The Mountains Fall 2023 Issue

MODINE, SERIOUSLY

The iconic star of Oppenheimer is red-hot and fired up. Boom!

BY RICHARD PÉREZ-FERIA

STYLE + DESIGN ISSUE

Manhattan Country Chic

New York City’s design aesthetic is everywhere you look now—or is it?

BY EDUARDO RODRÍGUEZ AND

HERMAN VEGA

Hello, Again

Mary Stuart Masterson checks in from Woodstock

BY SARAH CARPENTER

House Beautiful

At home with Madonna, Streisand and Austerlitz’s Edna St. Vincent Millay BY KEVIN

SESSUMS

FROM THE CATSKILLS TO THE BERKSHIRES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE RUIZ

Can you feel the chill in the air? Have your tastebuds adjusted to the pumpkin everything onslaught? Are you figuring out which relatives not to invite for Thanksgiving? Us, too. Why not do it all with a lot of style and aesthetic flare? The Mountains is your favorite magazine for a reason. Check out the stunning surprises we have in store this time around—chill or not

You are here. We are, too.

Art by Jan Kallwejt exclusively for The Mountains

Albany

Cooperstown

Boston

fall flower Our expert horticulturalist gets up close and personal—much like this stunning Dahlia.

Photograph by MIRA PECK

511 Breezy Hill Rd, Copake

From new home construction to all general contracting projects

Providing high-quality construction and craftsmanship for 20+ years to Great Barrington and the surrounding areas

LET US BRING YOUR VISION TO LIFE FIND US ON HOUZZ

413-854-1882 ● SRCGB.COM

Alan Katz FOUNDER | CEO

Richard Pérez-Feria EDITOR IN CHIEF

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Kathleen Gates

MANAGING EDITOR James Long

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Erika Phenner

SENIOR EDITOR | RESEARCH DIRECTOR Sarah Carpenter

DESIGN EDITORS Eduardo Rodríguez, Herman Vega

ASSOCIATE EDITOR | SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Isabel Hochman

DIGITAL MANAGER Isabella Joslin

DESIGNER Linda Gates

EDITORS AT LARGE Martha Frankel, Jane Larkworthy, Marco Medrano

Hal Rubenstein, Kevin Sessums, Tara Solomon

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Toni Gerunda

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Robin Baron, Greg Calejo, Kate Doyle Hooper

Anthony Giglio, Rebecca Hardiman, Bill Henning

Sean McAlindin, Simon Murray, Todd Plummer

Melissa Reid, Jack Rico, Mitch Rustad

WRITERS Bibiana Álvarez-Gaviña, Abbe Aronson

Jonah Bayliss, Bill Cary, Renee Jermaine

Christopher Joslin, Sandy MacDonald, Mira Peck

Robyn Perry Coe, Dee Salomon

PHOTOGRAPHERS | ARTISTS Peter Aaron, Fahnon Bennett, Natalie Chitwood

Julia Clark, Sean Davidson, Bryan Derballa

Arielle Ferraro, Jan Kallwejt, Jonathan Mehring

Michael O’Neal, Eric Petschek, Robert Risko

Mike Ruiz, Beth Schneck, Matthew Sussman

EXECUTIVE SALES DIRECTOR Amy Smith

ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Libby Hall Abeel

ACCOUNT MANAGER Livi Perrone

FINANCE AND OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Caryn Whitman

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Betsy Low

MARKETING DIRECTOR Bill Gibbons

MARKETING STRATEGIST Randi MacColl

TEXAS SALES DIRECTORS Ellen Lewis, Michael Stafford LEWIS STAFFORD COMPANY, INC

CANADA SALES DIRECTORS Lori Dodd, Bob Dodd DODD MEDIA GROUP

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THE team

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MODERNIST CABIN

CONTACT:

DOUG MAXWELL

Real Estate Broker, Upstate Modernist 212.518.3130 (mobile)

info@UpstateModernist.com @UpstateModernist

MIKE RUIZ is a lot—as in a lot of impressive things at once. Of course, he’s an internationally in-demand celebrity photographer, but he’s also a philanthropist, a director, a reality television star and an animal rights activist and advocate, particularly his beloved pit bulls. He’s a lot-a lot—in the best possible way a tall, muscular, sensitive, creative genius is a lot. He’s also been working with several members of The Mountains’ creative team for decades, so there’s that comfort level as well.

Ruiz is that rarest of indefatigable success stories as he taught himself photography, film making, publishing, production, marketing and public relations. He’s one of the most prolific photographers of his generation. His massive list of captured celebrities include Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian, Prince, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Billy Porter, Anne Hathaway,

Betty White, Queen Latifah, Jared Leto and literally thousands more. Ruiz has also directed dozens of music videos for the likes of Kelly Rowland, Vanessa Williams, Erika Jayne and RuPaul (he made his feature film directorial debut helming RuPaul’s uproarious comedy, StarrBooty).

Ruiz donates his time and platform advocating for The Ali Forney Center, GMHC, The Trevor Project, Housing Works, It Gets Better Campaign, Live Out Loud, Project Angel Food, GLAAD, Heritage of Pride and Pride Live as well as advocating for animal rights via PETA, Stand Up For Pits, FOUR PAWS INT and Bark Nation.

Of his experience with this issue’s cover subject, Ruiz says he was pleasantly surprised. “Photographing Matthew Modine was like spending the day with a warm, familiar old friend.”

photo bomb Red-hot celebrity photographer and animal rights activist Mike Ruiz with award-winning actor and star of Oppenheimer and Stranger Things, Matthew Modine.

MODERN SOPHISTICATION

ROBIN BARON is an award-winning celebrity interior designer and lifestyle expert. She debuts her new column, “The Fix,” in this issue. She’s been featured on HGTV and NBC as well as numerous magazines and newspapers, including Architectural Digest, Traditional Home and The Wall Street Journal “I’m inspired by the beauty of the Hudson Valley, the country homes and the creative people who live here. There’s almost nothing more exciting than breathing new life into an old Hudson Valley home.”

EDUARDO RODRÍGUEZ and HERMAN VEGA, the multifaceted owners of in-demand firm DSGNER, decided to flip the script after decades of Manhattan living and settle into their home in the bucolic Hudson Valley year-round, making NYC their part-time spot. With fashion, interior design and creative direction in their DNA, the couple joined forces to collaborate on a variety of design projects. “We’re beyond excited to join The Mountains’ amazing family as the magazine’s new design editors and in this issue explore what the New Country Modern aesthetic is all about.”

for at least a solid halfdecade, I became fashion possessed. I would’ve said obsessed, but possessed feels more honest. And it cost me dearly.

In a tale as old as Cinderella, I found myself, in my personal Venn diagram, at the precise intersection of self-confidence and disposable income. A longawaited spot. A slimmer figure and coins in the bank meant that I was finally— finally!—able to experience my best sartorial life. And that journey began, as so many cautionary tales do, in Los Angeles, where dreams are supposed to come true. More specifically, I honed in on Beverly Hills, home to Rodeo Drive, America’s toniest retail drag, and Fred Segal, my preferred luxe shopping HQ.

Don’t get it twisted, I caused plenty of “damage” on Madison Avenue (hello, Barneys New York), Miami’s Bal Harbour Shops (Gucci! Gucci! Gucci!) and LA’s own N. Robertson emporiums (Lisa Kline Men credit card guzzlers). But, when it came to serious retail therapy/intoxication, nothing beat a solid five-hour afternoon on Rodeo Drive or Fred Segal. It’s ridiculous to think about now, but, in my deepest truth, I know I’ve never been happier than perusing the impossibly expensive racks of clothes, shoes and accessories at the world’s finest couture outposts. Oh, and those damn accessories were at the epicenter of my I-must-own-thisright-now coveting soul. The white leather weekender from Dolce & Gabbana; the

insanely priced lion’s head belt buckle at Dior Men; the faux fur Chrome Hearts rock ’n’ roll sunglasses… but that all paled in comparison to the most beautiful sight I’d ever laid eyes on: a pair of Giuseppe Zanotti alligator, python and ostrich knee-high men’s boots at Fred Segal. For the first time in my life, I walked in to any high-end store, tried on the item and marched up to the register and paid without asking for or looking at the price. Possessed, I tell you. The fever had to break.

true hollywood story In a candid moment in Hollywood circa 2005, celebrity portrait photographer Daniel Rothenberg captures the essence of RPF in chic LA style sporting a Lisa Kline Men sweater, Chrome Hearts sunglasses and Good Art HLYWD jewelry—retail madness in full flight.

At a rollicking dinner at super-hot-that-verymoment-and-impossible-to-get-into-restaurant Koi (the celeb/paparazzi scene outside its doors on La Cienega Boulevard was zeitgeisty deliciousness personified), I hosted a dozen wellmoisturized friends to a long, celebratory evening. Late into the night, as someone was mentioning how much they liked my newly-acquired heavy silver double bracelet from Good Art HLYWD (similar to Chrome Hearts, but better thanks to Josh Warner’s genius), one of the revelers at the table, interior designer/hilarious OG Queer Eye standout Thom Filicia, shouted at me: “Richard, stop buying jewelry! Buy! A! Fucking! House!” His words hit me like a punch in the face because I knew he was right. Of course he was right.

The very next day, I quit the spending insanity cold turkey. A little later, I took Thom’s sage advice and did indeed buy a house (though I still wear my Good Art HLYWD wares for my recent—and decidedly more modest— nights out on the town).

as i arrived on-set to direct this issue’s cover shoot with movie star Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, Birdy, Stranger Things, Oppenheimer), celebrity photographer Mike Ruiz and I decided we wanted Modine to exude “fashion” on this cover to embody The Mountains’ “Style & Design” theme. When the mind-blowingly nice actor walked in, I became worried: the subject of our exclusive cover story was dressed—how do I say this?—randomly It was, in its own way, daring, but when the giraffe-tall thespian emerged from the changing room a few minutes later wearing the gorgeous wardrobe options we had selected for him, Modine was, in a word, transcendent. As much as the former Millbrook, NY resident clearly doesn’t concern himself with fashion’s fastidiousness, the talented man standing in front of me transformed into nothing less than a modern-day Cary Grant, Hollywood’s forever stylish king.

Even as I write this, I realize I’m wearing a black PGA Tour-branded polo I bought at Marshalls for $14. What’s crazier, I ask you, spending $850 for a yummy Roberto Cavalli wear-it-once shirt or being seen at Marshalls clearance rack with a smile on your face? I finally have my answer: I’m possessed no more.

—Richard Pérez-Feria EDITOR IN CHIEF

Nothing But Love In NYC

it felt a bit like a homecoming for celebrity photographer Mike Ruiz when he arrived onset to shoot The Mountains’ exclusive cover subject, Matthew Modine, iconic Hollywood star of blockbusters including Full Metal Jacket, Married To The Mob, The Dark Knight Rises and, most recently, Oppenheimer He’s also known, of course, as Dr. Martin Brenner on Netflix’s smash series, Stranger Things For more than a quarter-century, Ruiz has collaborated on countless celebrity covers with Editor in Chief Richard Pérez-Feria and he’s worked with Photography Director Erika Phenner and Design Editor Herman Vega for years as well. The mood on the set was buoyant even before the magnanimous acting legend arrived, all smiles. The small, expert team assembled at Love Studios NYC that gorgeous summer day created nothing short of magic—none of us wanted it to end. Can you feel the love? We certainly did.

the room where it happened (top) Marco Medrano, Mike Ruiz, Matthew Modine, Richard Pérez-Feria, Sienna Ropert, Shanelle Butler and Isabella Joslin convene at Love Studios NYC in Midtown Manhattan.

true blue The sidewalks of beautiful Rhinebeck are brimming with the easy style of its residents. For them, sartorial shouting is completely superfluous.

life, a little bit at a time

Photography by Beth Schneck

Undercover Style

Rhinebeck’s whisper-soft approach to fashion speaks volumes.

|

By Todd Plummer

Photography by Beth Schneck exclusively for The Mountains

rhinebeck avoids the spotlight. Don’t confuse it with the modern art scene you’ll find in Beacon, or the old money attitude that permeates some of the Berkshires enclaves. Those wishing to see and be seen should just stay on the train as it cruises by on its way to Hudson—because Rhinebeck is where people come to disappear.

Perhaps that’s why, for a town of its size, so many celebrities come from or settle there. Emma Roberts, Rufus Wainwright and Ramona Singer—all known for their dynamism and larger-than-life screen and stage presences—were born there, yet no longer call it home. Others come here to soak in its quiet atmosphere and slower pace of life. After making it big in Hollywood, the actors and friends Paul Rudd and Jeffrey Dean Morgan have settled in Rhinebeck and co-own the adorable (and irresistible) Samuel’s Sweet Shop. They walk freely up and down Market Street, blending in with everyone else. You never know who you’ll bump into in this town.

That’s because Rhinebeck loves flying under the radar. It’s renowned for its Rhinebeck Crafts Festival, one of the Hudson Valley’s most unique shopping experiences, where artisans and craftspeople show off their wares, but the event happens for two days each June—blink and you’ll miss it. Excellent food, too, is found unexpectedly: in an old church at Terrapin and in a converted brownstone at The Amsterdam.

Here, nobody does anything too loudly; it’s the low-key, you’dnever-know type places that earn the most street cred with locals.

project rhinebeck

You don’t want anything that looks too new, too clean, too crisp in Rhinebeck; which, in a way, is a form of fashion in itself. Too much is definitely too much in this decidely stylish Hudson Valley town.

That’s not to say that the look here isn’t carefully cultivated—it is. Beautifully broken-in jackets are de rigueur, as are perfectly slouchy flannel shirts and jeans that look like you’ve worn them forever. You don’t want anything that looks too new, too clean, too crisp in Rhinebeck; which, in a way, is a form of fashion in itself.

If you want to stand out, go somewhere else. If you want to live quietly—and clandestinely stylish—come to Rhinebeck. But, hey, don’t tell a soul.

Watch Out(side)

|

By Mitch Rustad

Garmin Instinct Solar & Garmin Forerunner 255

Backpackers and thru-hikers will love Garmin’s Instinct Solar easy-to-use watch, with extended battery life (70 hours in GPS mode), solid digital mapping and customizable data for a wide range of activities. Plus, built-in sports apps to monitor running, biking, swimming, strength training and more, with a fiber-reinforced polymer case and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla glass. The Forerunner 255 watch hits the sweet spot for runners, swimmers, bikers, hikers and skiers, and for good reason: intuitive user interface, strong battery life, accurate tracking and Goldilocks design. Better yet, the 255 comes in two sizes (the 41-mm 255S and 46-mm versions). Garmin.com Instinct Solar $399; Forerunner 255 $349.99

A vital accessory as tough as you need it to be.

SUUNTO Core

bring out the alpha explorer in you whether you’re fishing, hunting, running, hiking, walking or at the gym, this outdoor sports watch combines an altimeter, barometer and compass with weather information— in a rugged and robust construction.

SUUNTO.com $219

Regulus Expedition

If you’re hitting a short local trail or tackling an epic climb, the Regulus has it all: including an altimeter, barometer, compass and thermometer. The injection-molded TR-90 case is ultra-durable with an integrated stainless-steel bezel. The silicone strap and locking looper with a doublebuckle stays secure during any excursion. Nixon.com $250

just in time Rugged times call for rugged accessories, none more important than quality, durable watches. Garmin’s Instinct Solar, SUUNTO’s Core and Nixon’s Regulus Expedition check every box.

The Mountains demand a superior off road vehicle

little bit at a time

Wondrous Woodstock

The historic town still rocks, and it’s where Tiger is king.

By Gary Chetkof and Marika Romero

Saturday

8 a.m. BREAKFAST

moonrise & shine

Moonrise Bagels is known for their amazing New York City-style water bagels; (opposite) the authors enjoy a morning hike just outside of Woodstock.

Ahh, it’s the weekend in Woodstock and that means we can head to our favorite bagel shop, Moonrise Bagels, for their unique New York style water bagels, stuffed with all sorts of things including bacon, egg and cheese—and the best cup of coffee in town (especially their cold brew coffee in the summertime).

9 a.m. DOG WALK

Time to walk the dog. We head to The Comeau Property with Tiger, where dog lovers converge to walk their pups

through the beautiful and serene woods, along streams and swimming holes. A good place to meet up with friends and to make new ones.

Changes (my favorite men’s retailer); Castaways for wonderful vintage clothing and accessories; Clouds Gallery (incredible glass blown vases and objets d’art) and Candlestock for one-of-a-kind candles (which make great gifts with a Woodstock flavor).

