a space and all the things we built for space? How can we apply the thinking to textiles and sculpture and lighting?’ It’s a bit of a laboratory of seeing how we can apply our level of craft to different stuff.”
From conception to completion and the selection and procurement of all materials, Mulshenock was on call every step of the way to troubleshoot and adapt to the owner’s needs as he adjusted to living in his new spaces and looked forward to the next phase. “I always tell people that they should live in their home for at least a year before they start any project,” she says. “That way you really understand what it is you love about your house and what it is you want to change.”
SPONSORED
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 19
REFRESHDESIGN
ABOUT THE DESIGNER Mari Mulshenock Evolved Interiors, Woodstock Inspirations: I love big comfy pieces, so Arhaus and Restoration Hardware are my go-tos. Evolvedinteriors.com
ofDesignerDreams
During phase three, which was just completed this summer, Mulshenock and her team added a new elevated side wing that contains a full dining room painted in a cozy taupe with custom-built banquette seating and a screened-in porch that leads out to a spacious wood deck with a spa pool.
EVOLVED INTERIOR’S BEARSVILLE BUNGALOW TRANSFORMATION
Like all great designers, Mari Mulshenock can envision the potential in any space—and she has a plan for how to get there. With the renovation project on Rose Lane in Bearsville, Mulshenock, the owner and principal designer of Woodstock design firm Evolved Interiors, reimagined a compact, one-story circa-1920 bungalow as an airy country home complete with space for all the amenities every homeowner dreams of. It all started when she was brought on board to consult on design issues the owner had encountered with his kitchen renovation, which had just gotten underway. “The homeowner and I meshed instantly and were great collaborators,” she says. So she got to work, completely redesigning the kitchen. Naturally though, with over 30 years experience and hundreds of home and commercial renovations under her belt, including Glo Spa Woodstock, her expertise didn’t stop at the kitchen. The owner told her that he had dreams for eventually renovating the entire house, so she drafted up a threephase approach to the design and construction that would achieve their goal on a comfortable timeline and allow them to enjoy the fruits of each renovated space along the way. During the first two phases of the project, Mulshenock redesigned the existing kitchen, den, and both bedrooms, vaulted the ceiling, and added two bathrooms and a laundry room. A sophisticated color scheme and rich, cozy finishes and textures define the space. The kitchen’s charcoal cabinetry and butcher block countertop on the island contrast glossy gray subway tiles and crisp white quartz countertops, while warm-hued wood beams accent the elevated roofline above. She also transformed the former entrance of the house into an expansive wall of windows nestled under a wide cedar soffit, bathing the space in natural light.
20 • online at upstatehouse.com Choose natural sustainable wood flooring & paneling for a healthy home inside and out. Over 70 choices choices—including Shou Sugi Ban—all made right here in New York. Find the right species, texture, and tone for the interior or exterior of your home. Visit our Farmington showroom or order samples online 585.924.9970 | pioneermillworks.com good looks naturally ACCOYA DEEP CHAR SIDING
THE MAKER
FIRED UP LAIL DESIGN By Hannah Van Sickle
B rad Lail was 14 years old when he threw his first pot. Following his parents’ breakup, his father—himself an accomplished potter—enrolled the family in a wheel-throwing class aimed at creating cohesion among the now fractured unit. Soon after, a wheel and electric kiln materialized at home (housed in an adjacent pole barn) where Lail sought solace—ostensibly blowing off steam while unwittingly honing a craft in the process.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 21
Photos by Nico Schinco
Brad Lail at the wheel in his Woodstock studio.
22 • online at upstatehouse.com
Opposite, from top: A collection of stoneware ready for firing. Lail stoneware is made with traditional tools and techniques, some dating back thousands of years.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 23
Lail ceramics are all hand thrown on a wheel, hand trimmed, and bisque-fired. The pieces are then glazed and fired in a gas kiln.
24 • online at upstatehouse.com
LAIL.DESIGN
“That’s all I ever really wanted in my life,” said Lail who, two decades later, is living his dream. Almost half the clay he works with is local, dug from the banks of a floodplain on the Housatonic River in Sheffield, Massachusetts. In fact, knowing the provenance of his materials grounds Lail. He makes all his glazes from scratch and retains a reverence for simplicity. As for the fine line between form and function, art and utility, Lail cuts straight to the chase. “I consider myself a craftsman first,” he says, pointing to the years he spent as a journeyman potter in North Carolina, doing production work in other potters’ studios, as solidifying his stance on the age-old, art-versus-craft conundrum. Using rulers and calipers to replicate whatever shape he was shown, it was not unusual for Lail to throw 100 cylinders in a day—each 3” wide by 4” tall—at the rate of $1.50 a pound. “You kind of have to make a lot of pots to pay your rent,” he says. “A lot of clay got moved during those years, and [the pottery community of Seagrove, North Carolina] is where I really cut my teeth,” he admits, which is not to sug gest that’s where he got creative.
Today, he has more than found his groove. Lail Design was founded in 2016 by Lail, lauded as a master thrower, and textile designer Jennifer Bowskill. From their home studio in Woodstock, they brainstormed a basic foundation line of ceramics intended for everyday use. Lail has likely made the same mug more than 1,000 times; still, each one’s a little different from the next, and his craftsmanship gets better and better every year.
Lail Design ceramics are available locally at Scribner’s Catskill Lode in Hunter, Hartland on Hudson in Leeds, and the Woodstock Way Hotel.
“It’s not complicated, it just works,” Lail says of a philosophy equally evident in his studio and shop as it is in the dishes drying on a rack in his kitchen.
Over the summer, he had a SUNY New Paltz stu dent pugging for him—which equates to mixing clay, balling it up, and weighing it out. “She made 100 balls [of clay] for me yesterday,” Lail explains, each weighing in at two pounds (which, when finished, will be a bowl of 8” in diameter). He’ll throw 100 bowls, and then eat dinner with his family.
A daily practice, not unlike playing the guitar, quickly took shape. “I was really straight edge,” Lail says, having grown up with 1980’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education—and throwing pots quickly became the adolescent’s anti-drug. “I was obsessed,” Lail says, citing an interest that grew from the Earth and his relationship to it. He worked alongside woodfired potters in North Carolina, digging clay and making glazes out of wood ash; with his eye firmly fixed on folk pottery, Lail fashioned finishing tools from what he had on hand—carving a rib out of wood (or repurposing an old debit card for the task) and subbing fishing line for a wire cutter. When it came time to fire his pieces, to sell at fairs around the region, Lail stacked wood in exchange for space in local potters’ kilns. While at college, on track to become a minis ter, Lail’s true calling emerged: to live in the woods, make pottery, and put food on the table.
Mixed in-house, Lail glazes are durabie and include moss, lichen, fawn, redwood, rhubarb, bluestone, and bone.
Lail’s eponymous line of wheel-thrown stone ware is made in small-batch firings and new product releases—boasting super-saturated, handmixed glazes in nature-inspired hues such as fawn, bluestone, moss, and rhubarb—sell out quickly. He believes it takes seven years to become a potter, a title one earns when they can pay the bills sell ing their wares. Despite the ensuing decades, his perspective remains unchanged: “The best pots are really, really simple.”
After a stint doing production work for ce ramicist Michele Quan and Jono Pandolfi in the Northeast (plus a year spent playing music full-time in New York City), Lail launched his own company. Working as a contractor allowed him to save his pennies, buy a house upstate, and make all his dreams come true—plus a ton of pots with his signature stamp.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 25 KITCHENS | BATHS | CLOSETS | TILE 747 NY-28 Kingston, NY 12401 hello@cabinetdesigners.com | (845) 331-2200 | www.CabinetDesigners.com We I m p r o ve O ur Cli e nt s ' L iv e s B y I mproving Their Li v in g S p a ces milancasestudy.com 917.865.0227 nick@milancasestudy.com A MODERN RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT LOCATED MINUTES FROM RHINEBECK, NY WITH HOMES DESIGNED BY AWARD WINNING ARCHITECT JAMES GARRISON 4 1 3 6 3 7 8 1 2 7 / J H A R W O O D A R C H I T E C T C O M D E S I G N F O R S U S T A I N A B L E L I V I N G
KINGSTON COMMUNITY
26 • online at upstatehouse.com Within the few blocks of Kingston’s Stockade District, history is everywhere you look: the intersection of John and Crown Streets, with pre-Revolutionary stone houses on all four corners; the Senate House of New York’s first capital; the courthouse where formerly enslaved Sojourner Truth won her child back. Archaeological studies are ongoing on the sites of the Old Dutch Church and Pine Street Afri can Burial Grounds; the latter recently purchased and protected in perpetuity by a collaboration between the Kingston Land Trust and Harambee. Driving down Broadway toward the water, art is all over the place, from dozens of striking mu rals generated during the annual O+ Festival to centuries-old architectural flourishes. Midtown is a diverse neighborhood, with longstanding Mexican and Central American restaurants abut ting newer establishments like West Kill Brew ing’s tap room and Tanma Ramen. It’s also where many folks who moved out of New York City dur ing the pandemic landed, intensifying the city’s affordable housing crunch. Nearer downtown, the late-Victorian City Hall rules its hilltop beside the hospital. The 1915 neo classical main building of the high school just got a major interior renovation three years ago. You’re almost to the top of the Strand now, from here, it’s a gracious swoop down to the Rondout, once a brawling port, now home to fab dining, drink ing, and culture. There are boat tours, lighthouse tours, the Hudson River Maritime Museum, and the West Strand Gallery, among other retail and cultural options.
Haldeman says he loves the proximity to out door features like the Ashokan Reservoir and Opus 40, but a Saturday spent in town seldom disappoints. “I’m big into some of the arts hap pening here, and there’s so much,” he says. “We lost a few favorite eateries to the pandemic, but there’s still so much choice that it’s excit ing—you have the Kinsley for a fancy dinner, wonderful French at Le Canard Enchaine, then there’s Yum Yum Noodle and Savona’s for ca sual meals. We love going down to the Rondout, to the wine bars; up here, we’ve got the Stock ade Tavern in the old Singer Sewing Machine building and Rough Draft Bar and Books. Santa Fe does a great margarita on Taco Tuesdays. You really can dial in just about any atmosphere you want.”
THE SCENE
It’s had rough patches—the burning of the Stockade by the Brits in 1777, the leveling of much of the Rondout during the period of Urban Renewal, and the Great Downsizing by IBM in the 90s that sucked out 12 percent of Ulster County’s economy in a few short, shocking years. But gen erations of community-minded souls have kept the grass roots fertilized and welcomed waves of newcomers from every neighborhood, borough, and nation, and between that and the town’s adop tion as a sort of pet project by Peter Buffet’s Novo Foundation, the Kingston of today thrives in ways many a small city can only dream about.