1:30 p.m. LUNCH

noon ART GALLERIES

It’s time to visit all the fantastic shops, art galleries and eateries. There’s the WAAM (cultural center) for great visual art that reflects Woodstock’s heritage as an arts colony;

For a great sandwich on the go, Woodstock Meats is it for us. It’s also the place to pick up grass-fed local beef and chicken, baby back ribs and fresh seafood. For a nice sit-down meal with outdoor seating right in the middle of town there’s Pearl Moon, Yum Yum Noodle Bar, the vegetarian Garden Café, as well as the Millstream Tavern that’s located at the Woodstock Golf Club overlooking the flowing stream.

Catskill.

Welcome

to Stone River Lodge,

the ultimate country escape where privacy and quiet enjoyment rule. 15 acres of woods and fields to River waterfront, directly across from Olana. With 11 bedrooms and 6 full baths, imagine the summer parties and family celebrations. Astounding views of the river at its widest point. No easements. $2.95 Million. Call Lisa Bouchard Hoe, 413-329-1162, or Eric Valdina, 518-821-7636.

Hudson. Introducing River Range on Mount Merino. This stunning 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath contemporary modernist home sits on 15.6 private acres with jaw-dropping views of the river and mountains. Completely transformed to fit into the landscape. Absolute privacy with cleared rolling grounds, ponds, large in-ground salt pool, terraced gathering areas, and cantilevered viewing deck. $4.2 Million. Call Greg Kendall, 954-804-9085.

5 p.m. HAPPY HOUR

Time to stop in at Early Terrible for a hand-crafted cocktail in a special outdoor setting with fire pits and natural rock tabletops, right off the main road in town. The rustic, incredibly decorated inside bar reminds us of a treehouse. Great place to people-watch and meet tourists from around the world. For a more local crowd reflective of Woodstock and its diversity, we head to Station Bar & Curio where we can also play some pool.

6 p.m. DINNER

Last count, Woodstock’s host to more than 40 eateries.

But our favorite three are Good Night for Asian fusion, Medo for upscale Sushi and The Red Onion for mussels, steaks, burgers and salads.

9 p.m. MUSIC

Woodstock’s known, of course, for its music scene, and there are essentially three places

to take that in: Bearsville Theater presents national bands in a 500-capacity room, while Colony is homier and

presents emerging artists. Pearl Moon features local and regional bands and attracts more of the local scene.

Sunday

8:30 A.M. HIKE

We head out with Tiger for a nice scenic hike up Overlook Mountain where we plan for a three-hour hike that’s more challenging and provides amazing views of the Hudson Valley. But first, we stop at Sunfront Farms market for a green juice and either a Papaya Maya or a Starburst shake, as well as some nuts and healthy snacks for the sure-to-be long trek. For a less adventurous hike, we head to the Rail Trail, which is right outside of Woodstock, off Route 28 in Hurley, and wraps around the Ashokan Reservoir. Either way, a perfect way to begin your day

hot ticket

New Movies Take Center Stage

Woodstock Film Festival serves up another stellar lineup featuring Uma Thurman, Steve Buscemi, Ethan Hawke and more. Get the popcorn ready. | By Sarah Carpenter

just days after the autumnal equinox, for everyone across the globe, the days and nights are about equal in length—but ours will be a little extra star-studded.

Who can you thank for the extra sparkle in our corner of the world this fall? Meira Blaustein, cofounder and executive director of The Woodstock Film Festival (WFF), an annual event since 2000 that’s powered through the pandemic lockdown—in 2020, they took the movies outside using drive-in theaters including the Greenville Drive-In, in some cases setting up their own outdoor screen, car horns honking and lights flashing as a new form of applause— and came out the other side with a return to indoor film screenings the following year.

This year, the eve of their 25th anniversary, WFF honors director, producer and screenwriter James Ivory with a Lifetime Achievement Award. They’ll be showing his 2009 film, The City Of Your Final Destination

The festival also includes world premieres including Jane Weinstock’s Three Birthdays and noir thriller Stockade, but Blaustein says the programming isn’t just about the premieres. “It’s about the good films and the filmmakers we want to support,” she says.

Tim Blake Nelson produced and stars in Asleep In My Palm, another world premiere at WFF, and the directorial debut of his son,

Another family collaboration on the festival screen is The Kill Room (2023), in which area resident (and movie star) Uma Thurman shares the screen with daughter Maya Hawke. Her father, actor Ethan Hawke, was honored at last year’s WFF, where he said, “Events such as the Woodstock Film Festival are some of the few places where films aren’t viewed as units of sale, judged on their value of commerce…I’ve been to many festivals all around the world, but this is one of my favorites.”

2023’s edition of WFF’s programming features a not-to-be-missed panel of actors who direct— moderated by another local thespian, Mary Stuart Masterson—including Steve Buscemi (The Listener), Matthew Modine (I Am What You Imagine) and Brittany Snow (Parachute).

And as if the constellation of actors and directors weren’t enough, several live music performances pair with screenings this year: The Zombies following Hung Up On A Dream: The Zombies Documentary; Kiefer Sutherland after Texas Music Revolution; The Maverick Sextet following Fioretta and more.

Henry Nelson. The screening is followed by a Q&A with dad and son.

i h movies Surrounded by love at the Woodstock Film Festival; (inset) actor Ethan Hawke honored at last year’s at WFF.

IT’S

BUT CAN IT SEE YOU THROUGH A BIDDING WAR? THAT STILL TAKES MASTERY 150 YEARS AND COUNTING.

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High Falls, NY. 3BR. 2.5 Baths. Falls, NY. 3BR. 2.5 Baths.

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Nancy Felcetto 917-626-6755

Chris Pomeroy 917-838-4692

2. 133 Route 344

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Michael Stasi 732-241-1723

Simone Consor 845-871-2653

3. 27 Catskill View Road

Claverack, NY. 4BR. 2 Baths. NY. 4BR. 2 Baths.

$799K. Web ID 22430784. Web ID 22430784.

Nancy Felcetto 917-626-6755

4. 439 Lake Drive

Rhinebeck, NY. 6BR. 7.5 Baths. NY. 6BR. 7.5 Baths.

$888K. Web ID 22476081. Web ID 22476081.

Marc Wisotsky 718-613-2047

Jackie Lew 718-613-2046

5. 165 Vaughn Hill Road 165 Middleburgh, NY. 5BR. 3.0 Baths NY. 5BR. 3.0 Baths

$1.99M. Web ID 22507389. Web ID 22507389.

Michael Stasi 732-241-1723

Richard Orenstein 212-381-4248

6. 34 David Road

Millerton, NY. 3BR. 1.5 Baths NY. 3BR. 1.5 Baths

$325K. Web ID 22579133. Web ID 22579133.

Suzanne Wright-Kelly 914-456-5443

Stephan Delventhal 518-660-1306

Mastery of the Craft. It's Timeless.

THE FUTURE YOUR WOVEN TREEHOUSE CONDO HAS AMAZING VIEWS

The Muriel & Jack Smolen

Moon Struck

Observatory at SUNY New Paltz welcomed the Class of 2027 with a cool tour. The on-campus observatory was gifted to the college in 2010 and houses Mr. Smolen’s original telescope, including a 14-inch Celestron Schmidt Reflecting telescope on a Paramount mount and two smaller 8-inch Dobsonian telescopes. The Observatory is open to the public for “Astronomy Night” on the first and third Thursday of each month that the university is in session. For these lucky first-year students, the sky’s certainly the limit. Photographed on location on August 26, 2023 at 9:26pm by Toni Gerunda.

trend

Are You Following@catskillsbarbieOnInstagram Yet?

rarefied air “Tony Sarg: Genius At Play” is the first comprehensive exhibition exploring the life and art of Tony Sarg (1880-1942), the charismatic illustrator, animator, puppeteer, designer, entrepreneur and showman who’s celebrated as the father of modern puppetry in North America. The exhibit runs through November 5 at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA. His vast knowledge of puppet technology was instrumental in his design of the inaugural Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927.

By Isabella Joslin

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Three must-follow accounts for all area Barbies— and Kens.

Oh, Fudge!

to the Catskills, picturesque scenery have become the

rom Hudson

checking in Please Come Back, Mary Stuart Masterson

for the content. The diverse range of photo-worthy the

brands to DIY crafts. But three chic local Instagram

from

rom Hudson Valley to the Catskills, the breathtaking landscapes and picturesque scenery have become a haven for Instagrammers seeking the perfect backdrop for the perfect content. The diverse range of photo-worthy opportunities has attracted a growing number of unique Instagram accounts throughout the region from clothing brands to DIY crafts. But three chic local Instagram accounts have piqued our curiosity and totally deserve a follow.

FExclusive: Our fa ve 1990s “It” girl is still, yes, some kind of wonderful. | By Sarah Carpenter even if you haven’t seen anything she’s been in since she played the unforgettable tomboy facing unrequited love in Some Kind Of Wonderful , you’ll recognize Mary Stuart Masterson. Oh, and she rocked Fried Green Tomatoes and the adorbs Chances Are as well. For one thing, she looks the same almost three decades later (why didn’t I ask her about skincare?) and for another, she’s the type of actor whose face never left your memory—though she’s moderating the

@catskillsbarbie

Meet @catskillsbarbie, the account that’s been breathing life into the beloved childhood doll (since long before Margot Robbie perfectly embodied stereotypical

“Actors Who Direct” panel at the Woodstock Film Festival. She pays it forward as the founder of Stockade Works, a Hudson Valley-based local crew training and mentorship program and Upriver Studios, a woman-led sustainable production facility in the Hudson Valley, which opened in 2020. Here at The Mountains , this ’90s “It” girl is still it for us. (but wait...there’s more)

The story behind Vassar College’s famous baked goods. Making fudge was a popular activity at women’s colleges, especially Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. In a letter written by Emelyn Battersby Hartridge, a student at Vassar, she recounts purchasing a box of fudge for 40 cents a pound in 1886 in Baltimore. Another student at Vassar claimed to have introduced it there in 1888 by selling her own batch. The diary of student Elma Martin mentions making “fudges” in 1892. An 1893

letter from Adelaide Mansfield, another student, describes “fudges” as having sugar, fruit, chocolate, milk and butter. A recipe for “Fudges at Vassar” was printed in The Sun in 1895.

Describing the confections as “Vassar chocolates,” the recipe consists of sugar, milk, butter and vanilla extract.

–JAMES LONG

Barbie on screen) by embarking on beautiful adventures throughout the Catskills region. With an appreciation for the natural wonders in our own backyards, and a perfect mountains adaptation of Barbie’s iconic wardrobe stylings, @catskillsbarbie leads her followers to unveil the majestic peaks and tranquil lakeshores.

@loupnyc Perfectl y located on Warren Street in the heart of Hudson, Loup is a cutting-edge clothing brand that infuses a modern and urban vibe into the local fashion scene. Follow this distinctly “north of Manhattan” fashion revolution and embrace the #loupspiration.

@justcallmehomegirl Tar a Boettger’s Insta drops a regular dose of creative inspo to your feed. Based in the Hudson Valley, @justcallmehomegirl shares her passion for home goods and empowers others to reimagine their living space. A definite must-follow.

It’s Flea Season

In Stormville

Come to the Stormville Flea Market and discover antiques and collectibles—from surprising treasures to brand new merch. Fun! Count us in for sure. Stormville, NY October 78; November 4

Ong, whose fashion credits include Oscar de la Renta and Anthropologie. He sources the pre-loved pieces to his studio in the historic hamlet Kripplebush, NY then sends them over to India for hand embroidering by the finest artisans in Delhi and Mumbai (he purchases carbon credits to offset his shipping). The result?

designer Leong

One-of-a-kind vintage pieces whose second act is arguably better than their first. Check out their Instagram (@the._.falls) for the latest offerings, as well as notices about upcoming pop-ups at area fairs and retailers.

The Falls one-of-a-kind vintage garments a brand new spin.

So, what’s the big misconception a lot of people still have about you? They think that I’m super organized and buttoned up. The truth is, on most days, I’m living my life like a finger painting. Our favorite films of yours are Some Kind Of Wonderful and Fried Green Tomatoes , and we’re low-key obsessed with Chances Are . Which project of yours has been the most celebrated and which is maybe the most unsung personal favorite?

shop

Hudson Clothier Goes Deep

Sustainable fashion with cool knick knacks, what’s not to love?

everything in moderation Masterson is moderating the “Actors Who Direct” panel at the upcoming WFF.

I’m so glad you liked those movies. I also loved making Benny And Joon And Immediate Family is one I like that most people don’t know about. Also, Book Of Stars , that I made with Jena Malone in the late ’90s.

With two movies coming out this year, can we expect a Mary Stuart Masterson don’t-call-it-a-comeback comeback? We’re certainly crossing our fingers. How sweet. While I’ve made three movies in the last two years, and had fun making them all, I’m not allowed to speak about them due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. I have several projects in development that I’m producing and will direct, aiming to shoot in the Hudson Valley.

Vintage Meets Modern

The Falls upcycles clothes from Mumbai to Kripplebush.

By Todd Plummer

ired of the same old, same old vintage?

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estled in the heart of Hudson’s main artery Warren Street,

Hudson Clothier is a sustainable fashion haven. Opposing fast fashion, Founder MaryVaughn Williams says she wanted her work to carry a deeper message. Her aim has been to “define the shop by what’s being made in the US; what brands were still holding on (heritage labels) and what newer makers were arriving on the scene.”

Hudson Clothier also serves up bags, eyewear and home décor, blending classic charm with modern allure. Williams

A Bridge (Not) Too Far

The oldest covered bridge in the US can be found on the grounds of Glimmerglass State Park in Cooperstown, NY. At 53-feet across it’s also one of the shortest. The bridge, located at the historic Hyde Hall mansion, was built in 1825 and restored in 1867. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

(fudge) WALTER BAKER & CO; (covered bridge) JESSE LEE TUCKER

Sparkill’s Hollywood Tall Tale

Why a movie icon—and her sixth husband—put their Italianate Victorian home for sale in neighboring Rockland County. | By Bill Cary

as someone who sees a lot of houses for sale, I’ve gotten used to the blah-blah broker- babble that comes with the territory of touring homes with eager agents doing their very best to talk up and sell their clients’ property. The same adjectives come up time and again. Every room is “spacious and beautiful,” the finishes and appliances are always “state of the art,” the views are uniformly “amazing” and everything about the place is “totally unique.”

Arlene Dahl dated John F. Kennedy off and on for a couple of years. “He was the cheapest man I ever met—never had a dollar in his pocket.”

It’s best if you can somehow leave the agent in the car and hear directly from the homeowner. When you’re buying a home, it’s worth asking to meet the owner, though chances are it’ll never happen. One of my favorite owner-led house tours was for a feature story I wrote for The Journal News with Hollywood glamour queen and MGM icon Arlene Dahl, featured in two dozen movies in the 1940s and ’50s and later the author of a thrice-weekly syndicated column that ran in 165 newspapers. She and her sixth husband, perfume bottle designer Marc Rosen, had their weekend home in the quaint Hudson

River hamlet of Sparkill on and off the market for years, priced as high as $8.5 million, then a few years later at $4.95 million, and most recently, in early August, for $3.995 million with real estate broker Richard Ellis. The 1859 Italianate Victorian, known as Treetops, is a charming antique, but let’s just say it might need a wee bit of work.

The house has two porches, and Rosen said it took him two decades to figure out why: when one’s in full sun, the other’s shaded. Real estate agents don’t have 20 years to learn about the house they’re selling you. If you want the home’s true story, that lies with the owners.

Dahl was a living doll—gorgeous, of course, with impeccable makeup and flaming red hair, but also smart-smart-smart and utterly engaging and funny, with star wattage to spare and many a story to tell.

In the late 1940s, she dated a young Massachusetts congressman named John F. Kennedy off and on for a couple of years.

“He was the cheapest man I ever met—never had a dollar in his pocket,” she recalled. He regularly showed up at her door looking

escrow

bikes | kayaks | travel clothing footwear | sportswear | camping

rumpled and wrinkled. One night she parked him in a frilly pink negligée while she ironed his suit in the kitchen. “We all laughed—he was completely game.”

For an antique, the six-bedroom home on 7.5 acres is surprisingly big, with the expected Victorian front and rear parlors—painted pink—and a huge living room with one of nine fireplaces with marble mantels. I particularly loved the campy downstairs powder room, plastered floor-to-ceiling with Dahl’s many magazine covers from back in the day.

When I visited, it was just before Thanksgiving that year, and the dining room table was set for 14, including her son Lorenzo Lamas and his family. A nearby table was a groaning board of silver platters and serving dishes awaiting a fresh shine.

Dahl, who died in 2021 at 96, and Rosen hosted many soirees over the years, including an 80th birthday party for Helen Hayes, an engagement party for Joan Collins and annual Christmas parties that drew the likes of Carol Channing, Celeste Holm, Jane Powell, Brooke Shields, Rosie O’Donnell, Liza Minelli, Joan Rivers, Cindy Adams and Rex Reed.