“I found my house here 15 years ago, but I’ve been full-time just since last January,” says Mark Hal deman, proprietor of Wall Street’s new emporium Westerlind, an outdoor retailer with locations in Millerton, Great Barrington, and Manhattan.
A 10-minute walk away, you can tease the gulls at Kingston Point Beach on the Hudson River, its sands salted with chunks of brick worn smooth with time, and imagine the bustling steamboat dock and carousel that ruled this peaceful spot as the 20th century dawned. Kingston is a resilient little city, a banquet for the mind and senses.
History & Opportunity
By Anne Pyburn Craig Photos by David McIntyre
“And I feel a little guilty saying it, but I don’t miss New York City one bit. I always knew I would end up here full time eventually, and now with West erlind, my career path is here too.”
| FALL 2022 • 27
POPULATION: 22,954
NEAREST HOSPITAL: HealthAlliance Hudson Valley operates hospital campuses on Broadway and on Mary’s Avenue.
Harambee founder Tyron Wilson with his sonJayden at the site of the African Burial Ground. Opposite: The Rondout District along the waterfront is full of shops and restaurants.
PROXIMITY TO MAJOR CITY: 100 miles from New York City; 56 miles from Albany
TRANSPORTATION: Kingston is accessible by Exit 19 on Interstate 87. Adirondack Trailways buses stop in Kingston. The nearest Amtrak station is 11 miles away in Rhinecliff. Nineteen miles away in Poughkeepsie, both Amtrak and Metro-North stop. Ulster County Area Transit (UCAT) buses run throughout Kingston and to New Paltz and Saugerties.
POINTS OF INTEREST: Ulster Performing Arts Center, Senate House State Historic Site, Kingston Maritime Museum, Rondout Lighthouse, Pine Street African Burial Ground, Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, Stockade District, Forsyth Nature Center, Matthewis Persen House Museum, Kingston Point Beach, Old Dutch Church, Rondout-West Strand Historic District, Empire State Trail Haldeman is impressed with the variety and skill of his retail neighbors. “I thought the area was ready for this, with places like Exit 19 and Theresa & Co. that sell upstate lifestyle gear and apparel at prices that aren’t too scary,” he says. “I love wandering and getting to know my neighbors—these are great walking streets. I run into plenty of my fellow Brooklyn people, but something about the vibe reminds me more of Minnesota where I grew up—friendly, down-toearth, and welcoming.”
if you see something you love, pull out all the stops. And work with a diligent broker who’s basically on speed dial.” At the time of this writing, there were older Colonials, saltboxes and the occasional ranch style, some with updates, offered for between $200,000 to $400,000 in Midtown and a couple of outright deals—a tidy, compact three-bed room ranch on a quiet dead-end street, in need of a little interior TLC, was listed for $179,000.
“Things are still very busy,” says Mary Orapello, an Associate Broker with the Murphy Realty Group and a Kingston resident for 40 years. “It’s cooling a little—some houses you can actu ally negotiate on—but we’re still in ‘highest and best’ competitive territory. We’re still very busy, there’s still very little to sell, and the median price is up again. We still see new people com ing up every week, discovering Kingston, and lovingSavvyit.”buyers, she says, come prepared with prequalification or proof of funds in hand. “And
THE FACTS
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $51,299
THE MARKET
Uptown, a four-bedroom gingerbread Victorian with classic high ceilings, hardwood floors, and original details backed up by updated mechanicals was on the market for just under $500,000, as was a raised ranch just outside town with 37 wooded acres, in need of a new well. At $700,000 to $900,000, one began to see architect-built homes and stately four- and fivebedroom Colonials. For $899,000, there was an exquisitely updated Mid-Century Modern with original chandelier and in-ground pool. And, if by chance, you had $3,100,000 to spend, you could move into either of the two designer homes on 41 wild acres 10 minutes out of town and relish your very own lake and waterfalls.
ZIP CODE: 12401
upstate HOUSE
SCHOOLS: The Kingston City School District includes seven elementary schools, two middle schools, and a high school. Private schools include Kingston Catholic School, Good Shepherd Christian, Montessori School of Kingston.
There are so many ways to feel connected here.” When she’s not doing nonprofit board work, she enjoys keeping up with the downtown business community, with its mix of legacies and new ar rivals. “Lagusta’s Luscious [vegan chocolates] just closed one shop and they’re redoing their North Front Street place, and I can’t wait to see what she does with it,” Pitzele says. “The students have their own pursuits, but they bring the base to support so much diversity—you’d never have great Thai and pho and Vietnamese in a town this size. What has evolved here meets my needs, possibly better than it did when I was younger.” Besides Lagusta’s, Pitzele is a huge fan of the vegetarian Indian at Krishna’s Kitchen and the Middle Eastern-inflected French menu at RUNA, not to mention the social scene at the Bakery or
You can still find folks who are nostalgic for the era of Spring Weekend concerts at SUNY New Paltz in the 1970s, when bands like Frank Zappa and the Grateful Dead played in the “Tripping Fields” on campus. Most will admit, however, that the school’s transformation into a top-flight state university has its benefits, not least the atmo sphere of town/gown collaboration that now reigns where conflict once raged.
Careful curation has preserved a lot of history and open space; you won’t find a Walmart or a Target here, and when Marriott wanted to buy part of the Shawangunk Ridge to site a resort in the 1980s, locals dug in their heels and fought against it. New York State bought the property in 1987 and established Minnewaska State Park Preserve.
“I really enjoy engagement. I don’t always opt into every conversation, but I know I can if I want to.
NEW PALTZ New Paltz is the kind of place where, amid your daily routine, you’ll be suddenly struck by something breathtaking. A fresh glimpse of the Shawangunk Ridge, sunbeams striking aged brick and stone just right, a sign in a shop window that makes you laugh out loud, a random act of kindness or inspired lunacy happening right before your eyes. New Paltz is what happens when you invite gen eration after generation of eager learners to come stay awhile, and then a great many decide to make it a lifelong love affair. Since the time of the Esopus Munsee, this has been a charming place to live; the descendants of the first Europeans to arrive in 1678 have since joined hands with indigenous descen dants and scholars to try to learn more about those days, working among some of the oldest houses on theThosecontinent.early French Huguenots formed a com mittee, the Duzine (“twelve men”) who remained large and in charge till around 1800, and it may have been more than a rumor that they stayed in control of the formalized town administration that arose soon afterward. With rich farmland nour ished by the Wallkill River, the place prospered, spreading up the hill from Huguenot Street along the river. The 19th century saw the addition of a college (1830) and a railway station (1870).
Center of Learning
As you’d expect, Pitzele is never at a loss for something fun to do. “The college brings a certain cosmopolitan feel, and a range of offerings you wouldn’t find in other small towns,” Pitzele says.
COMMUNITY
By Anne Pyburn Craig Photos by David McIntyre
28 • online at upstatehouse.com
THE SCENE Karali Pitzele grew up in New Paltz in the 1970s, moved to Brooklyn after college, and returned to her hometown full-time in 2019. “I moved back because I’m in love with this town,” Pitzele says. “Growing up, I always felt the strong sense of com munity, and I’m still friends with the people I knew then, which gives this amazing sense of continuity and cohesion,” she says. “And there’s always been this sense that the life of the community, from the sewers and sidewalks on up, is deeply and intelli gently cared for. The people in charge are thought ful, transparent, and inclusive. People really try to live their values here.”
POINTS OF INTEREST: Mohonk Mountain House, Mohonk Preserve, Minnewaska State Park Preserve, Water Street Market, Denizen Theatre, SUNY New Paltz, Historic Huguenot Street, Shawangunk Ridge, Dorsky Museum of Art, Mark Gruber Gallery, D. M. Weil Gallery, John R. Kirk Planetarium, Imperial Guitar & Soundworks, Living Seed Yoga & Holistic Health Center, Integrative Healing Arts, Coppersea Distillers, Shawangunk Wine Trail, Tuthilltown Distilling, New Paltz Rock Yoga, Twin Star Orchards/Brooklyn Cider House, Lagusta’s Luscious, Hokkaido, The Bakery, Rocking Horse Ranch, Dressel Farms, Wallkill View Farms, Wright’s Farms, Nyquist-Harcourt Wildlife Sanctuary, Bicycle Depot, Handmade & More, Bacchus, P&Gs, Snug Harbor Bar and Grill, Garvin’s Gastropub, New Paltz Golf Course, Fuschia Tiki Bar, Schatzi’s Pub, A Tavola Trattoria, Main Course Catering, Huckleberry, Wallkill Valley Rail Trail.
NEAREST HOSPITAL: Vassar Brothers Medical Center is 12 miles away in Poughkeepsie; HealthAlliance Hospital is 14 miles away in Kingston.
Though the frenzy has abated some, realtors are still packing their weekends with showings leading to a Monday review of all offers, and having financing or cash in hand is still key. “I think it’s a healthier market right now, with buyers having options,” says Brooks. “You just have to stay realistic but optimistic, and find your best one. The right mindset, tools, and knowhow are still the keys to success.” Listed at this writing were several three- and four-bedroom ranches and colonials, some in the village and some in the surrounding town, priced between $350,000 and $550,000. In the $700,000 range, you can find 3,500 square feet of living space in a 1940 stone fortress with massive beams, period built-ins, and mountain views or a five-bedroom, architect-built Victo rian in the heart of town. Condos on Huguenot Street can be had for under $200,000.
THE MARKET
The Parish restaurant at Water Street Market has a stellar view of the Shawangunk Ridge.
Mountain Laurel Waldorf School serves children in grades pre-K through eight.
SCHOOLS: Students attend Duzine Elementary through second grade and Lenape Elementary for grades three through five, then move on to New Paltz Middle School and New Paltz High School.
ZIP CODE: 12561
Donna Brooks, Associate Broker with the Clem ent, Brooks & Safier Team at Berkshire Hatha way HomeServices, says inventory is loosening up—a little. “It feels like there’s a steady trickle of houses, and buyers have more choices be cause of that,” she says. “For two years, we’d all rush out to see one house the minute it listed. We’re getting back to spending an afternoon looking at several houses and that’s kinda lovely. It just feels better, from a buyer’s perspective, to have a few days instead of a couple of hours.”