Now there’s a story you won’t find on Zillow.

dahl house The impressive magazine covers and other images of the Hollywood beauty; (opposite) Treetops in bloom.

Manhattan Magic

what’s lovelier than Manhattan in the fall: I mean… The city transforms into a cultural mecca, hosting a seemingly endless series of events and parties from the Met Gala to Fashion Week. But amidst all the glitz and glamour, the city casts an intoxicating romantic spell, inviting you to explore its dimly lit cafes, coziest of bars and riverside sunset views. It’s as if the world’s most important city’s has come alive just for you.

Art Stop by The Brooklyn Public Library for one of the season’s hottest art shows. “The Book of HOV,” a 40,000 sq. ft. exhibit celebrating the musical legacy of Brooklyn’s own Jay-Z, feels as if you’re stepping into a living album. Grab a limitededition library card and leave feeling like a legit VIP.

Restaurant For the gastrocurious, make a reservation at Baar Baar, the perfect mix of exotic cuisine and sleek décor. Chef Sujan Sarkar treats each dish as a celebration of Indian heritage, reimagined for the Manhattan palate. From the sinfully delicious dahi puri to the savory beetroot murabba, this chic eatery will make you feel as if you’ve stepped into an episode of And Just Like That…

Bar Time stands still at Jac’s on Bond, your new favorite

good rap One of the most anticipated art shows in the US is “The Book of HOV” at the Brooklyn Public Library focusing on the musical legacy of Brooklyn’s own, Jay-Z; (opposite) Baar Baar restaurant; Four Freedoms Park in Roosevelt Island. porches.com

downtown bar. Nestled in NoHo’s historic Bond Street, this restored 19th century townhouse invites you to relax with cocktails and conversation in an oldworld ambiance. Sip on a caprese martini in this snug

subterranean lounge and unwind in true Gotham style.

Destination Escape the hustle and bustle of the city crowds at Roosevelt Island’s Four Freedoms Park, a hidden oasis along the underrated

East River. Walk this twomile promenade surrounded by towering skyscrapers, unobstructed views of the water and leaf-filled lawns perfect for picnics. Even though you’re in the heart of the city, it’ll feel like a world away. And do take the tram—hovering high above the East River invokes an indescribable feeling.

FERN MALLIS creator, new york fashion week

art: Metropolitan Museum Of Art

restaurant: Polo Bar

bar: Omar’s OH LA LA! (La Goulue)

destination: 92NY

BILL OBERLANDER

founder/chief creative officer, oberland

art: Gagosian Gallery

restaurant: Waverly Inn

bar: WXOU Radio

destination: Hudson River Park

ROB SCHWARTZ

chair, tbwa\chiat day ny

art: The Whitney Museum

restaurant: PLANTA Queen

Nomad

bar: SPIN

destination: Oculus

(Baar) LIZ CLAYMAN; (Park) FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT FOUR FREEDOMS PARK, LLC

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genius, in human form

Photography by Jared Kuzia

Matthew Modine Goes Big

The star of Oppenheimer and Stranger Things— and former Millbrook resident—is just now hitting his stride four decades into an extraordinary Hollywood career. Next up? Everything.

BY RICHARD PÉREZ-FERIA PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE RUIZ exclusively for The Mountains

reel deal “As a child, I thought films were documentaries and that everything that was happening on the screen was real,” Modine says.

Tie by Brooks Brothers @brooksbrothers

Black dress shirt, Zibellino honeycomb jacket, black signature cufflinks, black trousers all by Sebastian Cruz Couture @sebastiancruzcouture

Shoes by Bruno Magli @brunomagliofficial

Blazer and pants by Le Catou @catouwear

Shirt by UNTUCKit @untuckit Shoes by MAGNANNI @magnanni

the Squad fashion stylist: Alison Hernon at Exclusive Artists @718blonde @exclusiveartists

junior fashion stylist: Shanelle Butler @thestylistnelly

assistant fashion stylist: Sienna Ropert @siennajanette

hair: Marco Medrano @mrmarcomedrano

grooming: Alexandria Gilleo @alexandriagilleomakeup

on-set coordinator: Isabella Joslin @isabellajoslinn

“The scar is a sign of strength because you’re still alive— you survived it.”

Matthew Modine/Madonna. Madonna/ Matthew Modine.

For those of us in a particular generation, when Matthew Modine’s name comes up for whatever legitimate reason—his winning turn in the megahit Oppenheimer; his equal parts creepyfascinating role as Dr. Martin Brenner in Stranger Things; his life-changing portrayal in Stanley Kubrick’s war masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket—we find it difficult to extricate the talented actor from the Material Girl because when they were both starting out, the movie Vision Quest forged them together in ways they may not yet fully understand.

Modine was the young (and impossibly handsome) lead of the 1985 film depicting a high school wrestler in Spokane, WA. Madonna, just then fully embracing the tsunami of attention directed at her, was in the film for what liberally could be called a cameo to perform the film’s theme song, “Crazy For You.” As it turns out, MTV, itself a new phenomenon that was hijacking most of American teenagers’ attention span, played the smash hit song’s video ad nauseum, on a perpetual, never-ending loop for months. Months. The video featured Madonna, of course, in character performing the pretty ballad (it became the icon’s second No.1 smash) and Modine in all his coltish handsomeness liberally, exhaustively on display. In my mind, Modine and Madonna are inextricably and effortlessly forever bonded.

When I bring up Madonna to Modine as we begin our conversation in earnest in the otherwise empty (nice) hotel restaurant in midtown Manhattan after a successful hours-long photo shoot, a smile slowly forms on the accomplished actor’s face. “Madonna…wow,” Modine whispers, leaning in closer to me. “It’s a testament to Madonna’s power as an entertainer that, for female artists, her presence is truly unmatched in our lifetime.” As I reveal my instinctual reasoning for connecting him to the game-changing superstar, his eyes get larger as he dives into a story.

“While I was filming Full Metal Jacket, I went to Rome during a break to meet two Italian brothers who were filmmakers named Paolo and Vittorio Taviani,” Modine says. “As I waited for them, I noticed a big poster that looked like Madonna in concert in Rome. The entire Vision Quest poster depicted Madonna who’s in the movie all of two minutes. Two minutes! [Laughs] They also changed the title of the film to Pazzo Di Te, which is Italian for ‘crazy for you.’ From that time forward, it became quite common for people to come up to me and say, ‘Oh, you’re in that Madonna movie.’ [Laughs] That’s Madonna.”

Modine, the youngest of seven children, grew up modestly in Loma Linda, CA—his mom was a bookkeeper, his dad managed drive-in theaters. I imagine that couldn’t have been easy for him being the seventh of seven kids. Was he all but ignored?

“That’s what happens with the first child,” Modine says, without a trace of resentment. “When the first kid gets a fever, you run to the hospital. The second child, you say, ‘Oh no, remember to put cold towels on his forehead.’ Then comes the third child, the fourth child, the fifth child, the sixth child—then… the seventh child, where parents say, ‘don’t worry, he’ll stop bleeding—he’ll survive.’ My son, as the firstborn, looks upon that experience I had as if I came from an abused childhood. He thinks I was bullied as a child. And perhaps I was by my older brothers who weren’t always the nicest to me. But I believe when you’re looking at a scar, you should really look at it. The scar is a sign of strength because you’re still alive—you survived it. I’m happy about the scars I have from my childhood because they made me who I am.”

Who Modine is today is arguably the busiest person in Hollywood. With a veritable battalion of projects premiering at breakneck speed, some of which he flatly can’t discuss due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike decimating the current celluloid landscape. Inarguably, the current project that’s made the largest impact for Modine is Oppenheimer, the criticallyacclaimed, global hit about the origins of the atomic bomb. Other films are out or, hopefully, imminent including roles in films Redemption (with Modine’s closest friend, Liam Neeson, playing hero) and The Martini Shot; must-see documentaries Accidental Truth: UFO Revelations and Downwind; and perhaps most exciting for us, I Am What You Imagine, a thoughtprovoking short film Modine directed that utilizes sound, music and expressionistic imagery to take viewers on a vivid journey to be featured at Woodstock Film Festival (September 27-October 1).

With so much creative gas clearly still in the tank, I ask the funny, kind man sitting across from me to share his origins story. Just how did Loma Linda’s Matthew Modine become award-winning actor Matthew Modine? Did his dad’s job running drive-in theaters play into his decision to pursue acting as a profession?

“I don’t think so,” he surprises me with his quick reply. “I wouldn’t articulate it that way. As a child, I thought films were documentaries and that everything that was happening on the screen was real. And then I saw this documentary about the making of Oliver and saw that the children were learning how to sing and dance. I realized then that acting was something that somebody learned how to do, and you did it in front of a camera. ‘Oh, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.’ So, I started taking tap dancing lessons in Orem, UT and I joined the glee club. I was doing what Ryan Gosling was doing, but

linked in “Because of Full Metal Jacket, I’ll be forever associated with Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest filmmakers to ever make movies;” (below) As Dr. Martin Brenner in Stranger Things, here with Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven.

I wasn’t a member of The Mickey Mouse Club.” [Laughs] I then saw Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman. And I was going to school with a lot of youth and Navajo Indians from the reservation. And as I was watching this movie, and the first time they pivoted the camera from the white settlers being attacked by natives, to indigenous people being killed by an American soldier—the point of view was changed—and it changed my point of view on life. That’s the power of film. I wanted to be an actor when I saw the impact that film could have. It certainly made an impact on me.”

He pauses for a beat or two, looking out to the bustling, silent (to us) maelstrom that is New York City at rush hour before continuing.

“My uncle somehow convinced me that if I wanted to be an actor, I should go to Brigham Young University, a Mormon school in Utah,” Modine says. “After a couple of weeks there, I said, ‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ [Laughs] So, I got out of there—fast. I then went to Salt Lake City where I worked for a concert promoter until I could save enough money to be able to drive back to San Diego where my parents were now living. As I was driving my old Volkswagen across the desert—without having checked the oil before venturing out—the engine gave out. I called my dad and said, ‘My car broke down. I’m out in the desert. What should I do?’ My dad said, ‘It sounds to me like you ought to get a fucking job.’ So, I did.”

The relative ease which Modine ascended was comparable to some of his über-famous male contemporaries who include Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and, the biggest star of them all, Tom Cruise. “He carved his own path through the woods,” Modine says of Cruise. “It’s a real testament to his marketing ability.”

I’ll tell what’s not a testament to Modine’s marketing ability are the trio of films—epic, mind-blowing, blockbuster, ridiculous, once-ina-lifetime movies—he turned down. Wait for it: Top Gun. Back To The Future Big He turned them all down. All. Of. Them.

“Well, yeah… Big was a mistake,” Modine says, not exactly laughing. “I passed on Top Gun because the script was just creepy. Frankly, it was

so jingoistic and terrifying. The script was a commercial… or military porn. But you know, Tom Cruise made it engaging. Anyway, passing on Big was a mistake because Big was big—gigantic. My wife really tried to talk me into it. And I didn’t take her advice. Truth is, I was simply looking too deep into the script and the role. I’d studied with [legendary acting coach] Stella Adler and one of the things that she was great at was script interpretation. And so, what you really wanted to do whenever you were reading a script was to try to understand the whole backstory. What happened before the character walked into the room? What was the character’s motivation? How did I get here today to sit down with you? Big read as an epic story about 1980s materialism and about a child who wants to be big only because he wants to be old enough to go on carnival rides that he’s too small to go on. He wants money. He wants power. ‘I wish I was big!’—that was literally ’80s materialism. I mean, the whole scene of the kid buying all the basketball hoops when he becomes big wasn’t for me, it just wasn’t. So, I didn’t become part of that. Also, I thought I wasn’t right for the role because they had offered the movie to Harrison Ford and Robert De Niro before me. I was the next choice. Now, I’m thinking Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro, Matthew Modine…that didn’t make any sense at all. Those guys are some 20 years older than me. And my wife kept telling me it’s going to be so much fun, that you got to do this movie. And I said, I’m just not old enough. I also left Terms Of Endearment I wouldn’t have said ‘yes’ to the Jeff Daniels role either.”

Truth telling and doubling-down about his monumental decisions aren’t a problem for Modine. He just is authentically, unapologetically, unequivocally him. Let the chips fall where they fall. And after four decades slayin’ the game in Hollywoodland, working on projects he’s genuinely compelled to do is his reward. Another feat Modine very nearly accomplished was becoming SAG-AFTRA president, losing a very close election to current leader, Fran Drescher, most famously known, of course, as The Nanny Would he ever put himself out there again?

“Would I ever run again?,” Modine looks right at me as he responds. “I’d never say never. And that’s been a frustrating experience because I was asked to run for president of the union. I didn’t throw my hat in the ring and say, ‘I should be president of the union.’ I was asked to run. When you’re trying to unseat somebody, you must try to understand why it is you’re attempting to unseat them. What are they doing wrong? Look, the union is supposed to unite all of us; the core of that word is ‘unity,’ and working together, collaborating. What’s best for the members and how does your background serve that goal? If I had won, I would’ve made sure there’s a safety net for everyone at the bottom of the rung, and not just accommodate the so-called ‘right’ people. Remember, I was a background performer; I did day parts on television shows. And when you think there’s about 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA, and when you think about the history of the motion picture industry since the onset of the union, you’re probably only talking about less than 100,000 actors in total. And from those 100,000 actors, there’s probably only about 1000 that you might vaguely know, probably much less than that. So, in my lifetime, there’s probably 150-200 actors that I could identify.”

Did I just wake up this cool, calm, collected chap? I think I have.

“I’m so blessed to be in a world of such enormous privilege,” Modine says, a little more rapidly now. “So, having that bestowed upon me, through my work and through my efforts, and getting my SAG card after getting selected at a big casting call for a CocaCola commercial… The privilege that I was bestowed upon by those actors’ union leaders who came before me—Jimmy Cagney, Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan—the benefits that I, as an actor, were given because of their hard work? I said, ‘OK, I’ve reached this period in life, at this age in my life, where it’s time for me to return that kindness, and to help the newest members of the union fulfill their ambitions and their goals. Here’s the bottom line: I talked the talk, and I walked the walk. There are those who are pretenders. There are

those who are in local and national boardrooms who are simply playing the role of union leader.”

His passion for leadership must have been honed over the several decades he’s worked with a veritable murderers’ row of top-shelf movie directors including Stanley Kubrick, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, Christopher Nolan, Alan Parker, Robert Altman, Alan J. Pakula, Mike Figgis, Jonathan Demme, John Schlesinger and on and on it goes. Is there a common thread connecting the great filmmakers of our day or is everyone vastly different?

“Yeah, it’s kind of like making love,” Modine says, cheekily. “Everybody does it. But everybody does it a little bit differently. You know, the one thing that all those wonderful directors understand is that the most important thing is casting the right actor.” Did Matthew Modine just compliment the greatest directors in American history mainly because they all cast him in their movies? That was straightup savage—and deeply satisfying, Taylor Swift-worthy satisfying.

But the thespian makes it clear to me and anyone else within earshot that Full Metal Jacket was much more than just his first experience making a big Hollywood movie. It was the opportunity to work with Kubrick, a genius in Modine’s view.

“I mean, at face value Full Metal Jacket was just a war picture,” he says. “I think Marines love that movie because there’s accuracy in the depiction of war. Because of Full Metal Jacket, I’ll be forever associated with Stanley Kubrick, arguably one of the greatest filmmakers to ever make movies. I remember when Stanley sent me a note while I was doing press for the movie that read: ‘Remember, when you speak, you’re going to be speaking on my behalf.’ Kubrick is also one of the great intellectuals of all time. He’s a brilliant man.

the look

of matthew

“I wanted to be an actor when I saw the impact that film could have. It certainly made an impact on me.” The many incarnations of Matthew

Modine, the consummate American actor.

And so, I can’t compare the experience of working with Kubrick with anyone else because it was almost two years of shooting in England. Kubrick likes to take his time as so many geniuses do. Would you go up to Picasso and ask him to hurry his painting process? Would you ask him how many strokes were involved in creating that masterpiece? Or ask Mozart how many notes were in that concerto?”

mean, this is all behavior that your young readers would read today and say ‘no way’ because that’s how much the world has changed post-9/11. I climbed over the fence, and I even got backstage. I got as close to Debbie Harry [Blondie’s lead singer] as I am to you right now.

unfamiliar joy. At first the laid-back

Speaking of not rushing unexpected wonders, I’m not sure why finding out Liam Neeson and Matthew Modine are BFFs for decades also fills me with an unfamiliar joy. At first glance, the genteel, laid-back Modine and the rough-around-the-edges Neeson wouldn’t seem to be a fit—but fit it does. They’re so close, in fact, Neeson is the reason why years earlier Modine moved the family to Millbrook, NY, the bucolic hamlet Neeson still calls home.