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 29 down at Jar’d Wine Pub and at the breweries, wineries, cideries, and distilleries that have sprung up in more rural spots. And she’s wild about the performance scene. “Denizen Theater at Water Street Market is amazing. There are little concerts out in front of the Groovy Blueberry building right across the street—that same organizer runs a weekly im prov class, the Happenstancery,” she says. “And down the road in Highland, we have the home of Playback Theater and psychodrama at Bough ton Place. It feels to me as though many things of great importance to the wider world are being nourished and preserved right here.”
POPULATION: 14,214 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $76,335
PROXIMITY TO MAJOR CITY: New Paltz is 83 miles from Manhattan TRANSPORTATION: Adirondack Trailways offers frequent bus service to Manhattan and Albany.
Probably long gone by press time: the Major Jacob Hasbrouck, Jr. House, a grand 1780 Dutch Colonial home being offered for $1,495,000, and the Round House, a fairytale tower of stone and custom cedar on 10 acres that’s listed for $1,790,000. But fear not, it’s New Paltz—another distinctive, whimsical, or wild listing will come along.
Ulster-Poughkeepsie LINK busses connect to Amtrak and Metro-North. New Paltz is located at Exit 18 off the Thruway.
The River to Ridge Trail connects downtown New Paltz to the Mohonk Preserve.
THE FACTS
30 • online at upstatehouse.com PROFILEHOUSE
Greg and Dee Olsen waited 10 years to build their dream home on a piece of raw land on top of Bald Mountain in the Columbia County town of Austerlitz.
EXECUTIONBALANCED
By Hannah Van Sickle
Photos by Scott Hemenway
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 31
A Chorus of Voices in Conversation Creates a Great Escape
32 • online at upstatehouse.com
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 33
O ne glance at Greg and Dee Olsen’s stunning retreat, situated atop Bald Mountain in the Columbia County town of Asuterlitz, and the word “balance” springs to mind. The project’s genesis stretches back nearly two decades, when the couple first stumbled upon a magi cal piece of property—100 acres of land with a three-acre pond offering views of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts—and dove in headfirst. “Wejust knew it was spectacular and we wouldn’t find this ever again,” Greg says. The couple put every dollar they had (and some they didn’t) toward the purchase of this raw piece of land that sat vacant for almost 10 years; meanwhile, the Olsens gleaned inspiration from shelter magazines, constantly clipping photos of homes they might someday build. When the time came to craft their family’s retreat, extensive research led the Olsens straight to New Energy Works, a timber frame design-build company. “It was a wonderful col laboration,” Greg says, pointing to the seamless execution of each element architect Ty Allen advised—a real perk, realized in retrospect, of going with an all-inclusive company—begin ning with siting the home. Greg remembers standing on the clearing while he and Dee described their years-long vision—from what they would build to how it would face and why—when in five minutes nine years of planning evaporated. Allen walked about 100 feet to the east, another 50 feet to the north and declared with utter certainty: “You’re putting the house here.” While the Olsens had imagined an eastern exposure, Allen oriented the house facing directly south and employed windows to capture the alter nate vista. The home’s rectangular footprint, marked by wooden stakes with strips of towel tied to the tops, was born that very day.
Above: The home’s kitchen is tailormade to the needs of the owners, featuring custom ash and walnut cabinets and woodwork by NEWwoodworks and reclaimed wood wall paneling from Pioneer Opposite:Millworks.Thehome’s screened and covered porches are intended to blur the line between interior and exterior spaces.
An Integrated Approach “There was no disconnect,” Greg says of the chorus of voices that came together in conversation to build the house. While timber framing resides at their core, integration is a key component of New Energy Works—as evidenced by several teams beneath a single umbrella: design and build; high-per formance enclosures; mass timber; and fine woodworking. A shared philosophy ultimately led the way. The Olsens, keen on striking balance in their design and creating a home in harmony with the site, stuck to a trio of non-negotiables: eliminating VOCs, incorporating reclaimed and organic materials, and utilizing a geothermal solar array (which, coupled with five Tesla back-up batteries, allows them to operate entirely off the grid when needed).
A Second Life for Wood
The Olsens’ home is “a mixed bag of different materials and therefore different sources and stories,” says Slusser, pointing to the large quantity of reclaimed walnut used in their project as “one of the more crazy, unique things we’ve ever had”— gleaned from a giant Tennessee turkey farm and dubbed a single-origin batch. “We have this added advantage in the reclaimed world of having the people that use the material literally standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us,” says Slusser, who refers to the same grading specifications for fresh-sawn Douglas fir as for reclaimed timbers. He is schooled in the difference between a knot and a bolt hole, when it comes to adversely affecting the structural integrity of the wood—ditto for the number of nail holes and natural cracks. “This type of instantaneous feedback allows us to make sure that every thing going to the job site is perfect.” Because every timber is bar coded, Slusser can track their respective origin to locales like Chicago, New York City, and Boston—all steady sources of buildings (and in more rural areas, barns) being torn down. Once a good yield is identi fied, the team at Pioneer Millworks does their due diligence to ensure it is safe, environmentally sound, and free of any residual contaminants associated with the building from which the material was reclaimed; all of their hardwoods are Forest Stewardship Council Certified.
The cozy bedrooms feature exposed timber beams, custom woodwork doors, bedframe, and furniture by NEWwoodworks, and rugged reclaimed wood paneling from Pioneer Millworks.
“We wanted to use as much reclaimed wood and recycled materials as possible in building this house,” Greg says, pointing to the bones of the 3,300-square-foot building: gorgeous 100-year-old Douglas fir beams with a natural patina that were already cured. A variety of recycled materi als are echoed elsewhere throughout the house: flooring is reclaimed walnut on the upper level and reclaimed teak on the lower level; interior wall paneling is reclaimed barn sid ing (as are portions of the exterior siding); and craftspeople at NEW woodworks used reclaimed beech to fashion custom bed frames, night stands, and built-ins. “We have always prided ourselves on the fact that we can tell any one of our clients exactly where [the reclaimed materials for] their project came from,” says Jered Slusser of Pioneer Millworks, sister company to New Energy Works, who for 25 years has worked with builders and architects, designers, and homeowners to help them navigate an exten sive product line to find the right fit for every project.
34 • online at upstatehouse.com
Of secondary importance was cultivating a sprawling space for large family gatherings and a kitchen worthy of both cooking and congregating—with unobstructed south-facing views of Catamount and Ski Butternut in the distance. “The homeowners were very involved in the process— while letting us be experts in our craft,” says Eric Fraser, general manager at New Energy Works. Save for a general contractor, local to the area, the Olsens’ project was done in-house by the NEW team.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 35 www.janestreetartcenter.com 11 Jane St, Suite A, Saugerties NY Gallery Hours: Thurs. Fri.-Sat.12-5pm12-6pmSun.12-5pmClosedHolidays GALLERY � CLASSES � EVENTS Beautiful Homes Need Beautiful Art We are a multi faceted environment that supports diverse arti sti c expression and explorati on, featuring installati on, art and performance. JANE ST. ART CENTER BENCHES BY RENNIE CANTINE THE OVERLOOK RennieCantine@gmail.comRennieCantineDesign.comArtLinesBlurringSERIEStheBetween&Furniture Roman Professional Engineering PLLC HEAT YOUR DRIVEWAY www.romandriveways.comromandriveways.com-email
Left: The custom staircase, crafted by NEWwoodworks, is made of walnut and ash, giving a two-toned appearance that complements the reclaimed wall paneling by Pioneer Millworks.
36 • online at upstatehouse.com
Above: The game room has a more masculine feel than the rest of the home, featuring darker stained timbers and reclaimed ceiling paneling from Pioneer Millworks.
A Great Pivot Greg and Dee leaned into their team’s deep knowledge and expertise to further customize their space. With increased pressure on com modity industries since March 2020, the cost of reclaimed wood has remained stable (though not inexpensive) while the price of fresh-cut white oak, for instance, has tripled in the past three years. When a colossal snowstorm crushed one of the warehouses storing the reclaimed material the Olsens had painstakingly chosen, Greg says “a great pivot” was necessary. Confident in the process of work ing with New Energy Works, they chose another type of wood—sight unseen—for finishing work and the custom kitchen cabinets and forged on knowing they would love the end result. “And we do!” GregThesays. Olsens’ mountain-top home is situated to maximize views of the surrounding landscape and designed to be incredibly airtight and energy efficient—all while maximizing natural and sustainably sourced materials throughout. “The biggest aspect, when it comes to balance, is that the house is not too big; it was purposely designed to fit the needs of Greg and Dee and their family but also the site and surroundings,” Fraser says, pointing to screened and covered porch es intended to blur the line between interior and exterior spaces. From the deck of their home, the Olsens enjoy front-row seats as peak leaf season unfolds on their property. “There’s no better show than autumn!” Greg says, basking in expansive views punctuated by the vast array of golds and reds against a clear blue sky—something he never tires of looking at. “The house has this wonderful ethos about it that’s so calming,” he says. “It’s really a joy to be in.”
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upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 39
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Douglas Larson, the founder and principal architect of Larson Architecture Works, had been working at a tiny table in the Pine Plains home that he and his wife had renovated over 15 years ago and enjoyed as a peaceful respite from New York City. With new projects in the Hudson Valley, their house had become an increasingly important, if cramped, outpost for the firm. With barely room to work, let alone store his library of books on regional architecture or the rolls upon rolls of drawings for in-progress projects, Larson knew it was time to set down roots and establish a brand-new home office away from home. In the summer of 2021, Larson and his wife were on their way out of town when they discovered that two aging houses smack-dab in the center of the Dutchess County hamlet of Ancramdale were for sale. The timing could not have been more perfect. “The buildings are at a great crossroads,” says Larson. “It’s a high-visibility spot, and there are already a lot of creative people living and working in the area.”
Larsonarchitecture.com WORKS TAKES UP RESIDENCE IN ANCRAMDALE AWAY FROM HOME
Larson’s involvement with the local community also made the move into the hamlet a natural choice. Since 2018, he has been overseeing the design and restoration of the Stissing Center, a circa-1915 building formerly known as Pine Plains Memorial Hall, pro bono, and now serves on the organization’s board. “There is so much underutilized infrastructure in the Hudson Valley,” he says. “I’m so glad I can be a resource to institutions and people who need help with their structures or facilities.” In nearby Ancramdale, Larson saw potential in the house at 2 County Road 8, which he recognized as being in the Greek Revival style dating to around 1830. Larson noted that it had later been modified with Italianate details along the roof—a style known as “Hudson Valley Bracketed” that was popularized by architect Andrew Jackson Downing.
Though Larson’s New York City office has since reopened, the Ancramdale office now offers him a place to meet clients, a way to work more easily with his team, and acts in service of one of the architect’s greater goals. “It’s important to restore and reactivate the streetscapes in our hamlets,” he says. “I am so glad to be a part of that here. The hamlets are so much of the character of the area. If these buildings are neglected, they will eventually be torn down, and when that happens, history goes with it.”
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As the architect soon realized, plenty of the home’s other original details were just waiting to be discovered. The asbestos siding gave way to sturdy wooden clapboard, which has been painted dark gray. Underneath the synthetic flooring inside, the original wide-plank flooring is now painted a crisp white that accentuates the natural light that the corner parcel receives.
A large table has been added in the former living room, where Larson and visiting members of his firm can work, and bedrooms on the second floor of the house are now used for overnight stays. The house next door, which the couple also purchased, remains in use as a long-term rental. “There’s a shortage of local affordable housing, so we’re committed to keeping that space available,” he says.
LARSON ARCHITECTURE
The main entrance hall of the West Point Foundry Bed and Breakfast contains the original floors, banister, stairs, risers, and ceiling medallion of the 1826 home built by William Kemble in Cold Spring
40 • online at upstatehouse.com PROFILEHOUSE
“We fell in love with the history,” says Watson. “Our con nection has always been emotional, not rational.”
HARD WORK IN PARADISE
The original Kemble house is on the right. David Watson and Marianne Sutton, who bought the property in 2017, built an addition on the left, which they live in. the houses are separated by an architectural hyphen.
They named the inn for the West Point Foundry, whose ruins are a short stroll from the cottage and played a crucial role in transforming the nation from an agricultural economy into an industrial powerhouse after it opened in 1818. When caption
To their surprise, the interior remained largely intact, evi denced by the solid floors and ramrod-straight Federal-style banisters. But snags and snarls altered the vision for what they call a “grand house on a small scale.” After four years, the construction and restoration project created a hybrid business and residence, including a new home attached to an immaculately restored historic cottage that now serves as a high-end bed and breakfast.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 41
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he setting of the West Point Foundry Bed and Break fast is stunning. Located on a bluff overlooking West Point and the Hudson River, the nine-acre property affords a sunset-perfect view. A grove of 300-year-old oak trees adds a majestic presence to this historic site less than a five-minute walk to the village of Cold Spring. But when David Watson and Marianne Sutton visited the site in 2017, a circa-1826 ugly duckling cottage marred the lush surroundings. A tarp blanketed the roof. Boards covered the windows. Trumpet vines began colonizing the exterior and the house suffered from neglect, vandalism, and exposure to the elements. One son-in-law called it a “crack den,” but the retired pediatricians became enamored with its historical significance.
By Marc Ferris
A Bed and Breakfast as Dream Home
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42 • online at upstatehouse.com ©2017AugustineNursery ©2015 Augustine Nursery ©2017AugustineNursery ©2015 Augustine Nursery AugustineNursery.com Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm • STONE YARD & HARDSCAPING A Forest Of Choice. The broadest selection of the biggest trees ©2017AugustineNursery ©2015 Augustine Nursery 9W & Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY (845) 338-4936 AugustineNursery.com Spring Hours: Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm FULL-SERVICE NURSERY • CUSTOM LANDSCAPE DESIGN & INSTALLATION • STONE YARD & HARDSCAPING WATER FEATURES • IRRIGATION • LIGHTING • RETAIL SHOP & MORE A Forest Of Choice. The broadest selection of the biggest trees and plants in the Hudson Valley. ©2017AugustineNursery ©2015 Augustine Nursery 9W & Van Kleecks Lane, Kingston, NY (845) 338-4936 AugustineNursery.com Spring Hours: Monday–Saturday, 8am–5pm and Sunday, 10am–4pm FULL-SERVICE NURSERY • CUSTOM LANDSCAPE DESIGN & INSTALLATION • STONE YARD & HARDSCAPING WATER FEATURES • IRRIGATION • LIGHTING • RETAIL SHOP & MORE A Forest Of Choice. The broadest selection of the biggest trees and plants in the Hudson Valley. ADIRONDACKARCHITECTUREDESIGN FRO M CO U NT RY ESTATES , TO SOP HISTICATED TOWN HOUSE S , AND RUSTIC R ET REATS . M IC HA EL L . BIR D AI A RHINEBEC K , NY | 51 8 63 7 25 24 SARANA C LAK E , NY | 51 8 -89 1 -52 24 WWW. ADKGREATCAMPS.COM MICHAEL L. BIRD, A.I.A. MICHAEL L BIRD, ARCHITECT PC ADIRONDACK DESIGN IMAGINE YOUR FIREWOOD SHED GLENNSSHEDS.COM 845.328.0447 The Trash-Bin Shed Elegant & Rugged INTERIOR DESIGN & DECORATION steilishHudsonValley&Beyond•steilish.comDESIGN, RENOVATION & PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL & HOSPITALITY INTERIORS
Top: When Watson and Sutton purchased the property, it had fallen into disrepair. A tarp blanketed the roof. Boards covered the windows. Trumpet vines began colonizing the exterior and the house suffered from neglect, vandalism, and exposure to the elements, but the interior remained largely intact. The restoration and construction project took four years to complete.
Environmental History Despite the setbacks, Watson and Sutton never wavered from their goal: creating an authentic historical renovation with as neutral a footprint as possible. “It’s not quite a passive house, but there are very few ecologically friendly historic homes,” says Sutton. She estimates that the whole complex—original cottage, residential addition, and new three-car garage—will be around 85 percent sustainable when solar panels are in stalled atop the new buildings. The original plan to go solar went south after they com mitted to Tesla tiles, which passed muster with the historic review board and would have covered the roof of the historic home. But: “The company just disappeared on us,” says Wat son. “And they took our deposit.”
Bottom A four-fifths-size reproduction of a 10 pound Parrott field cannon commissioned by the couple was fabricated in Virginia. The West Point Foundry produced 1,700 Parrott field cannons for the Union Army, which proved decisive during the Civil War.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 43 non-profit Scenic Hudson bought the foundry complex to turn it into an open-air museum, it inherited the dilapidated summer cottage, built by foundry cofounder William Kemble to entertain a parade of famous guests (including Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee). The property comes with 50-plus pages of building restrictions put in place by Scenic Hudson, which ap proved the couple’s initial plans. At first, Sutton and Watson envisioned a cozy retreat from their Manhattan apartment and planned to add an extension to the historic cottage large enough to accommodate their family—including eight grandchildren. But the local historic district review board nixed the original configuration and the concept for the property evolved over time. Then came more bad news: Rot had corroded half of the structural beams. To fix the problem, the house had to be elevated off of its foundation. The couple also discovered that layers of bricks that insulated the home, known as nogging, required removal.
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One notable feature of the new home is the foundation, an innovative adaptive reuse built with the brick nogging taken from the old home’s walls. But the key component to reduc ing their environmental footprint is the geothermal system, installed by Charles Lazin at Altren Energy in Ulster Park, which burrows almost 500 feet into the ground and allows the couple to create nested spaces by delivering heat and cooling only where it’s needed.
Windows add an expansive feel to the new annex. In the historic house, the carpenters discovered five sets of original pocket doors with large panes of glass that slide into the walls, probably the first of their kind in New York, according to Sut ton. In the sitting room, four pocket doors once opened onto French balconies with wrought iron ornaments, but they’re too drafty to use year-round.
Bottom: The house, built in 1826 by William Kemble, cofounder of the West Point Foundry, hosted famous guests, including Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.
This zone concept regulates the floor temperature in the new addition, including the cinema room and workout space in the basement, along with the modernized bathrooms in the guest rooms on the top floor of the bed and breakfast. Air also circulates through cleverly hidden vents.
Top: The chimney, walls and most of the trim in the sitting room is original. Decorations and furnishings are in the Federal style of the house’s heyday.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 45
“In the winter, we live on the first floor [of the new building] and it’s like a house within a house,” divorced from the four upstairs bedrooms and basement, Sutton says. The cover of the gunite pool provides passive heat and the hot tub will be hooked up to the solar system.
Sutton and Watson salvaged two sets, which now close off the sitting room and the dining room from the main hallway on the first floor. Lepage Millwork in Quebec created the historic home’s new windows, which are double-paned to dampen noise from the train.
46 • online at upstatehouse.com
The couple had previously completed restoration and construction projects, including an apartment in Sydney and a 1950s Cape in Concord, Massachusetts, which they turned into a Colonial. They have also lived in Vienna, London, and Africa. Watson hails form Australia. Sutton, who is half-American and half-French, grew up in Vienna, a background that influenced the historic home’s decor. Connected to the old cottage by a narrow, glass-enclosed architectural hyphen, required by the village historical review board, the new building focuses on functionality. The large kitchen is designed to support events like lawn parties and fundraisers. Over the years, the home’s previous owners added unat tractive extensions and also divided the upstairs bedrooms with partitions to create extra rooms. The door to nowhere in the back of the main foyer, now a window, once led to an enclosed stairway to the basement, which remains unfinished and features a hearth and a root cellar perfect for storing wine. A pool table from the 1860s serves as the centerpiece of the adjacent servant’s quarters. It’s no surprise that they favored an antique motif in the cottage. But these aren’t any old artifacts: The couple worked with pictures sent by members of the Kemble fam ily to help recreate an authentic aesthetic. They tracked down three-quarters of the furniture online and in-person; the rest came from Sutton’s mother’s collection.
Original Hepplewhite chairs once ringed the dining table, but they’re too fragile, so Henredon replicas stand in. For the walls, the couple settled on Benjamin Moore Historical Collection colors: Puritan Gray and Salisbury Green in the guest rooms; Wedgewood Gray in the sitting room and Lyons Red in the dining room, where the dark maroon hue helps stimulate the appetite, Sutton says.
The colors for the walls inside the house were made in consultation with Benjamin Moore experts on historic colors. The dining room is Lyons Red. The chairs are 18thcentury Hepplewhite.
Early in the process, Sutton adopted a DIY approach.
In addition to building a closet in the upstairs Napoleon Room, she wired the historic home’s electrical sockets and restored the original rim locks, which are attached to the back of the doors and require skeleton keys replicated by Charleston Hardware and Lock in South Carolina. She also enjoys wielding a chain saw whenever necessary.“We’rerunning the business in order to live here,” says Sutton. “This isn’t some get-rich-quick formula. You have to work hard to live in paradise.”
Painter Asher B. Durand and novelist Washington Irving often visited the home. The couple awaits the arrival of a bust of Napoleon I given to the Kemble family by Napo leon III that is now in the hands of a distant descendent.