“Yes, we moved to Millbrook because Liam Neeson is a dear friend,” Modine says. “My wife and I were recently driving around the old neighborhood in Millbrook, and she said, ‘Oh, let’s go drive by the old place.’ Years earlier, I’d planted sycamore trees down at the bottom of the driveway and I saw in my mind’s eye how they were going to grow together and create this canopy as you came in the driveway to the house. I love a dramatic entrance like that—it’s beautiful. I hadn’t been to the house in a decade. But as you get older, you realize that you’re a custodian to property. The property isn’t yours. We don’t own the earth. This idea that we own this property—it’s all bullshit. And so, yes, I planted these trees, but I have no ownership of them. But I’m glad that I was able to nurture them though.”

The time has now come to talk Stranger Things When Modine’s monstrous/not-so-monstrous character appears on screen, I’m simultaneously at peace and horrified.

“That’s a great compliment,” Modine tells me cheerfully, clearly comfortable with this topic. “But I must tip my hat to the Duffer Brothers [Matt and Ross], for casting me because what you’ve described is the perfect example of what I’m doing in the role. And the reason they wanted to cast me was to create that precise conflict They reduced my dialogue and let in the silence.”

As we circle toward the end of our illuminating conversation— and as the sun is threatening to set over the nearby Hudson River— I pepper the articulate, silver-haired celebrity staring at me with some rapid-fire questions. He’s more than game.

When was the last time you cried? “The last time I cried was last night about the devastating situation in Maui.”

Who was your first concert? “I don’t know that it was the first concert—but it’s the one that I want to remember—Blondie at San Diego State University. I didn’t have money to be able to get in. So, I

What was your best onscreen kiss? “Oh, that’s going get me in trouble with my wife!” [Laughs] “You know, I did kiss a man, Kevin J. O’Connor, in the movie I directed If…Dog…Rabbit O’Connor played my little brother, and he was wonderful. My character had just been released from prison and was working at a gas station. And Kevin, without any announcement, grabbed me by the cheeks and kissed me full-on. He had very nice lips. Thanks Kevin!” [Laughs]

Have you ever worked with your acting heroes? “I worked with John Hurt and Bruce Dern in the same movie, If…Dog… Rabbit Not only was I acting with both of those great actors, but I was directing them as well. I mean, I wrote the movie. Beyond.”

What’s the biggest misconception about you? “People always say I’m much taller than they thought I’d be. Did you know I’m taller than Liam Neeson? He’s narrower, but he was also a boxer so, there’s a kind of a power thing with him. Liam seems to take up more space. But make no mistake, I’m still taller.” [Laughs]

As we’re about to leave, I ask the co-star of the year’s most thought-provoking and polarizing blockbuster, Oppenheimer, about his documentary, Downwind, about the horror bombing our planet.

“Oh, yes, Downwind,” Modine says. “Since ‘Trinity’ Oppenheimer tested the first atomic bomb, I think it’s 923 detonations in total that have been activated. Nearly 1000 bombs. That’s not an exaggeration—and they had full knowledge that radiation doesn’t just go away. The fallout isn’t isolated to the area that the bomb has exploded. So, everyone who was downwind of those nuclear testing sites were terribly affected. My grandfather, my father and my uncle grew up, as I said, in Death Valley, CA, which was downwind. A lot of people who worked on John Wayne’s movie, Gunga Din, died of cancer—a lot of the crew died of cancer Growing up in southern Utah, we were downwind from Nevada, where they were doing all the atomic bomb testing. So, yeah, all of it is just terrifying.”

As I walk up Eighth Avenue making myself believe that the cacophony of car horns I’m hearing in the world’s greatest metropolis is but an edgy urban symphony, I start to wonder what song Madonna might have performed for Downwind. It may not be “Crazy For You” this time, but I suspect the superstar would say ‘yes’ to most of Matthew Modine’s musical requests. I mean, who can resist this whip-smart, skyscraper tall, lovely gentleman who had the temerity to turn down three of the biggest movie roles in modern American film history? Truthfully, I still can’t believe he turned down Big. And yet I can. I really, really can.

passion play Two current projects Modine is excited about include the documentary Downwind and the short film I Am What You Imagine being presented at the 2023 Woodstock Film Festival.

“Directing is like making love: Everybody does it, but everybody does it a little bit differently.”

Tie by Brooks Brothers @brooksbrothers

Black dress shirt, Zibellino honeycomb jacket, black signature cufflinks, black trousers all by Sebastian Cruz Couture @sebastiancruzcouture

Shoes by Bruno Magli @brunomagliofficial

FAVREAU: BERKSHIRES

photography

by

SEAN LITCHFIELD

By no means is Country Modern a one-size-fits-all kind of style. This artist retreat benefits from Hudson-based interior designer Steven Favreau’s maximalist approach: a fun mix of period styles and layering of vintage on top of contemporary to create what he calls Country Luxe.

to the max

4 walls

THE BEAUTY, iNSIDE

When weekend homes became full-time residences, something happened to the region’s design aesthetic. Manhattan happened.

o, when The Mountains’ new design editors, Eduardo Rodríguez and Herman Vega, were tasked with visually representing the current residential interior design of this region, they were more than up for the challenge. From homes ripped from the pages of national shelter magazines to the partners’ Ulster County bungalow, weekend retreats turned semi-permanent residences are rethinking what a fashionable hinterland pad can be. The result is country living with a decidedly Manhattan twist.

This newfound attention to a secondary lodging—both stylistically and spiritually—very much includes the domestic and business partners’ rural retreat. Their home-away-from-home, in what Rodríguez describes as a “fairytale setting,” used to act as a two-day reprieve from the frenzy of their urban lives—until the pandemic upended everything. The partners, who originally met in Miami, found that the mountains have a similar tranquil aura not unlike the beach. Days became months, which became something more permanent entirely. “Never did I imagine that once the pandemic passed, we’d decide to become city ex-pats after a decade of being Upstate home owners,” Vega says. “But with that came the challenge of adapting the house to be our full-time residence and home office.”

Rebalancing the things that matter most in life is the common thread behind these homes, with oftentimes wildly different results. Let’s take a look.

WEISBERG: LENOX

photography

by

JARED KUZIA

beams of lite When Linda Weisberg worked with an architect to renovate her country estate in Lenox, MA she brought with her an aesthetic sharpened from living and working in a large metropolis—and influences as far afield as Namibia, Scotland and Morocco. The result is a cohesive, cozy retreat with exposed beams, large windows and skylights that make it feel like a forest haven.

RODRÍGUEZ AND VEGA: ULSTER COUNTY

photography by MICK HALES

gut check Rodríguez and Vega’s three-bedroom, two-bath house sits in the middle of a five-acre storybook setting surrounded by tall pines and oak trees. Originally built in 1973, the pair admits the restoration was “a total gut job,” but they welcomed the challenge.

“Having designed our city apartment with plenty of color, we knew we wanted to bring a black-and-white minimal palette Upstate and let the outside colors pop,” Rodríguez says.

White walls also give their carefully selected pieces run of the house. In the living room, for instance, the artwork and furniture were chosen for their contrasting nature. Mixing taxidermy, post-modernism, East Asian stone work and mid-century modern together in one space has a disarming, mesmerizing quality. In another person’s hands it would most assuredly feel cluttered. Instead, and unsurprisingly, it feels perfectly balanced. Of course it does.

eclectic avenue (top) While the pair isn’t afraid to go madcap eclectic, they can also be supremely practical in their designs when necessary. The guest room sits above the kitchen and primary bedroom in an open lofted area that was originally used for storage. In the pair’s expert hands, the space became a cozy third bedroom with an unmistakable treehouse feel.

(middle) “Having a rather small city kitchen, our goal was to create an open concept area where we can cook and entertain at the same time,” Vega says. “We made it a point not to have upper cabinets to keep it clean and make the space feel even more spacious.”

(bottom) The desk area is part of the second bedroom. The desk was purchased from a local antique store and refinished by Rodríguez.

outside in With a moderate 1,300 square feet of interior space, we saw the surrounding landscape as an extension of our home,” says Rodríguez. “So, we decided to create several outdoor rooms in the front and back yards to make the house feel even larger.”

UPSTATE MODERNIST: LITCHFIELD COUNTY

photography by ETHAN ABITZ

salisbury stake The pièce de resistance of design firm Upstate Modernist’s Salisbury House concept is a two-story entry hall that doesn’t skimp on style—not even a little.

fab living

Blending a distinctly modernist aesthetic with natural materials, warm textures and traditional forms, the Upstate Modernist collection of homes by S3 Architecture (based in both NYC and Rhinebeck) reimagines modern living.

“The custom-built homes are the epitome of the style, where comfort and luxury meet the serenity of country living,” Vega says. “Having access to sprawling properties, there’s the opportunity to splurge and build spacious dream homes that can easily entertain family and friends.”

nature’s own

This new approach to country living isn’t afraid of creating exterior spaces where people can commune with nature. The Salisbury House concept shows off an optional greenhouse with a vegetable garden that anchors the decidedly modern look with cultivated flora. Expansive windows and a true barn-like exterior also add to this feeling.

“The use of large picture windows is part of the new aesthetic so that one feels more connected to the stunning bucolic views,” Vega says.

uring the first season of All in the Family in 1971, its Episode 5 was titled “Judging Books by Covers.” Its story line was a gay one concerning Archie Bunker’s homophobia and his having to face the fact that his bar buddy, Steve, an ex-pro football player and linebacker who owned a camera shop down from the bar foreshadowing Harvey Milk’s opening his the next year, was gay himself. I was 15 years old and just beginning to deal consciously with the actuality of my own gayness. That episode of All in the Family made as an indelible emotional and psychological impression on me as Archie’s derrière did in a physical way on his famous chair on which he sat and spewed his scripted bigotry as perfectly spaced punchlines each week as the sitcom contextually debunked his Bunker mentality. That chair now sits itself at the Smithsonian where it proves the importance of the metaphoric “furniture of home,” as Auden wrote of more than its comfort in his “September 1, 1939,” but also of its own contextual need in the larger design of life and history, a harboring of hope where the direness of derrières— humanity more haunch than homily—rested, steadfast in their unsteadiness, on bar stools homing in on the fierce resolve of the familial no matter how far we stray from our selves toward the collective self.

In that same All in the Family episode, Archie’s wife, Edith, expounds in her batty way about the existential bounds of photography when shown some vacation snapshots of a luncheon guest who had just visited London. She talks about her fascination with the idea that posing for photographs momentarily suspends time and allows those posing to pause their haunched humanness which then inspires her oddly moving, yes, poetical homily. Bunker arches his Archie eyebrow at her musing. “You’re a pip,” he says. “You know that Edith? You’re a regular Edna St. Louis Millay.” The audience laughs at his latest malapropism, getting the reference to another poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, proving not only its own erudition but also how Millay was still so well-known that she could be referenced as a joke on a sitcom. I wasn’t sure who she was myself when I was 15 so later went to look her up at the library and have been fascinated by her ever since.

Design & Derrières

presence in the partying Greenwich Village of artists and activists of the times roaring about her—“My candle burns at both ends;/it will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—/It gives a lovely light!” she famously wrote in her quatrain “First Fig” published in the June 1918 issue of Poetry magazine—she also had longed for a roomier, more ruminative place where she and her imagination could roam as they had in coastal Maine where she spent so much of her impoverished childhood with her two sisters and single mother. “I cannot write in New York,” she told a reporter from Boston’s Sunday Globe in 1925 “It is awfully exciting there and I find lots of things to write about and I accumulate many ideas, but I have to go away where it is quiet.” So, she and Boissevain, having lived for a couple of years at 75 1/2 Bedford Street in what is still known as the “skinniest house in New York” measuring only 9 feet 6 inches wide, bought the 435-acre blueberry farm for $9000 after seeing an ad for it in the New York Times, later purchasing an additional 300 acres adjacent to the property so that they could own the whole of the mountaintop.

BY KEVIN SESSUMS

In the Stories section at the Vassar website, Holly Peppe, the Literary Executor of her estate, writes of its alum, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: “Over the next several years, Millay and Eugen transformed the property into an elegant country estate with flower, herb, and vegetable gardens; guest houses; a tennis court overlooking the Berkshire hills, and a sunken garden area in the foundation of an old barn consisting of garden rooms separated by stone walls and arborvitae hedges.”

If books can be judged by covers, a person can be discerned by the decoration and design of one’s rooms—especially the conceptual sort separated by doors built into the natural landscape between trees through which such “garden rooms” flowed in a kind of structured wildness which mirrored Millay’s own.

Norman Lear, who co-wrote the episode, knowingly put the reference in Bunker’s bit of dialogue because Millay—known to her friends as Vincent—was a bisexual and an exponent of free love in the 1920s. She and her husband, wealthy Dutch coffee importer Eugen Jan Boissevain, were quite forthright about their open marriage after having met at a party at Croton-on-Hudson and partnering in a game of charades. He was the widower of labor lawyer and war correspondent Inez Milholland, a political hero to Millay whom she had met during her studies at Vassar. Both Boissevain and Millay were early feminists and he tended to household duties at their country estate Steepletop in Austerlitz so she could devote herself to her writing. Although she had been a tenaciously vital star

When the poet and her husband bought their Upstate mountain home it still had the vestiges of the Victorian about it, so she set about to both honor its foundational functional aspects while reimagining them in ways that better suited her reimagined self. In the same way she subverted the strictures of her lyrical poems, which were so often built upon the structures of the sonnet and rhyming couplets and quatrains, with her insistence that female sexuality was a worthy subject to be contained within them and thus incongruously unleashed, she brandished her bohemianism as a kind of aesthetic that lived side by side with her longing for the rustic, rambling comfort of an Upstate farmhouse built upon the architectural bones of the Victorian ardor for order. For example, the freshwater pool on the property which was filled from a spring-fed cistern up-mountain, could only be used by swimmers who swam unashamed in the nude and shunned any need for a bathing suit based on her bare-derrières

The amorality of aesthetics with Archie Bunker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Barbra Streisand and, yes, Madonna.

edict even though there were separate outdoor dressing rooms for men and women with cast iron dressing tables.

Millay also wrote in her diary, “Did all my weeding without a stitch and got a marvelous tan.” And yet she and her husband, as was the custom of the time in households of a certain strata of society, dressed for dinner each night and were served by a maid and butler. They would then retire to either their separate bedrooms upstairs, an interior landscape of their open marriage where they could welcome their respective lovers, or to the “withdrawing room” as Mark O’Berski, Vice-President and Treasurer of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society at Steepletop, referred to it when giving Kendra Gaylord a tour of the home and its grounds for her podcast Someone Lived Here He continued: “What’s very unusual for a Victorian farmhouse is that the size of this room is enormous. It used to be two rooms, as there would have been in a Victorian house, two front parlors. And they had the wall removed so that Millay had room for two grand pianos. Because she liked to play duets with friends. So over here, this is Millay’s piano. It’s a Steinway from 1925. No one was allowed to play this except Millay.”

She also seldom allowed others to sit in her favorite chair which she referred to as her “bird window seat.” She would place a tray of bird seeds right outside the opened window and wait for the arrival of alighting birds, many of which would enter the room next to her, where she sat keeping her bird journal. But her favorite room—her inner sanctum—was her upstairs library which still contains over 3000 books. Millay was fluent in seven languages and many of them are in French, Spanish, Latin and Greek. The sections are organized, among others, into classics and Shakespeare and fiction and women’s rights. She did a lot of her reading and writing lying on a daybed situated in front of a table that held more books and a large globe that anchored the room. Above it all hung a sign, another edict from her: SILENCE.

The kitchen, unlike the library, was not her domain—her husband and servants did their cooking chores there—but it was where she was found after her death lying on its floor having fallen down the stairs and broken her neck after a heart attack, according to the coroner’s report. It was only a year after Boissevain had died of lung cancer in 1949. The scales in the pink bathroom upstairs are still set to 98 pounds, which is what the 5-foot poet weighed when she died. She and Boissevain are buried side by side on their mountain in Austerlitz.

Indeed, all of us writers know that the description of rooms whether imaginary ones in novels or real ones utilized as reportage in biographies or profiles written for magazines can be a kind of forensic tool itself in delving into the discernment of character without having to make moral judgments in doing so since aesthetics on their surface

are amoral, the chosen surface of one’s life being finally what they are only about. But they give us hints. They help us, yes, home in.