Antique by Design
The design ethos favors a less-is-more approach. “You can’t cram in too much stuff,” says Watson. “The lines have to be clean.” Prints of Vienna street scenes and an original Hudson River School painting adorn the walls of the sitting room.
ImageCatskill/ZimmerGabriel
“The homes’ carbon neutrality integrates the project into a larger regional and, ultimately, global movement,” says Buck Moorhead, AIA, a certified Passive House designer and the principal architect for The Catskill Project. “We consider this a real step forward for mitigating climate change. We’re working with the environment, not against it.”
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 47
To help homeowners achieve net-zero energy use in their day-to-day, the homes will be powered by the sun, via solar arrays and community solar subscriptions. The homes’ Passive House features, such as triple-glazed windows, airtight construction, and dense-pack cellulose insulation, further minimize energy consumption.
Conserving resources from the building sites has been one key to reducing that equation. “Existing ash and maple trees, salvaged during site preparation, are milled locally and reused as flooring and ceiling features, in the homes themselves,” he says.
While the homes’ design and construction hold to some of the highest standards of energy conservation, their aesthetics are also warm, inviting, and blend the natural lighting and ambiance of the outdoors within.
Native hemlock timber exteriors are finished with a Japanese shou sugi ban charring technique, creating texturally rich visual contrast. Interiors feature open-concept kitchen, dining, and living areas, which flow into a threeseason room. Multiple decks on the second floor offer outdoor spaces with sun and shade at opposite times of the day. Thoughtful additional customization options include wide-plank hardwood flooring on the ground floor, top-ofthe-line appliances, and custom millwork pieces. In addition to the community’s proximity to an array of towns and cultural attractions, homes will share 40 acres of preserved woodland with hiking trails, ponds, waterfalls, streams, and a viewingExclusivedeck.sales and marketing of The Catskill
LIVING
Project is by Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing. Homes range from two-bedroom, twobath, up to three-bedroom, three-and-a-half baths. Prices range from $1.3 to $2 million depending on the option and upgrade package, with every home treated similarly in respect to energy efficiency and carbon neutrality. Learn more at Thecatskillproject.com or by calling (845) 871-2704. PROJECT WILL OF
T he Sullivan County Catskills has always been a beloved vacation spot for those looking to connect to nature, thanks to its fresh mountain air, bracing streams, and reputation for healthy living. For those who want to bring that ethos into their everyday lives, The Catskill Project, a plan for 11 homes on 90 bucolic acres in Livingston Manor, offers sustainabilityminded homeowners the opportunity to reside in the first carbon-neutral community in the region.
The Catskill Project is a proud partner in NYSERDA’s Building Better Homes—Emissions Free and Healthier Communities program, which, in conjunction with the New York State Home Builders Association and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, is investing more than $30 million to decarbonize new single-family-home construction.Crucialtothe community’s goals, says Moorhead, has been identifying and reducing the energy consumed and emissions produced during both the construction and everyday use of the homes. “Since project conception in 2019, we’ve recognized the importance of factoring in embodied carbon, which is the energy used leading up to and during construction,” says Moorhead.
As anyone who has spent time in Sullivan County can attest, homes can lose power during periods of intense weather. With an electric heating system, that could be especially dangerous in the winter. So Moorhead and his team ran a test. “We wanted to know what would happen if the power went out, so we shut off the heat to the model home for a full week last January,” he says. “The outside temperature went down to minus-10 degrees. The house’s interior temperature started at 68, and never went below 50 for that entire week.”
BE THE FIRST CARBON-NEUTRAL COMMUNITY IN THE REGION SPONSORED THE FUTURE
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“Passive House construction optimizes the building envelope. It’s very resilient, extremely comfortable, and draft-free,” says Moorhead. “This is especially important in times of extreme cold or heat.”
aybe you’re remodeling a rustic farmhouse with acres of rolling hills and are selecting new windows to frame your scenic views. Or, as the autumn chill arrives, you might be determined to replace those drafty windows and improve energy efficiency throughout your home. Whether you’re remodeling your house or building a new one, choosing the right windows can take your space from meh to marvelous.
Combine Different Window Sizes Lining up multiple double-hung windows next to one another is a common technique to create a single viewscape. Most often, these windows will be the same size—but they don’t have to be.
Windows of different sizes, and even styles, can easily and seamlessly be combined by a seasoned carpenter. Combining one large center window with two smaller windows on each side can be a great solution for a wall beneath a gable. It will open up the room to more light and create a design statement all its own.
To learn more about the range of window styles and design options available to homeowners, we turned to the expert team at Williams Lumber and Home Centers, the Hudson Valley’s premier dealer of Marvin windows and doors. With seven locations, including two design centers in Pleasant Valley and Rhinebeck, family-owned Williams Lumber has been a go-to for home improvement in the Hudson Valley since 1946.
Until relatively recently, window manufacturers avoided offering windows in any color darker than bronze. That’s because the sun would cause dark finishes to fade prematurely and generate excessive heat. But thanks to improvements in finishing technologies and the use of stable materials like fiberglass, Marvin now offers more options for window colors than ever.
Add Windows on the Down-Low
Here are five inspiring ideas for designing your new windows from Williams and Marvin that will help you create a major design impact in your space, while increasing your family’s enjoyment and comfort for years to come.
Go Trimless If you’re going for a more contemporary aesthetic, think about skipping the interior window trim entirely. This modern technique uses drywall or plaster to surround the window instead of the traditional wood casing and jamb extensions, for a clean, streamlined effect.
Embrace Dark Colors
48 • online at SPONSOREDupstatehouse.com LET THERE BE LIGHT
Looking for elegance with a bit of an edge? Blacktrimmed windows are a much more dramatic way to frame any view, and instantly add dimension and contrast to any space.
Wow-Worthy Window Ideas for Your Home M
Anyone who lives upstate knows that window screens are necessary for keeping unwanted insects outside of your house when the windows are open. But even high-quality screens can take away from that stunning, crystal-clear view of your landscape that you so love.
There are a few additional considerations you’ll need to bring into play if you want to forgo the interior trim. Sills often get used as shelves for plants, books, coffee cups—you name it. If that has your family’s name written all over it, you’ll want to protect the bottom sill with a durable material like wood. And in regions that experience colder winters, condensation may occur on trimless windows, so you may want to invest in triple-pane glazed windows with an additional layer of insulating glass.
Get the best of both worlds by installing an awning window directly under a larger picture window. You can enjoy a fresh breeze with the screened bottom window open, while enjoying the view from above to its fullest. And an awning window located near the floor is sure to make a oneof-a-kind visual impression.
Create Your Own Nook
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 49 WILLIAMSLUMBER.COM
How to Get Started
A corner window can be just the memorable focal point your space is looking for. As the name implies, a corner window is specifically designed to occupy an outside corner of your house and uses glass at the corner instead of traditional trim elements. With a corner window, you’ll have expansive views of the outdoors and the sweet, picture-perfect nook will be an immersive design element that everyone in your family—pets included—are sure to enjoy.
The personalization opportunities for Marvin’s windows are almost endless, so it’s important
to explore your choices with an expert at the beginning stages of designing or remodeling your space. The selection of the right windows and doors can last a lifetime when you do the proper research and consider all of the options.
At Williams’ windows and doors showrooms, located at its Rhinebeck and Pleasant Valley design centers, you’ll find a wide array of Marvin windows and doors on display. A visit to the showroom is the perfect way to experience everything in person. You’ll find plenty of inspiration to define your design direction, and Williams’ design experts will guide you through the process of selecting and ordering the right windows for you and your home.
50 • online at upstatehouse.com PROFILEDESIGN
Creating a oneness with the landscape, the back of the house has a series of floor-toceiling windows that take in the property’s views. Tucked to the side, a freeform pool is surrounded by a patio of irregular bluestone pavers interplanted with thyme.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 51
By Joan Vos MacDonald
Photos by Art Gray DESIGNINGFORMAXIMUMHAPPINESS
How Frank Webb Made His Home a Joyous Place
52 • online at upstatehouse.com
Opposite, top: The media room showcases a trio of paintings on acrylic by Jay Shinn. Comfortable seating includes a deep, butterfly-shaped sofa by Minotti and a pair of vintage Italian armchairs, all of which sit atop a round rug designed by Webb.
Opposite, bottom: A custom-colored glass dining table brings a pop of color to the outside dining terrace.
Two years of construction resulted in a meticulously crafted home that is carefully aligned with its environment. The sym metrical house is set neatly under the tree line, making its straight modern lines seem as natural as a stone bluff. “We designed it in such a way that it would be unobtrusive,” says Webb. “The front and the back of the house look very different. The back looks much more commanding. It’s a function of the slope of the property, whereas the front is meant to be serene and simple. Not something you would remark upon from the street.”
The living-room windows provide a panoramic view of the property. A green Vladimir Kagan sofa and a Fredrikson Stallard coffee table made of cut birch logs create a bridge to the outside.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 53 When Frank Webb meets a new client, he asks them, “What makes you happy?” To Webb, a partner in the design firm, Webb White LLC, that question matters, because, ideally, home is the place everyone feels hap piest. “It’s the place everyone returns to and says, ‘Ah, now I can relax.’” Creating home interiors that make clients happier is what motivates Webb as a designer.
So, when Webb and his husband, actor Steve Schroko, purchased a house in Pawling, he considered the same question, then decided on materials, designs and one-of-a-kind fur nishings accordingly.
The couple intended to merely renovate the 1970s structure, turning a hodgepodge of rooms into a brighter, airier space, but, ulti mately, complications made it cost efficient to raze the building. Working with New York City-based SPG Architects, they created a new structure within the existing footprint. “We tried to work within that,” says Webb. “It occupies the same spot on the property as the original house, but we configured it in a way that is a lot more livable.”
Contemporary, Modern, Comfortable Webb worked with SPG and Williams on the home’s exterior and landscaping, but the interior design choices are all his own. Those choices include unique and vintage furnishings, subtle textural accents and an exuberant palette of colors and selectThepatterns.openkitchen features walls of cabinets and drawers plus a counter/work space clad in a warm chestnut, seem ing even warmer in contrast to the polished concrete floor.
In contrast to the kitchen’s sleek teak cabinetry and quartzite countertops, a Susan Silton artwork and a Fornasetti dining table add color and pattern while also serving as conversation starters.
In the high-ceilinged great room, attention naturally travels to the far wall and a large photograph by Massimo Vitali. The Italian photographer is known for photos with a bird’s-eye view of crowds, particularly beachgoers. “This is a departure for him and we love this one,” said Webb. “It’s actually a photograph of some sort of celebration happen ing in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. There are people on picnic blankets and there is all this greenery. We love the perspective of the chairs going into the distance.”