When I was writing a cover story in 1991 on Barbra Streisand for Vanity Fair, she invited me into her Beverly Hills mansion on one of the days we were having our many conversations. At one point she was describing her New York City apartment to me—it once had belonged to lyricist Lorenz Hart who lived there with his mother—saying she had decorated it “in chintz and Chippendale and 18th-century furniture. When I was playing Fanny Brice I used to make fun of her taste, you know, when I was on the set of the movie. ‘How can she live in this fancy stuff?’ I used to ask our director, Willie Wyler. Now my apartment has furniture with Queen Anne legs, and it looks like the sets for Funny Girl.”

“Taking me on a tour of her Beverly Hills home,” I continued, “the inveterate collector and renovator tells me that when she can find the time in her schedule she plans to build her own version of an antebellum mansion on another plot of land in Beverly Hills. For now, however, she has busied herself with decorating this house, which she’s recently cleared of the Art Nouveau and filled with furniture by Frank Lloyd Wright and Gustav Stickley. Many of the pieces, Streisand is proud to point out, were owned and used by the two Arts and Crafts designers themselves. Drawings by Gustav Klimt hang next to disquieting nudes by Egon Schiele (holdovers from her Art Nouveau phase), but two Edward Hoppers have been added to the collection to complement the Arts and Crafts pieces. As we sit on facing couches in the living room, a bust of Sarah Bernhardt, sculpted by the divine Frenchwoman herself, stares at us from across the room.”

Later that day, she offered to take me upstairs to her study where portraits of her family, surrogate and otherwise, were kept so she could play me a tape of the then 13-year-old Streisand singing “You’ll Never Know” in a duet with the adult Streisand as the real Streisand sat in the overstuffed chair behind her desk and, glancing down at a perceived imperfection in one of her fingernails, lip-synched with herselves— or, I see now, created in real time for me the collective self as she, a manifested metaphor (which all stars are) sat more precisely within her own version of Auden’s “furniture of home.” She had made me promise, however, that I wouldn’t write any descriptions of her bedroom we had to pass by to get to her study since she innately knew that writing about that interior would give her public a few too many intimate hints about who she might be. I promised before she allowed me up.

“On the wall next to the stairwell,” I wrote as we climbed toward her own inner sanctum, “across from another Klimt and a small portrait by Tamara de Lempicka, are three gigantic Mucha theatrical

dead poets society Famed American poet—and subject of a classic Archie Bunker punchline—Edna St. Vincent Millay and her dapper husband, Eugen Jan Boissevain, at their beautiful home Steepletop, in Austerlitz, NY in 1925.

Savoring the Season

posters advertising Parisian productions starring Sarah Bernhardt. ‘These are the only posters I’ve ever bought, because they are the three roles I have always longed to play,’ she tells me.

‘Camille and Hamlet and, especially, Medea. I did Medea when I was 15 in acting class in New York, and I still think it is my best work. I’ll always remember one of her lines: “I have this hole in the middle of myself.”’

The year before, my first cover story for Vanity Fair had been on Madonna who also had a home filled with art. This was my lede: “You reach the house by driving up into the Hollywood Hills as far as you can go. It is, of course, At the Top. Like Madonna herself, it is surprisingly small, startlingly white, all modern angles and hard edges. Everywhere, there is an exquisite incongruity. Outside, a black Mercedes 560SL is parked next to a coral-colored ’57 Thunderbird; inside, twentieth-century art performs a visual pas de deux with eighteenth-century Italian furniture. Catholic candles, tackily embossed with saints, dot the house’s sophisticated rooms. On a kitchen counter, audiotapes of Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth lie stacked beside rap tapes by Public Enemy.”

Later in the story, I continued with my description of the interiors—and thus her—as she gave me a tour of her home: “Outside her bathroom, hung on the wall above a Nadelman sculpture, is the photograph given to her on her 31st birthday by Warren Beatty. It is a picture by Ilse Bing of a group of women in diaphanous gowns caught performing a la Matisse’s The Dance She points to the woman whose head is thrown farther back than the others’, her hands not exactly clasped in the thrall of collaboration. The woman obviously wants the attention all to herself, and Bing has captured that blissful desire perfectly. Madonna tilts her head at the same angle and breezes past the

photograph. ‘Warren says she reminds him of me. I don’t know why.’

“We circle back to the main room,” I wrote toward the end of the detailed tour she had given me that day. “An ornately gold-framed Langlois, originally painted for Versailles, is as large as the entire ceiling. And that is exactly where Madonna has hung it, Hermes’ exposed loins dangling over our heads. Above the fireplace is a 1932 Leger painting, Composition with Three Figures Across from it is a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo, the legendary Mexican artist and revolutionary. Another wall holds a nude painted by Kahlo’s husband, Diego Rivera. Boxer Joe Louis, photographed by Irving Penn, pouts in a corner across from Man Ray’s nude of Kiki de Montparnasse. All around us are other photographs taken by masters, new and old: Weston, Weegee, Tina Modotti, Matt Mahurin, Lartigue, Drtikol, Blumenfeld, Herb Ritts.

“In the entrance foyer is another Kahlo, titled My Birth The small painting depicts Kahlo’s mother in bed with the sheets folded back over her head. All that can be seen of the mother are her opened legs, the head of the adult Kahlo painfully emerging from her mother’s gaping vagina. There is blood in the painting. There is anger there. Sorrow. “‘If somebody doesn’t like this painting,’ Madonna says, ‘then I know they can’t be my friend.’”

I did like the painting. But I never became her friend. Because the design of a home—the private choice of art and furnishings and even the placement and alignment of it all—tells a visitor a version of the truth as it also knowingly lies. Our aesthetics are the story we tell ourselves about who we long to be even if we have a long way to go to being that person. Aesthetics are neither right nor wrong because good taste and bad taste are finally not about goodness or badness. They just lay out a pathway paved with the need to be perceived as a certain kind of person. The discernment is discovering not what

surface

women of substance

Two of the galaxy’s biggest stars, Madonna and Barbra Streisand, welcomed the author to their respective Los Angeles homes for Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair.

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hermano a mano “It was the perfect way to honor him. Creating something that connects me with him inspires me and frankly keeps me going,” Marcelo says, Fernando’s big brother; (opposite) the Bengoechea brothers: Alejandro, Marcelo and Fernando in Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1997.

to Fernando, with love

The stunning images of photographer FERNANDO BENGOECHEA—who died tragically in a tsunami nearly two decades ago while in Sri Lanka—live on in “Woven Together,” a poignant collaboration between brothers debuting in Hudson.

BY TARA SOLOMON

ack in the early 2000s, few fine art photographers were as influential as Fernando Bengoechea, a handsome and charismatic Argentine whose bold black-and-white images were embraced by both art world cognoscenti and the glitterati and exhibited worldwide. His “Karma Tree” series—depicting the majestic, gnarled Joshua trees of Palm Springs’ high desert—were snapped up by A-List collectors including Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Tommy Hilfiger, Naomi Campbell, Ricky Martin and Gloria Estefan.

In December 2004, Bengoechea’s life was cut tragically short when a devastating tsunami struck Sri Lanka, killing 225,000 people. The Buenos Aires-born lensman was on vacation with his partner, celebrity interior designer (and Oprah Winfrey Show regular) Nate Berkus, who miraculously survived the catastrophe. Bengoechea was just 39. His body was never found.

The loss was especially hard on Bengoechea’s brother Marcelo, a creative director who worked alongside his younger brother on brand campaigns. The two often traveled together, Fernando taking his art tools with him as he worked late into the night on his “Woven Photographs”—a technique he pioneered in the late 1990s that

Hudson

REBECCA GREENFIELD

involved cutting two identical giclée prints into narrow strips, and then weaving them together by hand to create a unique, one-of-a-kind image.

“I think it brought him calm and peace,” Marcelo says, who taught himself Fernando’s signature photo-weaving over the course of a decade to honor his brother and keep his art alive. In 2019, Marcelo established The Studio at Fernando Bengoechea in Encinitas, CA with the mission of “preserving, reviving and evolving” Fernando’s unique artistic legacy.

On September 2, “Woven Together”—the first posthumous exhibition of Fernando’s work—will have its East Coast debut at foley&cox HOME in Hudson. The works will remain on view through the end of the month.

In a poignant tribute, the exhibition will feature four new renditions of Fernando’s beloved “Karma Trees”—all hand-woven by Marcelo. “This is a collaboration between brothers,” Marcelo says proudly. “Fernando took the

and I did the weaving.”

In addition to the iconic “Karma Trees” series, the exhibition features Fernando’s New York Collection—black-and-white photography of New York City landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty and Barney’s department store; the “Palms Collection” of serene palm trees in exotic locales such as Myanmar and Maldives; and the “Still Life Collection,” detailing pristine pineapples, seashells and other objects from nature.

Directed

life, interrupted Fernando’s “Karma Tree #1;” (opposite, top) Marcelo mastered his brother’s signature woven art technique; “He set the bar extremely high for people but never any higher than it was set for himself,” said Fernando’s partner and celebrity interior designer Nate Berkus in his book, The Things That Matter, here recalling the tragic final days in Sri Lanka on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

The limited-edition pieces measure 51" x 44", with prices starting at $195. The “Karma Trees” series is available for custom orders.

“It was the perfect way to honor him,” Marcelo says of the exhibition, which debuted

in Palm Springs before traveling to Hudson, followed by San Francisco. “Creating something that connects me with him inspires me and frankly keeps me going. The message is very simple: We’re all woven together through love.”

Nearly two decades after his brother’s death, Marcelo plans to visit Sri Lanka for the first time, surfing the very ocean that swept his brother away to an untimely, watery grave.

“Sri Lanka! It’s taken me 19 long years to gather the courage to go there,” Marcelo says. “I can’t wait to surf Arugam Bay and feel the ocean’s energy. I hope it fills me with some of Fernando’s positive energy, to share through woven photos. A little closure would be nice, too.”

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24

201 COOPER LAKE ROAD | BEARSVILLE

77 CRARYVILLE ROAD | CRARYVILLE

Iwas with my in-laws at Donny Malone Auctions in Saugerties in the mid-1980s. The Hellers of Lake Hill, NY were well-known—they sold Tiffany and Handel lamps, but my father-inlaw also took old lamp parts and created beautiful new ones.

They were bidding on a few expensive pieces. My mother-in-law grabbed my arm and pointed to a cardboard box. It was overflowing with dirty pieces of yarn, a doll’s head, a lace doily, some other things I couldn’t identify. “Bid on that box of contents,” she said with a smile. “Who knows what magic is hiding?!”

How Much Is THaT Pencil In THe window?

Collectibles that fill your home and steal your heart.

BY MARTHA FRANKEL

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KITTY SHEEHAN

I bid $1. And won. While people continued bidding on other things, I unpacked that box and at the bottom, I found a gorgeous Shawnee pottery deer planter. The yellow deer had painted eyes; the tree planter could hold pens. I clutched it to my chest—I was smitten.

A week later, I was at an auction in Fleischmanns and spotted another deer on a shelf. When it came up, I bid $2, and a collection was born.

Within a year, I had about 30. Some were chipped, some needed painting. People started giving them to me. My husband Steve built lit shelves in the kitchen. They were immediately filled to overflowing. But over the next decade, I started getting more particular. On trips to Los Angeles and Miami, I found many gorgeous ones. I got rid of every one that wasn’t perfect. I gave some to people who admired them. I search antique shops still, but I remain much pickier.

On New Year’s Eve day, I take them all down, wash them lovingly in soapy water. I rearrange the shelves. Old ones become favorites again and I’m reminded why I love them. 

Textile salesperson Margie Schultz’s collection began years ago, when she went with a childhood friend to a big antique show in Westchester County. She noticed a kangaroo with a tinier kangaroo in its pouch. When she picked it up, she realized the larger one was for salt, the smaller for pepper. She had just moved into her first apartment and it looked just perfect on her dining table. Her collection grew in that way collections grow; she bought some, people gifted her others. She sought out rare ones and gave away doubles.

Holiday shakers hold a special place in her heart: the Thanksgiving turkeys, the Chanukah dreidels, some matzo balls, the 4th of July flags. Pumpkins for fall. Flowers in spring. She and her husband travel a lot. “One of the great things is every place, every city, has its salt and pepper shakers,” Margie tells me. “Sometimes I buy them in the hope that the next time, they’ll have even better ones.”

When Margie was building her new passive solar home in the town of Olive, NY she knew one thing for sure: she wanted

a big display case where she could show off as many as possible.

Kelley Parker is a retired lawyer living in Woodstock. Rainy days in Manhattan always made her miserable. “I used to complain about the rain to anyone who’d listen,” she says with her Oklahoma drawl. At some point, she came across a fancy umbrella store on 55th street, near her office. “And I popped in there on a rainy day and got a pretty plain but substantial one.”

Later that year she went to Paris, and in a wonderful umbrella shop the saleswoman admonished her for the way she closed an umbrella. And that was it. “I just fell into the umbrella subculture!”

She says there are people into umbrellas, and then there’s everyone else who have the throwaway black umbrellas they buy outside every office building. She waxes about the good handles, the way they open and close. “I’ve left many an umbrella in a cab or restaurant, but I’ve had some of these umbrellas for more than three decades. When I moved to the mountains I stopped using an umbrella so much. But I did build a covered porch with a swinging bed and that’s sort of my new umbrella. It’s where I go when it rains.”

Parker searches out the umbrella store everywhere she goes. And she always finds one. A trip to Morocco is next, and she says that she’s already dreaming of what kind of umbrellas they might sell there.

Writer/editor Kitty Sheehan was once told she had “a knack for arranging useless clutter.” She took it as a high compliment.

Among her collections are pencils and notepads. “My first pencil in kindergarten was a fat little one that said ‘DIXON.’ That was the first word I learned to spell. I asked my teacher if I could have it. And years later, when I taught kindergarten, I couldn’t wait to give my students their fat little pencils! But none of them fell in love with them like I did.”

Sheehan also has notepads from hotels she’s stayed in since 1973. “At the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, you got a whole leather portfolio of stationery!” In 2007 she met Chandra Greer, of Greer Chicago, on Twitter. Greer’s stationery store is world class, and Greer tucked little presents into Sheehan’s orders. One was a Blackwing pencil, and that began her love affair with the gorgeous pencils with flat erasers. “John Steinbeck used them, and the guy who drew Looney Tunes, Chuck Jones.” People are passionate about their Blackwings, and if you’ve ever used one, you’ll understand. “Nothing compares to how soft and wonderful they are,” she gushes. “I always find the stationery store when I travel. It’s where I meet my people. Rhinebeck’s Paper Trail is exceptional. And I recently discovered a wonderful stationery store in Hudson, The Social Type.”

write stuff “My first pencil in kindergarten was a fat little one that said ‘DIXON,’ the first word I learned to spell,” says collector Kitty Sheehan.

Friends give her pencils, but it’s her daughter, Natalie, who gives her great ones. “She gets it.”

Woodstock

ULSTER COUNTY

shelter

CHASiNG WATERFALLS

Nature’s music dominates at the idyllic Woodstock Way Hotel.

By Isabel Hochman

Picture waking up to the sound of a flowing waterfall. You get ready for the day surrounded by an oasis, but here’s the twist—walk just down the street and you’re in downtown Woodstock, NY. This is life at Woodstock Way Hotel.

Ryan Giuliani, who’s called this rock ’n’ roll holy ground home since 2004, and his business partner Jesse Halliburton, noticed a shift in the waves of people coming up to the Hudson Valley circa 2015, and they seized

upon the moment to develop a new hotel. Giuliani says creating an escape for this changing audience was key. So, they snagged a bit of land with the cascading Tannery Brook Waterfall and plenty of greenery— and something you pretty much never get in a nature-surrounded retreat: walkability.

“We had our businesses in Manhattan and Hoboken over the years and the ability to walk from one place to another was just so great, especially for someone that doesn’t know the Catskills, Hudson Valley or Woodstock,” Giuliani says. “You’re able to

come on to our property, park your car and walk to half a dozen excellent restaurants, three music venues, boutiques, bars and hiking trails. We walked onto the property of Woodstock Way, and we made an offer that night. What stood were six old cabins. Once we bought the property, the town of Woodstock condemned three of them immediately because they were in such tough shape.”

When designing the hotel, Giuliani worked with

interior designers Jenny Keenan and Kasia Bloom, taking architectural inspiration from the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles, Hotel Saint Cecilia in Austin and out in Big Sur, the Post Ranch Inn. He calls the hotel’s style Catskill Contemporary and the design process truly brought the Catskill Mountains into the core of the hotel. “We used the actual materials of the environment—including cedar sidings—and created outdoor spaces, large glass windows that brought the outside into the rooms themselves. A lot of sustainable design went into the buildings and the property as well,” he says.

From insisting on solar panels and living roof systems on buildings to developing a bioretention pond, Woodstock Way Hotel exists in harmony with its surroundings, a re-energized piece of property that pays tribute to the creative spirit this town is known for.

Another thing you don’t always get when you’re on an escape: cell service. Mobile phones actually work at the hotel, though Giuliani says he almost wishes they wouldn’t work so well. “The escape is the mindfulness that you receive as you come onto our property and into our community,” he says. “There’s a reason the Maverick Art Colony and the Byrdcliffe Colony settled in Woodstock. There’s a reason that the Tibetan monastery sits on top of the hill in our town. Because the energy of Woodstock is a real thing. The loudest thing on the property by far at any given day is the waterfall. It drowns out everything, but it’s special because you turn off your car and check into your room; you sit on your porch, and you just hear that waterfall coming through. And there—right there—is the escape.” Nature’s music in perfect harmony.

one fine way According to owner Ryan Giuliani, the hotel’s style is Catskill Contemporary; Woodstock Way boasts the cascading Tannery Brook Waterfall and plenty of lush greenery.

FOR THE FALL BEAUTY

ben doll One of America’s true quintessential singersongwriters, Ben Harper— and his band, The Innocent Criminals—will bring his singular blend of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock to The Egg in Albany on October 8. Who’s excited?

mode

activate, with style

Photography by Jacob Boll

Outdoor, Sport

By Hal Rubenstein

One of the late Tony Bennett’s best loved songs was “If I Ruled the World.” With music by Leslie Bricusse and lyrics by Cyril Ornadel the song was originally from their musical Pickwick Papers (based on the Charles Dickens novel). The show flopped on Broadway, but Bennett rescues and transforms the ballad into a soaring, romantic ode to wishful thinking.

I always adored Bennett’s voice. His first hit, “Because of You,” and its eponymous album was one of my parents’ favorite records (cut on a 78rpm breakable shellac disk that we played on a Victrola). I met Bennett just once at a dinner party, but after that, he sent me an autographed Christmas card every year. His last concert with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall before succumbing to Alzheimer’s was both heartwarming and heartbreaking to watch. Except I take issue with the first edict Bennett’s raspy baritone proposes

had he become our global sovereign. “If I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring.”

On the morning of March 20, this year’s vernal equinox, it was 21 degrees in Hudson. Forget it, Tony. I’m sorry you’re gone but couldn’t be more relieved you didn’t fish your wish, especially since, if it was up to me, it’d be summer all year round. So, what am I doing living in the Berkshire foothills? Well, that’s a whole different article, but, except for an obsessive love of knitwear, I’m less than thrilled that sunset is now closer to 7 than 8:30pm, that you may still sit in the sun occasionally until that brisk fall wind forces you to keep a hoodie close by and that the heartless powers that be will soon take away the frozen Negroni machine at The Rivertown Lodge. (I’ve begged for its permanence. Should I start a petition?) And worst of all, it makes it more of a challenge to cook out on the back deck on the grill.

I’d be happy to eat every meal off a grill. While, come winter, I never hesitate to invest

three hours braising brisket, rolling matzoh balls or simmering Bolognese in a Le Creuset Dutch oven, grilled meats, poultry, seafood and veggies just taste lighter and fresher, even seem healthier when savored right off those open flames. I know I’m not alone in my gustatorial ardor, which means others out there are bemoaning the fact that our time is running short.

Consequently, I’m offering recipes, some I’ve been preparing for years, some I’ve adapted from restaurants reviewed in past issues of The Mountains, that I love but will also have you manning the grill for the shortest time possible, so you won’t have to juggle tongs and a flashlight to read the meat thermometer. But keep that hoodie handy, just in case.

ASIAN STYLE RIBS

(A more glazed and spicier version of the rack of ribs at The Daily Planet, Fall 2022) serves 8-10

ingredients

4 racks of baby back or St. Louis style pork ribs (14 lbs.)

marinade

1½ cups hoisin sauce

1 cup soy sauce

½ cup rice vinegar

4 tbsp sesame oil

¼ cup chili garlic sauce

¼ cup fish sauce

1 cup dark brown sugar

¼ cup chipotle molasses

1 cup Stonewall Farms red pepper jelly

Juice & zest of two lemons

8 cloves of garlic, minced

3-inch piece of ginger, peeled & thinly sliced

directions

1. Thoroughly combine all ingredients, either whisked, food processed or use blender.

2. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator at least 8, up to 24 hours.

3. Heat over to 275°, while allowing ribs to come to room temperature.

4. Bake ribs for 2 hours, turning ribs every half hour.

5. Char on hot grill, 10 mins or less per side.

6. Let meat rest for 5 mins. Slice and serve.

OK, so it’s a little chilly—put on a sweater and keep the thrill of the grill going a little longer.

SPATCHCOCKED CHICKEN WITH HONEY, CHILE, & LEMON

(Adapted from Clare de Boer, chef/owner Stissing House, Spring 2023)

serves 8

ingredients

2 free range chickens (4 lbs. each)

4 tbsp sea salt

6 lemons

2 oranges

2/3 cup honey

4 tsp dried oregano

4 cloves garlic, smashed.

2 tsp red pepper flakes

½ tsp black pepper

directions

A spatchcocked chicken is a butterflied one. It’s just a cooler word for chicken with the backbone removed.

1. One day before serving, either ask your butcher to do it, or turn the bird, breast side down, and using sharp poultry shears, cut from one end of the chicken to the other along either side

of the spine. If you feel unsure of the process, there are multiple YouTube videos on how to do it. Sharp shears make all the difference.

2. Turn the chicken over. With one palm on top of the other, press down on the center of the breast until the bird lies flat.

3. Make 3 3-inch slits in each breast, and 3 more in each leg. The slits should go down to the bone. Rub sea salt liberally all over the chicken.

4. In a bowl, mix the juice of 5 lemons, both oranges, the honey, oregano and red pepper flakes. Take the last lemon and slice it into 24 half-moon slices. Fold all the slices into each slit made in the chickens, rind on the outside. Pour 2/3 cup of this marinade into one large Ziploc bag, or 1/3 cup in two smaller bags. Place seasoned chickens in bag or bags, completely coat the chickens in the marinade and refrigerate overnight.

5. When ready to cook, take chickens and remaining marinade out of the refrigerator and bring to room temperature.

6. Chef de Boer recommends grilling chicken on low heat for almost an hour. However, on a medium heat (450°) grill cook, initially breast side down, for 30 mins. Turning twice, basting each time.

7. Internal temperature should be 165°

8. Remove chicken from grill, let it rest for 10 minutes, then cut each bird into 8 pieces (breasts cut in half). Pour remaining marinade over the plated chicken. Serve with a lemon wedge.

MEXICAN CORN SALAD

serves 6-8

ingredients

salad

6 ears fresh corn, husked

2 pints cherry tomatoes, halved

1 cup pitted kalamata olives, halved

2 jalapeños, seeded and minced

1 small red onion, sliced thin

½ fennel bulb, halved and sliced thin

½ cup slivered almonds

¼ cup chopped mint

¼ cup chopped parsley

dressing

3 tbsp lime zest

3 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

½ cup sherry vinegar

½ cup EV olive oil

¼ tsp chipotle chili powder

2 tsp garlic, minced Juice of one lemon directions

1. Bring large pot of salted water to a boil on stove.

2. Boil corn for 5 mins.

3. Take out of pot, pat dry, brush with olive oil.

4. Place directly onto hot grill until kernels begin to char, about 10 mins.

5. When corn can be touched but still warm, strip kernels and place in large bowl.

6. Add tomatoes, onions, fennel, olives, jalapeños, mint & parsley.

7. Toss well, and briefly cover with plastic wrap.

8. In a small bowl, whisk oil, vinegar, Dijon, garlic, lime juice & zest, chili powder, lemon, salt & pepper.

9. Pour over salad. Toss well.

10. Serve at room temperature.

GRILLED SWORDFISH IN ORANGE & BASIL with GRILLED PEPPER & EGGPLANTs SALAD

serves 2

ingredients

swordfish

2 swordfish steaks, 1 in. thick Maldon salt (for garnish)

baste

¼ cup blood orange olive oil (available from saratogaoliveoil.com)

¼ cup orange juice

3 tbsp chopped basil

2 garlic cloves, minced

Pinch of red pepper flakes

¼ tsp kosher salt

directions

1. Wisk all basting ingredients together.

2. Brush room temperature steaks with half of basting sauce.

3. Place steaks on grill. Close lid.

4. Cook 4 minutes a side, basting again when turned.

“IF ART HAS A PURPOSE, IT’S TO MOVE YOU.”

—The Boston Globe

EJ Hill: Brake Run Helix

5. Plate steaks. Pour remaining sauce over swordfish.

6. Garnish lightly with Maldon salt.

7. Serve with grilled salad on the side.

GRILLED PEPPER AND EGGPLANT SALAD

ingredients

1 Asian eggplant, sliced lengthwise

1 red pepper, seeded and quartered

1 orange pepper, seeded and quartered

1 small red onion, quartered

1 tbsp EV olive oil, more for brushing

Kosher salt & ground pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp chopped oregano

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 oz of goat cheese, crumbled

directions

1. Brush vegetables with olive oil, season with salt & pepper to taste.

2. Place in grill pan.

3. Grill 4 minutes per side.

4. Remove from grill, wait 2 minutes, cut into smaller pieces.

5. Place cut vegetables in bowl. Toss with lemon juice, garlic, oregano and 1 tbsp olive oil.

6. Top with goat cheese & serve alongside swordfish.

FROZEN NEGRONIS serves 4-6

ingredients

1½ cups Campari

1½ cups sweet vermouth

1½ cups gin

1½ cups fresh orange juice

directions

1. Mix, place in container, and put in freezer for 8 hours (it won’t freeze).

2. Place contents in blender with 4 cups of ice.

3. Blend until smooth.

4. Serve immediately—all year round.

Breaking Barriers, Brewing Beer

Hot Plate Brewing Co. isn’t just about crafting beer— it’s about fostering equity.

By Anthony Giglio

In the picturesque town of Pittsfield, MA in the heart of the Berkshires, a brewery and tap room opened last year with the goal of challenging conventions and advocating for greater diversity, equity and inclusion: Hot Plate Brewing Co., co-founded by Sarah Real and Mike Dell’Aquila. Their journey from beer-chugging college friends to married brewery owners has been a twodecades long meandering love story, with each step leading them to create a brand that not only serves exceptional beer but also shatters barriers and stereotypes.

Sarah and Mike’s paths first crossed at Penn State, where Mike’s beer knowledge didn’t extend far beyond the domestic light lagers poured at keg parties.

But Sarah—who was two years ahead of him in grad school— was handily working her way toward completing a “beer passport” (think: Around The World In 80 Beers, with a stamp for each beer “completed”) at a pub called Zeno’s. Eventually, Mike joined her on her journey and the experience opened their eyes to the vast world of craft beer.

In 2005, the couple took a cross-country adventure and visited New Belgium Brewery in Denver, where Sarah was

instantly struck with a revelation: “I want to do this!” However, as often happens with many of our dreams, life takes us in a different direction. Sarah pursued a career in children’s media, which included roles at Cartoon Network/Adult Swim and Nickelodeon, while Mike headed into branding and content creation.

Still, beer was always brewing in the background. In 2013, Mike began homebrewing in their Brooklyn apartment with one gallon “extract” beer kits, as they’re called. “These should be failproof if you do it correctly,” says Mike, “and it is most of the time, but I didn’t always do things correctly.” Then Sarah got involved, and they started taking classes at Bitter & Esters, a local homebrew supply shop. On her own, Sarah eventually went through an entire suite of classes and started making bigger five-gallon batches at home. And then… the flame died. Literally.

In 2017, they faced a life-altering setback when a building code violation led to their gas being shut off—for their entire building, where they owned their apartment—leaving them no choice but

to brew on an electric hot plate (and take hot showers at their local gym). As they say, when life hands you lemons… Hot Plate Brewing Co. was born. Meanwhile, Sarah started writing recipes in earnest. She describes her process as “generally jumping back and forth between trying to put my own twist on a preexisting style or beer that I really like, or introducing new or novel ingredients to try to come up with something you can only find at Hot Plate.”

In 2018, Sarah entered a women’s homebrew competition and created a beer using chamomile and lactose in a blonde ale, called Capable of Anything. Mike had reservations about the unusual recipe, cautioning Sarah that it might be too risky. “I was wrong,” he says, happily. “Both at that event and ever since, during tasting parties and popup events that we’d do before we opened in Pittsfield, we consistently got the feedback from female and female-identifying consumers that they ‘don’t like beer’ but would gladly drink ours.” Sarah was vindicated: Capable of Anything remains their top-selling beer. Still, as a Mexican-American woman, Sarah didn’t see herself reflected in the current national craft beer scene. “Since I was a girl, I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, and never understood why I couldn’t do things like play basketball against the boys. I guess it only makes sense that I‘d end up trying to break into the boys’ club of craft beer,” she says.

“So, whenever people seem to think that a woman or femaleidentifying individual can’t do things a man can, it definitely motivates me to keep working harder and trying to break down those barriers and stereotypes.”

Understanding the lack of representation in the craft

beer buds Married brewery owners Mike Dell’Aquila and Sarah Real put their love of beer and social equity on full display at Hot Plate Brewing Co. in Pittsfield, MA. Cheers to them!

beer industry, especially among women of color, Sarah became the face of the brand on social media, representing a more inclusive image. They also focused on simplifying the beer conversation, making it more engaging for newcomers and dispelling the exclusivity often associated with craft beer.

Their dream of opening an actual brewery took on urgency when the global pandemic hit, forcing their hand to make some big life decisions when the gym they were using for hot showers was shuttered. Initially, they thought they’d open in the Catskills, but there are several great breweries up there already, including Woodstock Brewery and West Kill Brewery, two breweries they both admire. Then they discovered Pittsfield, where there was no brewery or urban tap room yet. And the city offers generous economic incentives to give businesses a place to call home downtown. After selling their Brooklyn condo, they made it official, partnering with the City of Pittsfield as their biggest investor.

el. 413.717.4239 | Fax: 413.717.4251

Hot Plate Brewing Co. is creating a welcoming space for all members of the community, especially the LGBTQIA+ community. The bright and cheerful taproom design was intentionally chosen to foster inclusivity and comfort.

Still, they know they’re not in Brooklyn anymore. “The irony is while we’re specifically focusing on female/female-identifying customers as well as members of the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, we haven’t necessarily picked the most diverse county in the world,” says Mike. “Despite the Berkshires being overwhelmingly white, we discovered that Pittsfield offered the most diversity out of the whole region, and they have a growing Hispanic population here specifically.”

Sarah remains undaunted. “Even though it’s pretty ambitious, we do think that Hot Plate can be a force for good, and hopefully provide a model for how other operations can also put some skin in the game to support DEIJ (Diversity, equity, inclusion and justice) goals.”

Something tells me these partners are undaunted by any challenges in their way.

“We think Hot Plate Brewing Co. can be a force for good, and provide an example for diversity, equity, inclusion and justice goals.”

Feminine Mystique

Rebelle dispensary proves something’s been missing in the cannabis industry: a woman’s touch.

By Melissa Reid

Design lovers and cannabis enthusiasts alike can all agree that Great Barrington is home to some of the most inviting dispensaries in the region. And in a sea of similar sublimity, Rebelle stands out for its uniquely exquisite aesthetic.

Founder and CEO Charlotte Hanna knows a thing or two about good design. Coming from a family of developers—and working in the sector herself before joining the cannabis industry— she says that she grew up surrounded by floor plans. When she first began conceptualizing the look and feel of Rebelle—one of the first dispensaries to open on the East Coast—Hanna knew designing the right environment was essential. “I wanted to make the space inviting and create a warm and welcoming experience because, for many people, it’d be their first time visiting a dispensary,” she says. “I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of ‘Hygge,’ the Danish concept of creating a space that feels cozy.”

(The term itself originates from “hugga,” a 16thcentury Norwegian word meaning ‘to provide comfort.’) “There’s a reason why the Danish people are some of the happiest people on the planet even though they live in darkness half

rebelle with a cause “Being in the Berkshires, I wanted to have a lot of wood and materials that felt complementary to each other as well as being natural and inviting,” says Rebelle Founder/CEO Charlotte Hanna.

the year. It’s attributed to this idea of coziness and how they design spaces.”

For the woman and minority-owned business, Hanna wanted to embrace the essence of femme. The walls are adorned with wallpaper featuring beautifully provocative— yet tasteful—hand-drawn illustrations of nude women, for which Hanna purchased the rights. “After all, you must be 21 to enter the store anyway,” she says. There are no hard edges at Rebelle; instead, everything is curved, evoking a sense of softness and comfort.