54 • online at upstatehouse.com Cedar bump-outs neatly define the home’s simple-yetelegant entrance and frame a rear window, visually comple menting the wooded terrain. Making the home bright and airy was a priority, so the ceiling height of the living room is a lofty 12-and-a-half feet, while floor-to-ceiling windows offer unim peded pastoral views. Webb worked with landscape designer Nievera Williams to create a landscaping plan that’s formal when closer to the house and transitions into wilder wooded areas further away. While the home’s swimming pool existed before the renovation, it was resurfaced and the equipment reoriented. “We darkened it as well,” says Webb. “To make it look more like a natural body of water.” For an enviable crowning touch, he added an exterior show er. “In the shower area, you can see a white stucco wall that is actually an original foundation wall for the house,” he says. “We kept it and reconfigured it to become more of a privacy barrier for the outdoor shower. We love the idea of having one and being able to access it from the primary suite. Everybody wants an outdoor shower.”
In the primary bedroom, a wall clad in orange grasscloth wallpaper serves as a backdrop for an oversized customdesigned headboard. Against pale walls Webb placed flowery bursts of color using vivid artwork, a sunny yellow vase, and visually arresting built-in violet shelves. “I don’t adhere to the super minimal,” says Webb. “My interpretation of what’s contemporary, modern, and comfortable is key. I just want people to feel the expressiveness of that simplicity and the sense of relaxation. I think the colors and furnishings do something to make you feel relaxed and excited as well.”
A “happy palette” is how he describes his color choic es. “We have a periwinkle guest bedroom,” said Webb, “There’s orange in the primary bedroom, a kind of ultra violet base in the media room, adding in pinks and golds. That rich violet color of the bookcase in the media room is one of my favorite colors. I wanted to do a little bit of an experiment. I wanted it to be playful and yet sophisticated at the same time.”
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 55 845.773.9234 | info@quatrefoil.us WWW.QUATREFOIL.US Briggs & Stratton Generators • Sales • Installation • Service stoneridgeelectric.com 845.331.4227 STONERIDGE ELECTRICAL SERVICE, INC Next time you have a project and need a professional, give us a call! Since 1984 we’ve been building our client relationships...one job at a time. Nourishing biodiverse ecosystems & gardens since 2008. Garden Coach. Ecological Landscape Design. kulandscapes.com pureformhomeandgarden.com | Kingston, NY | 347.719.3825 We look for projects that challenge and inspire creative movement • full interior/exterior renovation and restoration • art studios and meditative spaces • guest houses and gardens • custom woodwork • decorative finishes CONTRACTING | pure form | LANDSCAPING CARPENTRY Providing fine art services for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region 518-822-7244 athensfas.com ATHENS FINE ART SERVICES INSTALLATION HANDLING PACKING CRATING TRANSPORTATION GERMANTOWN, NY SINCE 2015 TRANSPORTATION INSTALLATION HANDLING PACKING CRATING JOHN E STINEMIRE, P E CIVIL & STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING l RESIDENTIAL l COMMERCIAL S T I N E M I R E E N G I N E E R I N G C O M J O H N @ S T I N E M I R E E N G I N E E R I N G C O M OHN E SchlebuschNilsby:Photo
56 • online at upstatehouse.com Holistic Home Designer Ô Ú holistichomedesignerholistichomedesigner.com FULL SERVICE INTERIOR DESIGN VIRTUAL DESIGN DESIGN CONSULTATION Serving Hudson Valley and Beyond Jeff Wilkinson, R.A. 13 Chambers St, Newburgh, NY 12550 INTERIORARCHITECTURE845-565-1835www.jwra.comRESTORATIONDESIGN A Green Technology Company H OLLENBECK P EST C ONTROL . COM 845-565-5566 Residential & Commercial S H ERRE T E CH AS E ASS O C R.E B R O K E R C: 845 380-283 1 O: 845 33 1 3 1 0 0 s h er re t ch a s e@ fo u rse a s o n s si r c o m c h a s e re al es t a t e n y c o m S er v i ng the Cat sk il l Mou nt a i n s & M id Hud son Va l ley reg ion The definitive guide to the Rural Intelligence region. Delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe today.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 57
The media room contains an eye-popping bookcase painted in Pantone’s Baton Rouge and a vintage table by Gilbert Rohde and stools from Pascal Boyer Gallery.
“The dining table is by Fornasetti,” said Webb. “It’s a vin tage table, probably from the ‘50s or ‘60s. To me it’s not the least bit country in feel, but it works here. I love how incred ibly rich the design of the table top is and it simplifies what you need to dress the table. For placements, for china, for glassware, we can be very simple because the table itself is doing all the work. It’s beautiful and very rare, because they did a lot of these tables, but usually in much smaller sizes. I’ve yet to find one in that design in that size. To me it feels superThespecial.”colorson the glossy table top harmonize with those in the striped artwork placed above. Webb’s love of color extends to the outside eating area, where a long purple glass table reflects the passing clouds and the changing colors of the sky. It’s one of a kind. “I had it made,” he says. “The table frame designs came from a company in the city called Designlush and I worked with them to customize the glass top to get to that color. I just gravitate toward that color direction. The table is amazing. Just reflecting the blue sky with the clouds in it. I love it.”
The ideal place to view the photo is on the pale green Vladimir Kagan sofa that centers the room. “But what’s re ally kind of cool is the coffee table in front of it,” says Webb. “Which is by a British design firm called Fredriskon Stallard. They do a lot of stuff that is now collectible. Their designs are very popular. This is sort of in the early days of that. This is a table that is made from cut birch logs—very precisely cut—and then banded. It’s very simple and very rustic in a way, yet there’s a level of sophistication to it that makes it an interesting focal point in the room.”
Despite Webb’s distinctive gift for design, he did not origi nally work in the industry. He studied and worked in finance, eventually becoming a managing director in client services at JP Morgan Investment Management. Ultimately, finance did not make him happy. “I decided I wanted to leave finance, but I didn’t know what I was going to do next,” he says. “I really thought I was going to go into the nonprofit world and I did spend some time interning in that space. Then I happened to meet the person who would ultimately become my business partner.”
Another appealing choice is the dining room table.
“I was so incredibly fortunate to team up with somebody like that,” says Webb. “Somebody who was willing to share in the design process. It’s very difficult for people to do in general and I think I was incredibly lucky. To this day, I’ve got myself a great partner.” And Webb has a home that makes him happy.
Webb met business partner Matthew White in an eleva tor, when they each bought apartments in the same small building, around the same time, and were both engaged in major renovations. The new neighbors compared design phi losophies and decided to work together, which they’ve done successfully for 18 years.
58 • online at upstatehouse.com
The sleeping area of the primary bedroom includes a bed and nightstands designed by Webb.
ABOUT THE DESIGNER Ana Claudia Schultz Ana Claudia Design, Rhinebeck
Anaclaudiadesign.com
Since the pandemic set off its cascading effect of supply chain chaos, designing a home has been rocky, to say the least. The fact that Rhinebeck-based interior designer Ana Claudia Schultz was able to envision and execute on a design for an airy retreat for clients in Saugerties in the midst of it all is no small feat. “There were so many unknowns and challenges,” Schultz says. “The costs kept changing, the stock of materials was uncertain, and there were many delays.”
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 59
To create the cheerful, functional kitchen, she incorporated open shelving and chose materials that felt high-end, but without the weighty price tag. To add elegance while keeping costs down, she went with GE’s Cafe Series appliances and chose Ikea base cabinets that the team finished with semi-handmade fronts. She added whimsy to the space by painting the cabinets a soothing sage that echoed the landscape outside, and by creatively using tile for the backsplash. “Instead of adding traditional trim, we embraced the picket edges on the hex tiles,” she says. With a subtle yet eye-catching pendant light centered above the island, the room dazzles with fine details. In the bedroom, “serenity was the goal,” says Schultz. She chose a minimalist design for the space to avoid clutter and a light palette to relax the mind. Sheer, white floor-to-ceiling drapes keep the space cool without fully obstructing views of the woods beyond. Above the bed, dreamy watercolor paintings by Walton-based artist Caroline Fay add to the room’s calming atmosphere. As with all of her design work, Schultz centers local makers—many of whom she highlights at The Beck, an artist and maker showroom in Rhinebeck that she co-owns with her husband.
The final result of the home’s design is the nuanced balance of styles and influences that Schultz and her clients had hoped for. “It’s so full of life with textures, natural elements, and high-end touches,” she says, “but it is still relaxing and embraces the beauty of the outdoors.”
Add to that her clients’ ambitious design goals, and Schultz had her work cut out for her. “They wanted a family-friendly home that incorporated contemporary local makers into the design, but with one added twist,” says Schultz. “My client is both Spanish and Japanese, so she likes the minimalism of Japanese design but also the natural textures and fun quirks from her Spanish side.” But Schultz relished the challenge of balancing it all into one graceful whole.
Inspirations: Bringing happiness to my clients with spaces that reflect their brands or personalities, while complimenting function in every way.
REFRESHDESIGNSPONSORED
ANA CLAUDIA DESIGN’S MINIMALIST, MAKER-CENTRIC REFUGE
Saugerties Serenity
PHOTOS BY WINONA BARTON-BALLENTINE
The primary residence served as a boarding house before being purchased in the 1950s for use as a family home, and more recently it was the site of a popular antiques business. The interiors in the main house feature details that harken back to an earlier age, such as axe-cut chestnut ceiling beams, well-preserved wide-board floors made from the region’s once-populous hemlock trees—the valuable source of tannins for the 19th-century leather-tanning industry—and quaint stone-clad fireplaces.Boththe main house and cottage have been impeccably restored and refreshed. Working with Steve Markle of Madison Square Design in Kingston, the owners focused on preserving the property’s farmhouse feel, while updating the interiors for comfort and livability. The hemlock floors have been refinished in a rich, glossy amber and the walls were painted in a soothing, sophisticated palette that includes gray, sage, navy, and warming umber. In addition to redesigning the interiors with the latest appliances, fixtures, and finishes, the home now has Mitsubishi mini-splits that provide energy-efficient air conditioning and heating throughout the house.
The current homeowners were drawn to the home’s country charm and central location, nestled as it is between culturally rich Kingston to the east and the recreational wonderland of the Catskill Mountains to the west.
I
HOUSESPONSOREDFEATURE
The addition expanded the living space to the current floorplan, which at just over 3,000 square feet, has ample room for five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and plenty of living and entertaining space. In 1932, the house was joined by a twobedroom guest cottage, transforming the property into a tidy estate.
Updating a Kingston Legacy
HISTORIC HAVEN A KINGSTON PROPERTY BLENDS TRADITIONAL
According to the current owners, the house started out as a simple stone structure that was built during the 1700s and was expanded into a much grander clapboard home in 1810.
60 • online at upstatehouse.com
t’s oh-so-easy to fall in love with a historic home from afar, only to discover upon closer inspection that it needs time-consuming renovations for one to be able to enjoy a modern life inside. Stumbling upon a stately home with interiors that have already been tastefully renovated with all respect paid to its architectural legacy is a much rarer thing indeed. But with one meticulously updated property tucked just off Route 28 in Kingston, a cozy two-acre, 19thcentury estate outfitted with all the conveniences of contemporary living is just what you’ll find.
As you turn off the bustling main road into the driveway, there’s no doubt that you’ll feel as if you’ve been transported back in time. The white, two-story Colonial fits right in with other graceful stone homes from Kingston’s prominent 18thcentury past as New York’s first capital city.
DETAILS WITH MODERN COMFORTS
As is common for a structure of its age, the main house has had a variety of different lives.
Above: As part of the main house’s recent renovations, its hemlock floors have been refinished as a rich, glossy amber and the walls are painted in a palette of soothing, sophisticated hues.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 61
The kitchens and bathrooms in both the main house and guest cottage are where the updates for contemporary living and entertaining are most focused. The owners redesigned the kitchens in both the main house and guest cottage with custom cabinetry, top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances, and white quartz countertops that create an ease of use and natural flow for cooking and entertaining.
Opposite: With origins as a simple 18th-century stone structure that expanded to a 3,000-plus-squarefoot clapboard home in 1810, this historic Kingston home is filled with charming original details. Outfitted for Modern Luxury
A Future of Possibilities Despite the property’s serenity, it’s located just a short drive to a host of villages and small cities. The restaurants, shops, theaters, and art galleries found in Kingston, Woodstock, and Rhinebeck are close at hand, and it’s also a short drive from the many skiing, hiking, fishing, and camping options on offer in the majestic Catskill Mountains. Since the property is still zoned for both commercial and residential use from its days as an antiques shop, it could easily host a business again. The guest cottage currently serves as a rental unit. One could easily imagine living in the main house and running a quaint business from the cottage or continuing to offer it as a rental. For a creative entrepreneur who loves the romance of a historic home, the property offers a wealth of opportunities for both business and pleasure that are sure to bring both right to your front door.
The kitchen in the main house also features radiant-heated floors, clad in gray-stained wood, for extra coziness on frosty mornings. A picture window that runs most of the length of one wall washes the room in sunlight and offers a panoramic view of the rolling hills of the Bluestone Wild Forest behind the house. The bathrooms in both dwellings now sport a range of modern fixtures, finishes, and tiling choices that enliven the spaces with a sleek, bold aesthetic.
Another ideal place to decompress—and perhaps enjoy a casual pre-dinner aperitif—is the sunroom that runs along the back of the house. The room offers a vantage point from which to appreciate the property’s wooded scenery or to keep an eye on the kids or the dogs as they play outside in the large fenced-in backyard. A fire pit located just beyond makes the ideal centerpiece for entertaining friends and family on cool country nights.
The primary bedroom’s ensuite bathroom makes a distinctive, modern statement, thanks to a white soaking tub with high angled sides that echo the bold Ikat-style patterns on the navy and white tile below, plus a spacious glass-walled shower room with a rainfall showerhead. After spending time in the tub, you’ll find a moment of zen in the primary bedroom suite with a large window that looks over the rolling hills beyond and which the homeowners say has a calming, luxurious vibe.
62 • online at upstatehouse.com
Licensed Real
About the Barker Hudson Team at Compass Barker Hudson Real Estate is now the Barker Hudson Team at Compass, a growing group of real estate professionals managed by Christine Barker, a veteran of the industry with 30 years of experience as a real estate broker, developer, and investor in commercial and residential property. The team is anchored on the foundations of local knowledge, honesty, and integrity, while Compass is renowned for leading the industry with cutting-edge technology and a focus on providing agents innovative tools to better serve their clients. For sellers, the Barker Hudson Team employs print, digital, and social media marketing to an extensive database of contacts in Metro New York, powered by the marketing prowess of Compass, ensuring your property will achieve maximum exposure. Buyers benefit from our experience as developers and investors, providing you an edge in making sound decisions. And with over 20 years in operation, its Vacation Rental branch Barker Hudson Vacation Rentals offers a carefully curated selection of vacation rentals in the Hudson Valley and beyond. Once you’ve made your upstate investment, Barker Hudson can help you generate income from long or short-term rentals.
Christine Barker Real Estate christine.barker@barkerhudson.com
The Barker Hudson Team at Compass (845) 800-1345 Barkerhudson.com
Broker
From top: The primary bedroom suite has a calming, luxurious vibe. Sunny yellow paint in the hall accentuates the main house’s abundant light. The two-bedroom guest house was added to the property in 1932. Opposite, from top: Details like axe-cut chestnut ceiling beams, well-preserved wide-board floors made from hemlock, and quaint stone-clad fireplaces harken back to an earlier age in Kingston’s history. A panoramic picture window in the main house’s renovated kitchen washes the room in sunlight and offers a peaceful view of the landscape.
Salesperson
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 63 286 Route 28 $849,000Kingston
Licensed Associate
Susanna Scott-Mitchell Estate smitchell@barkerhudson.com
64 • online at upstatehouse.com $3,100,000 | Rosendale | Lakefront Masterpiece Take refuge on your own 8-acre lake, one of the last ones still in private hands in the Hudson Valley. This 41-acre estate already features 2 hand-crafted houses: the multi-level Lake House overlooking the water, rock ridges and forests, plus the unique mahogany-paneled Admirals House, a wonder of design and e ciency, tucked out of site for extra privacy. A one-mile road surrounds the lake and connects it all. 5 minutes to Kingston; 15 minutes to New Paltz. MLS#20221431. Robert Airhart m: 917.304.3864 | o: 845.340.1920 $2,750,000 | Rifton Waterfront | Renovated Stone House This stone house with a contemporary nish sits on 7 acres of water frontage. Beauty and tranquility await on the deck overlooking Sturgeon pool of the Wallkill River. Swim, boat and sh right from your own dock. Even the kitchen looks out over the water. And in the winter, cozy up in the living room with its 16' ceilings and giant replace. Set back o the road, giving the property a private, park-like setting, this house is perfect for enjoying the beauty of the Hudson Valley. Robert Airhart m: 917.304.3864 | o: 845.340.1920 $1,995,000 | Gardiner | The Ultimate Live-Work Experience Rare opportunity to own almost 80 pristine acres near New Paltz with no less than one-third of a mile of frontage on the picturesque 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. MLS#20220232. Hayes Clement m: 917.568.5226 | Donna Brooks m: 845.337.0061 A long landscaped driveway leads to the sanctuary-like setting of this antique brick carriage house, fully restored and expanded, plus barn, converted to a luxurious 4-bedroom home. Formal entry leads to rst oor o ce and living room with tray ceiling and bluestone replace. Large-paned French doors open from inlivingthe $770,000 | Hurley | Classic Style and Privacy Set high on a gorgeous knoll, “Walnut Ridge” features a sun-drenched great room, with high ceilings, walls of windows and gleaming cherrywood oors, owing seamlessly into a stunning eat-in kitchen with stone countertops and stainless steel appliances. The ow continues to a formal dining room or additional home o ce, with plank oors and French doors opening to the rear deck, making indoor/outdoor entertaining a breeze. MLS#20222230. Harris L. Sa er m: 914.388.3351 | John Kralik m: 845.594.6991 $700,000 | Town of Ulster | Contemporary Style Home Near Uptown Meticulously maintained, post mid-century contemporary home on 1.7 park-like landscaped acres, close to all the action of one of Hudson Valley's hottest commercial districts. Remarkable privacy and tranquility on a beautifully improved homesite surrounded by woods. This home provides seamless indoor/outdoor living with a bright gourmet kitchen (Bosch and Miele appliances) and a solarium opening to a back patio with hot $489,900 | West Hurley | Pristine Ranch with Studio This immaculate ranch sits on a private 1.5-acre homesite between Uptown Kingston and Woodstock. Open concept plan with the living areas anked on one side by a spacious primary bedroom suite and bath, and on the other side, 2 more bedrooms and full bath. Downstairs is a 700+ sq.ft. nished walk-out space, including a third bathroom. The back deck overlooks a beautifully maintained pool and across the pond is a separate studio or garage building. MLS#20222378. Hayes Clement m: 917.568.5226 | o: 845.340.1920 First time on the market, this 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath colonial has been impeccably maintained with a comfortable and light oor plan. All you need to do is move right in. The rst oor features an open layout with eat-in kitchen, a family room and front room that could be easily converted into o ce space or dining room. The attached 2-car garage makes it easy to get in and out of the home during cold or hot months, 16 HURLEY AVENUE, KINGSTON, NY 12401
Great HudsonValley Homes
Available for the rst time in more than 40 years, this beautifully restored shingle-style mansion on Kingston’s historic West Chestnut Street is one of only two remaining buildings attributed to British-American architect Calvert Vaux (Olana, NYC’s Central Park) still standing in Ulster County. The architectural splendor is still very much intact, with elaborate paneling in most rooms, all overlooking the Hudson River from a leafy, park-like setting. A 3-car carriage house, inground swimming pool and updated state-of-the-art systems are now part of a picture-perfect package. Hayes Clement m: 917.568.5226 | o: 845.340.1920. Harris L. Sa er m: 914.388.3351 | o: 845.340.1920 $1,500,000 | Town of Ulster | Having It All Whether you’re searching for a full-time home or a weekend oasis, you’ve found it in this beautiful 6.5-acre, 3-bedroom, 4.5-bath home, complete with a luxury primary suite with massive closets, plus heated garage and a private guest suite above with its own kitchen. Lower level of house is nished with 2,000+ additional square feet. Outside is an inground, heated saline pool and your very own pond, surrounded by mature trees, all approached from a wonderful winding driveway. Donna Brooks m: 845.337.0061 | o: 845.255.9400 In a changing market, you need the Hudson Valley’s top team. Backed by more than a century of collective experience and deep market expertise, the Clement, Brooks & Sa er Team delivers stellar results for buyers and sellers. And we can show it: $90 million in closed or pending sales for the past 12 months, making us not just the leading team in Ulster and Dutchess counties, but the No. 1 Team in the entire Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network from New York City all the way north to Rhode Island. We’ve already set sale-price records in multiple markets, including Kingston and Marbletown, for our seller clients. And for buyers, we’ve made deals happen – at prices that make sense – even in the most heated multiple-o er situations.