Hanna also turned to talented local artisans to help create the dispensary’s unique ambiance and capture the essence of the region. Berkshire Products in Sheffield, MA supplied the wood, and Marveled Designs in Chatham, NY created beautiful, hand-poured terrazzo countertops that perfectly match the wallpaper. “Because it’s in the Berkshires and people here are very outdoorsy, I wanted to have a lot of wood and materials that felt complementary to each other as well as being natural and inviting.”

Can You Hear Him Now?

By Jane Larkworthy

Paul Marcarelli shares the same predicament as Adam Scott’s character Henry in the television show Party Down He’s a trained, serious actor whose work has appeared on stage and in film, but he’ll likely be most remembered for one straightforward yet unrelentingly catchy phrase: “Can you hear me now?”

Yes, he was that guy.

“I’ve always been convinced they modeled that character after me,” muses Marcarelli,

whose tenure with Verizon earned the kind of recognition Henry faces in the show: people always asking him to do the line. “I think the consensus was, ‘What a tragedy. This person had aspirations that were far beyond this one character.’”

It’s true that Marcarelli’s talents are far greater than the role of “test man” he played for nearly a decade. He wrote and produced the feature film Clutter, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2013. It was nominated

for the New American Cinema Award, The Women Film Critics Circle Award and won best feature at Harlem International Film Festival. His 2011 film The Green similarly went on to win several best feature awards and dozens of other honors.

“But the reality is, as Mad Men’s Don Draper said, ‘That’s what the money is for.’ I have a fantastic life that working in commercials has afforded me,” he says. A lot of that fantastic life now takes place on the sprawling Litchfield, CT farm he shares with husband, chef Ryan Brown. The two have taken a tucked-away 14 acres and blessed it with four green thumbs.

“Ryan came to gardening long before I did, but he’s now far surpassed my ability,” Marcarelli says. “Last winter, he’d started about 1,000 seeds in the basement. Now we’re planning what to do in the winter for what we want in the spring. Eventually, we’re going to end up with one of those places that’s so totally landscaped, no one will want to buy it because it involves so much work!”

Don’t get me wrong, Marcarelli’s still in the Hollywood game. The on-going actors’ and writers’ strikes have put a hold on his current project and all else for now, but he still auditions for voiceovers, commercials, video games, cartoons. He just keeps it close to the homestead now. “Basically, anything I can audition for from my home studio,” he says.

What should a neophyte gardener plant in the fall? This is the best time to plant just about everything—everything that you want to come back year after year after year. Early fall is a great time to plant shrubs—I like to start with either a fence or a wall, rather than just plopping down a shrub or a plant anywhere. The best thing to do is go to your friends’ gardens and ask if you can borrow a little chunk of something, like phlox. Everyone is always trying to give away phlox. Irises are also great, as is gayfeather—it’s hearty and puts on an amazing purple display year after year. I also love Brazilian verbena. It’s this tiny delicate flower and it self-sows all over

That guy from Verizon is proud of his Connecticut green thumb.

on the verizon “I have a fantastic life that working in commercials has afforded me,” says actor Paul Marcarelli, left, here with husband, chef Ryan Brown, about his long-term Verizon gig.

your garden. And if it lands in front of smaller plants, it’s transparent so you can see through it. And hydrangeas are a must in New England.

Favorite nursery? We take almost daily trips to Litchfield Hills Nursery. The staff is super helpful and knowledgeable, and they have a great selection. They feel like our gardening buddies.

Gardening attire? Whatever I woke up in. It’s the only place you’ll find me shirtless if it’s hot out.

Who does the weeding? Ryan and I both do it. No one weeds your garden as well as you do.

Do you protect anything for winter? No. I used to tent boxwoods, but now, if it can’t survive and provide appealing color and/or structure during the bleak months, we don’t plant it.

Any big fails? We planted 40 copper beech last fall to create hedges. I think we made a rookie mistake and dug too deep, so the beds collected water, froze and killed the roots. Only one took.

Jane Says: Stay Outside

As it begins to get cooler, these go-tos are flexible with the seasons.

Rich, but not too… Henne Hand Cream feels luxurious, sinks in quickly and I love its citrus scent.

Wrap it up The Great Novelty Cardigan is like wearing a light blanket. Keep it loose or tie it close when temps drop.

Like butter…but not Beauty Thinkers Nourishing

Face Moisturizer may be olive oil-based, but its texture is butter-smooth.

To cover and protect Iris and Romeo Best Skin Days SPF 30 evens skin tone, protects against the sun’s rays and imparts a lovely dewy finish.

On (And Off) The Road Again

Modern-day Jeeps are experiencing a full-blown identity crisis. Back when four-door Wranglers were considered a novelty— or when yours truly was flashing the Jeep wave around town—the average luddite could still find comfort in a pared-down Wrangler, and would only wince a little at the comparatively high standards of a Grand Cherokee.

That’s mostly changed, for good or ill. Part of it has to do with how these cars are being

used now. The next time you’re driving down the Taconic, count how many Jeeps are covered in splotches of dry dirt. The off-road ethos that suffuses the company’s range of four-wheel-drive go-anywhere vehicles is still there, but it’s jockeying with our burgeoning desire for having more creature comforts while simply taking the kids to soccer practice.

2024 Jeep Wrangler

Sitting passenger in my friend’s ruby red 2018 Wrangler on our way to Greenwood Lake, I was taken aback at his multimedia

center, or lack thereof. He opted for a fourinch screen, which seems comparatively closer in spirit to the first-generation Wrangler than this new model, even if his car is built on the same frame and chassis. From there, the two basically diverge. New for this year is the addition of a 12.3-inch touchscreen, which feels a little incongruous next to the manual crank windows, but maybe that’s just me. A Uconnect 5 NAV system connects with your phone, bringing in features including Trail Maps and Adventure Guides for a direct route to exhilarating off-road action if that’s what you’re into.

Jeep has also made a heavy-duty rear axle available on Wranglers for the first time in their long history (you’d previously have to buy them aftermarket), enabling a maximum towing capacity of 5,000 lbs. That feature alone might have my lakeloving buddy looking to upgrade.

2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe

The all-new Grand Cherokee debuted in Spain earlier this year and is going to follow the Wrangler into the realm of plugin hybrid availability, or “4xe” for short, doubling the Cherokee’s fuel efficiency at 56mpg. With 4xe, three different driving modes (Hybrid, Electric, eSave) can be tailored to each trip, whether that’s offroading in near silence or daily commuting in pure-electric mode.

Add in an exterior that features a tapered roof with a slimmer profile (without sacrificing an inch of its interior volume), and you’re looking at an old dog that’s just learned a slew of new cool tricks.

Jeeps remain rugged, but they’re increasingly accounting for a modern world.

|

By Simon Murray

the dirty truth The next time you’re driving down the Taconic Parkway, count how many Jeeps are covered in splotches of dry dirt. It’s a lot.

New York’s Other Roosevelt

Exploring Buffalo’s fascinating link to President Teddy Roosevelt.

By Christopher Joslin

The peaceful transition of presidential power’s been a timehonored precedent in the US that traditionally unfolds on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, DC. Rarely has a president taken the oath of office outside of the Capitol.

Yet, one such instance occurred right here in New York State. On September 14, 1901, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt took the oath of office in the library of the home of his friend, Ansley Wilcox, following

the assassination of President William McKinley to become the 26th president of the United States.

The Wilcox House in Buffalo, NY is one of many opulent homes built in the Greek Revival architectural style toward the turn of the 19th century by wealthy industrialists on Delaware Avenue. Today, the Wilcox House is one of the few National Historical sites outside of DC and

is a must-see for history aficionados when traveling through western New York.

Beautifully restored to its original grandeur, visitors enter at the rear of the mansion and are greeted by a gift shop that’s everything “Teddy.” An assortment of prize-winning books from historical literary heavyweights such as David McCullough, Edmund Morris and Doris Kearns Goodwin line the shelves. Of course, stuffed teddy bears are displayed prominently in honor of the POTUS who famously refused to shoot a bear. But it’s upstairs where the

an american story The Wilcox House in Buffalo is one of the few National Historical sites outside of Washington, DC and a must-see destination for all American history aficionados and fans of President Theodore Roosevelt.

magnificence of this historical site takes you on a journey back in time to tell the story of the unlikely beginnings of the Roosevelt presidency.

When you visit, a volunteer guide who’s quite knowledgeable and passionate about Theodore Roosevelt, ushers ten visitors through the first of many displays and immersive interactive exhibits located throughout the house.

You’ll be taken back to the Pan American Exposition of 1901 by an exhibit that displays photographs and other items that would’ve been seen by attendees of the World’s Fair in Buffalo, then the eighth largest city in America. It was at this exposition, on September 6, 1901, that President McKinley was shot while attending a public reception at the fair. As you walk into the Wilcox dining room, past the stunning architecture, with its multilayered floor and crown moldings, marble fireplace mantle, ornate ceiling medallion and crystal chandelier, you’re

told that while climbing Mount Marcy, Roosevelt learned from a runner that President McKinley was dying; he was needed in Buffalo immediately.

In his haste to get back to Buffalo, Roosevelt didn’t have time to gather his formal attire. In the Wilcox library, you’re catapulted back to that fateful September afternoon in 1901. You hear Roosevelt’s voice, wearing borrowed clothes, taking the oath to support the Constitution and laws of our nation.

As you leave the library, you’re invited to take a seat on a long wooden bench in a small theater. The theater holds a full-scale diorama and other imagery that highlight five issues that were surely on Roosevelt’s mind that day. This exhibit’s perhaps the most thought-provoking, because the issues facing Roosevelt and the country then are many of the same issues facing us today: immigration and urban poverty, race and social inequality, the environment and conservation, business and labor, and the country’s role in global affairs.

Be sure to take a seat behind the interactive desk in Roosevelt’s recreated presidential office and wonder what he may have been thinking as he embarked on the journey of a lifetime. Also, pick up a National Parks passport in the gift shop, have it stamped to commemorate your visit to this remarkable historical treasure and take it with you the next time you explore US history. It’s a trip well worth taking.

Is New York Stewart International really The Perfect Airport?

Inexpensive domestic and international options—and a hassle-free approach to travel—is making this Orange County hub hotter than ever.

Agood friend of mine from New York City recently went on a glamorous work trip to Europe—his first experience with international travel since the covid pandemic—and when I asked him how it was, he summed it up like this: “Being there was fantastic, but getting there and back was the worst.”

Travel horror stories are nothing new these days, as endless delays, flight cancellations, agonizingly long lines and out of control restrictions—not to mention wildly expensive airfares, no matter how far in advance you book—are making traveling less and less appealing, especially from the greater New York area.

Maybe I was spoiled (or just plain lucky), but when I traveled every week all over the world while working for ATP Tour (men’s professional tennis) in the halcyon pre-pandemic days, I can’t remember any cancelled flight or serious snafus. But having heard one too many nightmare travel stores as of late, I realized something: I had totally closed myself off to the prospect of a quick, fun, spontaneous getaway to revisit some of my favorite European cities. Because just like my friend, I love the idea of being there, but hate the thought of getting there.

But I’m changing my tune thanks to the buzz I’m hearing about New York Stewart International Airport, which has been hiding in plain sight for years. Tucked away

By Mitch Rustad

in southern Hudson Valley—specifically in New Windsor, NY in Orange County—is a gem located just west of Newburgh, south of Kingston and southwest of Poughkeepsie, and approximately 60 miles north of Manhattan. Headline news? Stewart is fast becoming an ideal gateway for affordable, hassle-free flights to more than 20 major cities in Europe (keep reading).

“The biggest thing about Stewart is that it’s an international airport, and that’s so important for our region,” says Lisa Berger, Director of Ulster County Tourism & Office of Film. “People are finding that Stewart isn’t only easy to get in and out of, but also a nice jumping off point for their vacations. That expands the brand of the Hudson Valley and our ability to attract people enormously.”

Before we dive fully into Stewart’s everexpanding attributes, some quick history: Stewart was developed in the 1930s as a military base to allow West Point cadets to learn aviation. Though it closed as a US Air Force base in the 1970s, it continues to be used as a military airfield, housing the 105th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard. In 2018, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey rebranded the airport as New York Stewart International Airport to emphasize its proximity to New York City.

Today, Stewart has become a serious option for budget-conscious travelers hungry to shake off post-pandemic blues. The recent launch of Iceland-based PLAY airlines— Europe’s newest low-cost carrier, which debuted its inaugural flight between Stewart and Reykjavík (the airline’s hub and Iceland’s capital city) June 2022—has already been a game changer. While the airline originally offered flights four or five days per week when it commenced, that number is already expanding. “PLAY recently

play time By making Stewart International Airport its official New York hub, Iceland’s PLAY Airlines was onto something. The Newburgh terminal has morphed into more than a landing strip. How did Stewart become so important to Orange County and beyond?

mode| the spot

increased its capacity to 192 seats, leaving daily,” says Berger.

In other words, you can hop on a flight from Stewart—with far fewer hassles and headaches than you so often find at the New York City airports Newark, LaGuardia or JFK—and fly to any of the airline’s 22 European destinations including Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, London, Madrid, Barcelona—even Mallorca’s Palma. The airline’s website touts that Euro-bound travelers can “find your perfect flight for less than $300 (USD).” But that’s not all: You’ll find inexpensive parking ($6 per hour), easy to navigate check-in counters and kiosks, free Wi-Fi and duty-free concessions for international travelers, along with a designated pet relief area and handicap services.

Connections to any of the picturesque European destinations are all via exotic Reykjavík. which is itself a spectacular place to visit, with its Northern lights or the midnight sun, lagoons and hot

in and out berger “People are finding that Stewart isn’t only easy to get in and out of, but also a nice jumping off point for their vacations.” says Lisa

springs, puffin tours, whale watching, glaciers, volcanos and tasting menus. I never thought I’d be tempted to spend a weekend in Iceland, but this certainly sounds spectacular, doesn’t it?

And even European travelers are discovering the convenient appeal of New York Stewart airport as well. “PLAY’s service has introduced the Hudson Valley/Catskills region to international travelers who otherwise didn’t know about its sights and cultural offerings,”

says Alex Minton, C.M, manager, Air Service Development and Industry Relations, The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. Better yet, more international expansion is directly on the horizon: This past August, Atlantic Airways, the flag carrier of the Faroe Islands, launched the first nonstop connection between the US and the beautiful Danish island territory off the coast of Iceland and Norway. The Hudson Valley and the Faroes aren’t so dissimilar however—both feature stunning landscapes, top-tier restaurants and amazing destination resorts.

More good news: There are low-fare, hassle-free options for domestic travelers as well. Stewart features Allegiant Air, with service to Florida (Clearwater or Punta Gorda) and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

New York Stewart International Airport features nonstop seasonal service to Florida, including Orlando-Sanford, Punta-Gorda, St. Petersburg-Clearwater and Myrtle Beach, SC via Allegiant Air

A coed boarding and day school for grades 9-12 & PG. Advanced Math/Science Research, Advanced Humanities Research, Pro Vita Winter Session, a range of arts offerings, and championship athletics on a stunning 400-acre campus in the Berkshires.

Berger, Director of Ulster County Tourism & Office of Film.

Golden Delicious

How you like them apples, Kinderhook?

By Alan Katz

Everyone has their very own favorite apple orchard in the mountains. Having three kids, we went to so many different venues over the years in Rockland, Orange and Sullivan Counties. Sometimes from New York City, sometimes from here in Columbia County.

They all offer their variety of delicious apples and a fun afternoon of conquering the trees, carting the conquests to the check out and then getting to enjoy the room filling aromas and visuals in the various bowls around the house. (Because, like so many others, we always picked far too many apples).

We happened upon Golden Harvest in Kinderhook two decades ago. Some of the

the sweetest fruit Golden Harvest Farms knows its way around cider—and donuts and barbecue brisket.

most delicious apples and inviting rows of orchards robust with fruit, and so much more. Most offer cider, here it’s rich and distinctly refreshing. Donuts from that cider are warm, sugary and especially delicious— firm and cakey. Flakey, just picked and baked fruit pies, including strawberry rhubarb and those muffins, particularly that orange cranberry walnut wonder.

And over the past few years, one of the five sons of the second-generation owners have added a fantastic distillery—vodka, gin, brandy—made from surplus apples (of course) as well as cider vinegars and locally curated beers on tap. And to top it all off, the other sons perfected a world class barbecue joint. What? Ribs, brisket, jerk chicken and awesome fresh-cut fries with a just spicy enough jerk seasoning. Yes, you can get them plain, too.

So, our annual family apple picking adventure grew up with us and is now a fullservice dining adventure.

You can and will find your own favorite, but you’ll do yourself a favor to venture to Golden Harvest Farms/Harvest BBQ/Harvest Spirits. The triple threat right here in your own backyard. OK, my backyard…your mountains’ ideal fall pit stop.