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 6516 HURLEY AVENUE, KINGSTON, NY 12401
A Once-In-A-Lifetime Opportunity in Kingston
Call or text m: 845.337.0061 to learn more and get the key to your best move yet. Visit us at: www.unlockupstate.com or on Facebook and Instagram
The CBS Team. Back row: Trevor Naumann, Real Estate Salesperson; Stephan Hengst, Real Estate Salesperson (referral agent); Hayes Clement, Associate Real Estate Broker; Donna Brooks, Associate Real Estate Broker; Harris L. Sa er, Associate Real Estate Broker; Robert Airhart, Real Estate Salesperson. Front row: Jesse Chason, Real Estate Salesperson; Patricia Dantzic, Real Estate Salesperson; Jamie L. Corts, Real Estate Salesperson; John (Jack) Kralik, Associate Real Estate Broker; Kate Terkelson, Real Estate Salesperson. Not pictured: Julie Mazur, Real Estate Salesperson.
66 • online at upstatehouse.com Tivoli NY • Hudson NY • Catskill NY • Rhinebeck NY • Kingston NY • O: 845.757.5000Formerlywww.fourseasonssir.comGaryDiMauroRealEstate Each office is independently owned and operated. s 211 Mitchell Street, Hillsdale, NY $3,995,000 Gary DiMauro C: 518.755.3973 44 Engel Road, Austerlitz, NY $3,400,000 Pamela Belfor C: 917.734.71442 1 Marcel 4 Road, Highland, NY $2,500,000 Annabel Taylor C: 518.763.5020 Hillsdale NY 4 BR/5 BA 6500 sf Austerlitz NY 2 BR/3 BA 3000 sf Highland NY 4 BR/3 BA 3400 sf s s s Luxury is Experiencean NOTHING COMPARES s s
$450,000
8. 311 Millbrook Road Claverack,
upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 67 1. 47 White Bridge Road Old Chatham, NY. 7BR. 8BA. 160 acres. $9,444,000 Web# 21112461. Nancy Felcetto & Robin Horowitz 917-626-6755 2. 165 Vaughn Hill Road Middleburgh, NY. 5BR. 3BA. 30 acres. $2,500,000 Web# 21893353. Michael Stasi 732-241-1723 Richard Orenstein 212-381-4248 3. 55 Dogwood Drive Hudson NY. 4BR. 2BA. 7+ acres. $2,808,000 Web# 21802077. Nancy Felcetto & Robin Horowitz 917-626-6755 4. 5 Manor Falls Drive Pine Bush, NY. 3BR. 2.5BA. $1,335,000 Web# 21757796. Michael Stasi 732-241-1723 Simone Consor 214-588-2115 5. 29 Miller Road Claverack, NY. 3BR. 2BA. 2 acres. $499,000 Web# 21883659. Nancy Felcetto & Robin Horowitz 917-6216-6755 6. 10 Laird Court Purling, NY. 4BR. 3BA. 16 acres. $379,000 Web# 21748969. Steven DiLorenzo 631-944-0520 Debra Flack 518-526-1208 7. 2734 Denver Vega Road Margaretville, NY. 1BA. 3+ acres. Web# 21829548. DiLorenzo 631-944-0520 Hahn 917-608-5418 NY. 4BR. 4BA. acres. Web# 20644918. Stoler 518-755-4298 Falls Manor, NY. Web# 21853004. Stasi
3BR.
Jean
3BR. 2.5BA. $1,675,000
Edward
Michael
9. 10 Manor
Drive Livingston
732-241-1723 Simone Consor 214-588-2115 10. 15 Cox Drive Warwick, NY. 5BR. 3.5BA. 38 acres. $6,500,000 Web# 21797170. Joseph Lorino 212-452-4513 11. 92 Patroon Street Claverack, NY. Peaceful Water View. $589,000 Web# 21906100. Michael Stasi 732-241-1723 Samantha Mathis 646-620-5502 12. 174 Ten Broeck Rad Chatham, NY. 6BR. 6.5BA. 43 acres. $5,874,000 Web# 21832387. Nancy Felcetto & Robin Horowitz 917-626-6755 4 7 6 9 3 11 2 10 1 12 5 8 All information is from sources 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. MASTERY OF THE CRAFT IS WHY WE’RE ONE OF THE “TOP 10 POWER REAL ESTATE BROKERAGES” IN THE COUNTRY.
$1,950,000
15
Steven
Enchanting restored 18th century farmhouse nestled on a dead-end country lane with a building lot directly across the road – the two lots totaling 9.6 breathtaking landscaped acres. A rare combination of antique farmhouse and building lot in a most desirable location initially enabling a quiet retreat and eventually becoming a country compound for family and friends with new dream home that overlooks a trout stream and valley views. Classic center hall house and barn are a tranquil reminder of the peaceful farm life, charmingly located among huge old maples, stone fences, gardens, and brook. The architectural gem has authentic early detail and perfect proportions – three fireplaces, wideboard floors, original mantels, doors, windows, trim, and hardware. The side entrance is through a garden courtyard enclosed by a high wooden fence and antique barn. Tucked away in an area of upscale homes in scenic Hillsdale; two hours NYC… $1,795,000
MAGICAL SETTING FOR HISTORIC FARMHOUSE
68 • online at upstatehouse.com
MAGICAL SETTING FOR HISTORIC FARMHOUSE
Enchanting restored 18th century farmhouse nestled on a dead-end country lane with a building lot directly across the road – the two lots totaling 9.6 breathtaking landscaped acres. A rare combination of antique farmhouse and building lot in a most desirable location initially enabling a quiet retreat and eventually becoming a country compound for family and friends with new dream home that overlooks a trout stream and valley views. Classic center hall house and barn are a tranquil reminder of the peaceful farm life, charmingly located among huge old maples, stone fences, gardens, and brook. The architectural gem has authentic early detail and perfect proportions – three fireplaces, wideboard floors, original mantels, doors, windows, trim, and hardware. The side entrance is through a garden courtyard enclosed by a high wooden fence and antique barn. Tucked away in an area of upscale homes in scenic Hillsdale; two hours NYC… $1,795,000 2208House.qxp_1505House 8/2/22 11:45 AM 1
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upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 69 You’re closer than you think to finding your dream home, and we can make that dream a reality. Our team of leading agents will give you access to more distinguished listings and the individual attention you deserve. Give us a call to get started! > SAUGERTIES $695,000 SAUGERTIES $795,000 MULTI UNITSAUGERTIES $800,000 HURLEY $689,000 HURLEY $999,000 RHINEBECK $899,000 $965,000 SHOKAN $749,999 WOODSTOCK $2,595,000 WOODSTOCK $1,895,000 PHOENICIA $995,000 WOODSTOCK 845 679-2010 I KINGSTON 845 331-3110 I HALTERASSOCIATESREALTY.COM
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upstate HOUSE | FALL 2022 • 71 Sign up orFour-Seasons-Realty-Group.comatcall845-467-1514 (mobile) See new properties as soon as they are listed for sale Barbara Korabel, Licensed Real Estate Broker Four Seasons Realty Group 35 Outlook Farm Drive, New Paltz, NY 12561 845-255-0019 (office) Come stay at our most amazing Luxury homes. Experience incredible family parties and vacations, weekend getaways, and even weddings and events. These are the best properties in the Hudson Valley. www.hudsonvalleyluxuryresorts.com • 845-605-7463 We are a multi generational brokerage and our experience is unmatched in the region. Staley Real Estate LLC is proud to be celebrating 73 years of quality service in the Northern Dutchess/Southern Columbia County area. Visit us at staleyrealestate.com or call us today at (845) 876-3196 for all your real estate needs. ChronogramMedia.com/subscribe youSubscribebecausestillloveprint.
The fifth annual Kingston Design Showhouse takes place October 7–23. The house is on Maiden Lane in Uptown Kingston, a circa-1920s Victorian with 2,800 square feet of interior space replete with historic details from original woodworking and tiles to pocket doors and stained glass. The four-bedroom property was used for years as a commercial space and was recently purchased by a first-time homeowner. “It’s an ongoing trend in the region that, as there’s a lack of housing stock, people are buying various commercial properties and turning them into family homes,” Damour says.
—Marie Doyon
A staircase landing of the home on Maiden Lane that will serve as this year’s Kingston Design Showhouse. Design Showhouse
Last year, the showhouse combined efforts with the Kingston City Land Bank (KCLB), a nonprofit that works to restore vacant and distressed homes in the city and affordably return them to the community at affordable rates. After a full professional makeover—interior and exterior—the Kingston property was sold to local residents at below market value, in line with the KCLB’s mission, creating a rare crossover of high design andButaffordability.thatwasn’t KDC’s first dip into local collaborations and contributions. Each year, KDC has partnered with and donated proceeds to area nonprofits, totaling $15,000 cash contributions in the past four years. (Separately from the showhouse, the organization is also currently working with another Kingston family pro bono to renovate their home.)
The 2022 Kingston Design Showhouse will be open to the public on weekends October 7–23.
A total of 11 spaces in the house will be transformed by local creatives. On the first floor: the main hall, living room, dining room, and a brand-new kitchen. On the second floor: the upstairs hall, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms, including one that will be constructed from scratch.
Many of the designers involed with the project will be familiar with Upstate House readers, including Michael Gilbride, Simone Eisold, Hinterland, Hendley & Co., Quittner X Worth Preserving, Erica Gibson, Nicole Fisher, Creatures of Place, and Chris Bick and Buddy Valentine with August Freeman.
BACK PORCH KINGSTONDESIGNCONNECTION.COM Kingston
F or everyone from industry professionals to new homeowners and amateur design enthusiasts, the Kingston Design Showhouse has become a much-anticipated annual event. Launched in 2018 by designer Maryline Damour of Damour Drake through her organization Kingston Design Connection (KDC), the showhouse’s objective is to increase the national profile of the Hudson Valley’s design scene and its talented designers, architects, builders, artists, and makers.
72 • online at upstatehouse.com
Kingston Plaza • 151 Plaza Road www.Herzogs.com • (845) 338-6300
Photo by Murray Engineering
Scott ® Scott Swimming Pools, Inc. • Woodbury, CT • (203) 263-2108 • www.scottpools.com Scott Swimming Pools, Inc. has set THE STANDARD for pool design, workmanship, and state-of-the-art technology since 1937. Selected by Discerning Builders, Architects, and Landscape Designers throughout the four-state region. May we build one for you?