Munch was so much more

‘The Scream.’ This show proves it.”– The Washington Post

By Robin Baron

Here’s the goal: inspire you to help make your home everything

With my decades of experience owning my firm, Robin Baron Design, based in New York City, my knowledge of designing and building new homes from the ground up as well as handling major (and minor) renovations, I bring all my passion and sure-fire tips and make it available to you.

My work has always been all about my clients, who they are, how they live, what they love and what their dreams and goals are. I believe that practicality and functionality are as important as the aesthetics, and they should all be considered to develop the foundation of any design, to create a truly fabulous living space…one that’s uniquely yours.

Let’s jump in, shall we?

For smaller, darker rooms, use colors with more depth. Paint the walls a deeper color, using colors that have more pigment, our expert says.

Over the years, people started realizing how important interior design was to their well-being and lifestyle—how a home could make you feel empowered in your life. It’s gotten to the point that when I go to a party, as soon as someone finds out that I’m an interior designer, I get inundated with questions—not unlike a doctor continuingly getting asked about someone’s health concerns by someone they just met.

One of the most common questions I get asked is about paint. We all know how important painting a room can be. It’s one of the quickest, most cost-effective ways you can give your room a new look. What most people don’t know, however, is how to choose the right hue, or tone, for a specific space.

Now you do:

• Work with the natural light in a room, don’t work against it

• For smaller, darker rooms, use colors with more depth. Paint the walls a

deeper color, using colors that have more pigment. Your inclination may be to use lighter colors to make the space look bigger but go with the flow and make the space cozy and more intimate

• On the flip side, for larger rooms with lots of natural light, go lighter with your paint colors. Lean into the more expansive feeling of this space

And, of course, don’t forget the ceiling, the fifth wall! The ceiling is an often-missed opportunity to make a statement. You can punctuate a look or add an unexpected twist to the room. And if you’re loving a white ceiling…know that all whites aren’t the same. There’s something special about white-on-white spaces that use multiple whites that all play off each other.

Have an interior design question? Send them to editorial@themountainsmedia.com

People have now realized how important interior design is to their well-being.

Metamorphosis Redux

Pictures

My favorite part about gardening is watching the garden develop and change, like a long performance unfolding over time where instead of mere hours, the performance spans days and seasons, years and even lifetimes.

The story contains drama and possibility to rival any opera: plagues of gypsy moths, late frosts, hurricanes, droughts. Epic battles waged with ruthless invasive plants, pests and diseases.

And the story lifts us up along the way, when the bare landscape of winter is finally replaced with fresh green shoots in spring, bringing us hope and beauty; summer brings exuberant energy with riots of color and buzzing life. Fall is the

everybody dance now In gardening, as in life, there always seems to be an epic metamorphosis. “I actually thought I was doing great, but without dance, I was wilting,” the author says.

By reaching back, sometimes we propel ourselves forward.

+ Words by Mira Peck

time when all that potential finally comes to fruition, the traditional harvest time, when we can take stock of our growing year. It’s the time to thank our past selves for planting so many beautiful seeds.

The story is the same in life: Where have we put our attention these past few seasons? Did we get stuck watering our weeds? Or were we daring enough to spend time cultivating our dreams and desires?

What seeds have you been planting in your life that are finally coming up for sunlight?

For me, it’s dance I used to think I could only be one thing in life. When I was 13, I went away to ballet school, hell bent on experiencing a big life onstage. Around 30, completely burnt out and craving connection with nature, I dropped dance and pursued horticulture. I studied at the New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture and proceeded to entirely change my career. I actually thought I was doing great, but without dance, I was wilting.

For the past year, dance has come into my life again; I’m dancing with a thriving community of friends and professionals,

and teaching. I’m creating again, working on a dance film that features dancers in the landscape, outdoors in all four seasons. I feel like after a long season of dormancy, my artistic self is flowering again.

Everyone loves a good metamorphosis story, and the garden delivers. How is it possible that a lowly caterpillar can enter

a chrysalis in one form, only to emerge later able to fly? How can a dull looking dahlia tuber produce the most vibrant and fanciful blooms you’ve ever seen?

Do you have dormant seeds you’re ready to start watering again? Your metamorphosis story is waiting even as mine is ready to launch.

RACHEL OSTER

If Chanel Made a Bug Spray

Heretic Parfum’s amazing insect repellent smells as luxe as it is effective.

By Marco Medrano

I’ve long been a fan of Heretic Parfum because they’ve always been ahead of the curve with catchy blends that have an elegant twist on their branded product names including Dirty Peach, Florgasm and Scandalwood.

So, when their newest functional fragrance launched touting a non-toxic, safe and long “free-from” list that also repels bugs, mosquitoes and the like, I leaned in. What I wasn’t expecting was to lean in even

closer and keep smelling myself. Or sniffing The Entomologist, Heretic’s fine fragrance that works double duty to safeguard your no-fly zone and keep your airspace from being invaded by bugs and the buzz-killing, inevitable subsequent bites.

Best part? No one will ever know you just applied the best smelling, handcrafted,

artisan repellent in the world. The combination of cedar, geranium, thyme, rosemary, lemongrass, peppermint, cinnamon and clove is masterfully blended in such a way it could easily be your daily, year-round go-to cologne. And if your not-so-close, pretentious friends still need a reason to love the scent, you can tell them it’s from Paris.

Available in both spray and body serum, The Entomologist is simply that good. A dab behind the ears, wrists or a spritz on your clothes keeps you safe from bugs and smelling fantastic right at that bewitching hour. Buzz off, smelly bug sprays: The Entomologist came to slay.

How To Spend $100: Ace Hardware

It really isthe place— for fall essentials.

By Robyn Perry Coe

It’s the season to indulge in local pleasures. Apples! Pumpkins! Cider! Donuts! Also, this fall—nature’s grace period before winter— explore the original meaning of hardware: practical tools to make your life better. Between your local hardware store and your neighborhood library, you can make and fix practically anything, plus create a battery of tools to serve you for years, for a fraction of the cost at a curated shop.

Conserve raspberries or make salsa with the last tomatoes and chiles. (Save for February.) Handy to-go cups for your next tailgate. $14.99

Cook everything, indoors and out. Pass down to grandkids. $29.99

No.3: SISAL ROPE Becomes a swing, clothesline or a garland when the season changes (again). $5.90

No.4: WOODEN CLOTHESPINS Clip clothes or chip bags; ends in the burn pile, not the landfill. $4.99

No.5: UTILITY KNIFE

Reliable pumpkin carving (and gift opening later). $9.59

No.6: MAGLITE Get the good one, for Halloween and beyond. $19.99

No.7: THANKSGIVING CANDLE This emergency candle smells like a feast. Zero actual turkey. $14.99

Prost! Happy Oktoberfest!

No.2: CAST IRON SKILLET

No.1: CANNING JARS (12pk)

Reported by Sandy MacDonald

September 9 –October 1

Kaatsbaan Cultural Park Fall Festival

Tivoli, NY Clear your dance-appreciation card for a three-weekend extravaganza spanning Kenneth MacMillan’s 1972 ballet Ballade (in which four dancers play “choreographic poker”); the world premiere of Roderick George’s The Missing Fruit , a performance piece addressing BIPOC struggles; New York Theatre Ballet’s family-friendly The Firebird and Scramble; a participatory Ruckus Early Music line dance; and Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera featuring pipa master Wu Man. Kaatsbaan.org

september

Hudson Hall, Hudson Immerse yourself in the creations of a cinematic master, whose oeuvre spans decades, from Shakespeare Wallah to Call Me ByYour Name. The event-packed weekend promises special guests and schmoozing opps. HudsonHall.org/events

Farm to Table Fundraiser for Small Farm Resiliency

White Feather Farm, Saugerties, NY

A Celebration Of James Ivory

Small farms are having a tough time, and the Hudson Valley’s no exception. Donations collected at a reception in the 1740s Broken Wing Barn—following the film

An Immigrant’s Story

PS21, Chatham, NY

In this spoken/danced piece, performed on a bare stage but for 35 black chairs, radiant Kenya-born performer Wanjiru Kamuyu (an alumna of The Lion King and FELA!) , examines her experience of being “different.”

PS21Chatham.org

September 15 –October 22

Lunar Eclipse

Shakespeare & Co., Lenox, MA

Charming Disaster

The Foundry, West Stockbridge, MA

Of James Ivory 16 & 17 23

Film star Karen Allen, a local, co-stars with Reed Birney in Shakespeare & Company’s world premiere of Donald Margulies’s latest play, about a midwestern couple contemplating their place in the cosmos. Shakespeare.org

Feeding Tomorrow— will help fund a microgrant emergency fund. WhiteFeatherFarm.org

Fond of macabre fare— Edward Gorey, Tim Burton and their ilk? Expect to resonate with this duo’s dark and playful repertoire centered on death, crime and the occult. TheFoundryWS.com

The Incredible Naumkeag

September 29 –October 29

Pumpkin Show Stockbridge, MA

A 48-acre estate is decked out with 1,500 jack-o-lanterns, hundreds of chrysanthemums and plenty of gaudy gourds. TheTrustees.org

September 27 –Oct ober 15

English Barrington Stage Co., Pittsfield, MA

Filling Station

Dia Beacon, Beacon, NY

Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set in 2008 Iran, features four disparate students dead-set on learning English—some desperately so. Bonus: In this production, the author, assaying her first role in English, plays the empathetic teacher. BarringtonStageCo.org

An intriguing throwback/ remix: Artist Matthew LutzKinoy reinterprets and contemporizes—with new collaborators—a one-act 1938 ballet originally composed by Virgil Thomson and costumed by Paul Cadmus. DiaArt.org

30

Dance on the Pond New Paltz, NY

Strictly speaking, Habit Formed will be performed by the Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre near a pond at a private home; the piece will premiere in full spring 2024 at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. AmandaSelwynDance.org

L’Étang (The Pond)

PS21, Chatham, NY

The 2021 Swiss production of Gisèle Vienne’s dance-theatre piece garnered a rave in TheNew York Times. Two actors—César winner Adèle Haenel and Pina Bausch dancer Julie Shanahan—shoulder ten roles in this fraught tale of a troubled family. PS21Chatham.org

10 Wine Walk at NaumkeagStockbridge, MA

This horticulturist-led sunset tour of the grounds, culminating in a libation, has a theme: “Trees and Fall Colors.” TheTrustees.org

Never Twenty One

PS21, Chatham, NY

The title of this trio dance piece alludes to the countless Black men—victims of gun violence— who never made it to that age. The choreography by Parisian designer Smaïl Kanouté, references krump, popping, baile funk and passinho. PS21Chatham.org

20-29

FilmColumbia

Rodelinda Hudson Hall, Hudson

Crandell Theatre, Chatham, NY

Cineastes can sample exciting new work without the usual schlep to NYC. MovieMaker has heralded the event, held in a 1926 movie palace, as one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World.” CrandellTheatre.org

The Hudson Opera House (est. 1885) launches a multi-year celebration of Handel scores performed with period instruments. First up: this fallen-outof-favor “crime thriller” (according to director R.B. Schlather) suitable for the opera-curious. HudsonHall.org/events

3-4 Intensity 20.15 and This Is Mary Brown

PS21, Chatham, NY

MacArthur genius flautist Grace Chase has set her own poems to music by her mother, the late electronic experimentalist Pauline Oliveros; actor/director Winsome Brown creates a complex portrait of her own mother, an eccentric Irishwoman. PS21chatham.org

November 18 –ma y 27, 2024

6-8

2023

Field + Supply Fall MRKT

Hutton Brickyards, Kingston, NY Field + Supply MRKTs are modern interpretations of traditional arts and crafts fairs, featuring more than 200 vendors, live music, local eats and family-friendly activities. FieldAndSupply.com

october

13-29

november

Peace, Love & Pumpkins

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, NY The woods flanking the site of the historic Woodstock Festival go all Halloweeny. Enjoy theme nights such as “Friday Night Frights” (too intense for children) and “Sensory-Friendly Monday.” BethelWoodsCenter.org

Mat Kearney

Between Worlds: The Art And Design Of Leo Lionni

Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA

Following up on the success of its Tony Sarg exhibit (ongoing to November 5, just shy of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade he helped to launch), the Norman Rockwell Museum celebrates the work of Leo Lionni, who revolutionized the world of children’s books with sophisticated graphics. NRM.org

Bethel Woods Center the Arts, Bethel, NY not seen this multi-platinum songwriter in person yet, you’ve heard his work—spanning and folk-pop—on dozens television show soundtracks and his late-night guest spots. BethelWoodsCenter.org

Nation Beat

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, NY

Treat the kids to a family concert featuring percussionist/ composer Scott Kettner, who’ll trace a direct line from Brazil through the South to the streets of New York.

BethelWoodsCenter.org

A Celebration Of Nick Flynn’s New Poetry Collection, Low Hudson Valley Writers Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY

Expect a chic-er than usual crowd when Flynn—spouse of actor Lili Taylor and author of the memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City —reads from his freshoff-the-press book. WritersCenter.org

Music Never goes out of style

By Sean McAlindin

Music is about style as much as anything else.

From prohibition flappers and early rock ’n’ rollers to hippie seekers, gutter punks, hip-hop MCs and emo kids—the freshest musical trends are defined by radical fashion and a self-possessed flair So, whether you’re more into bellbottoms and faux fur or leather and chains, it’s time to don your finest threads and hit the scene. Here are our picks for the hottest live concerts to see and be seen this fall season in the mountains.

The Falcon in Marlboro never fails to provide a world-class lineup, but what stands out most about this season is owner Lee

ben at work In nearby Albany, The Egg presents Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals on October 8; (opposite page clockwise, from left) Son Rompe Pera; Mighty Poplar; Mick Flannery; Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band; (inset) Kavita Shah’s album cover.

Falco’s commitment to diversity and global culture. Want to see some international style? Check out the Odessa gangster folk of Ukrainian ensemble Kommuna Lux on September 14, Irish songwriting heartthrob Mick Flannery on September 30, Mexico

City marimba punks Son Rompe Pera on September 24, ethnographic bandleader Kavita Shah & Cape Verdean Blues on October 1, Colombian percusivo-vocal trio La Perla on October 5 and Burkina Faso’s Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band on October 26.

The Stissing Center in Pine Plains specializes in bringing multicultural artists to our rural region. Experience the captivating rhythms of the Camarada Tango Quartet on September 17 and Caña Dulce y Caña Brava of Veracruz, México on October 21.

The Center in Pine Plains in artists to our rural the of the Camarada Tango Quartet on 17 and Caña Dulce y Caña Brava of Veracruz, México on 21.

Iconic

Portland feminist Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos of Y La Bamba shares her experimental alternative visions at the magnificent Opus 40 sculpture park in Saugerties on September 28.

At Levon Helm Studios, down-home quality leads the way with bluegrass supergroup Mighty Poplar on September 23 and Aussie indie rockers The Paper

Kites & The Roadhouse House Band with The Cactus Blossoms on October 28. Up the road at Colony Woodstock, The Split Squad features members of Blondie and The Fleshtones on September 23 and Woodstock’s own The Bobby Lees get loose November 11-12.

Shop

Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston has an absolutely fire lineup this autumn season highlighted by Electric Hot Tuna’s farewell tour on September 21, Violent Femmes on October 14, emo folkie Gregory Alan Isakov on October 18 and—the punk rock cherry on top—an evening with Patti Smith on November 11.

If you’re looking for something more underground, Tubby’s is the place for DIY acts including Vancouver’s multimedia collective Crack Cloud on October 7, Horse Jumper of Love with Fraternal Twin October 22 and Los Angeles harpist Mary Lattimore on November 2. You could also stop by The Avalon Lounge in Catskill for neighborhood punk legend Wreckless Eric on September 28 and talented upstarts Constant Smiles, Gary’s Dream and watergh0st on October 2.

If anyone knows anything about style, it’s Melissa Auf der Maur of Basilica Hudson. The former bassist of Hole and grunge rock goddess has immaculate taste. She’s invited Florida songwriter Ethel Cain to her refurbished riverside factory space on

(Bobby Lees) JOHN SWAB; (Avital) PETER HÖNNEMANN; (Isakov) GLEN ROSS

band camp Colony Woodstock features local favorite The Bobby Lees November 11-12; (clockwise from above) Avi Avital; Gregory Alan Isakov; (opp0site) The Wood Brothers; Lucinda Williams

October 5 and Spiritualized® blows the roof off the place on November 8.

In the Berkshires, local troubadour Johnny Irion and Friends take up residency at The Ostrich Room at Apple Tree Inn in Lenox starting September 30. The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington welcomes Nashville’s Mat Kearney November 17.

How about viewing contemporary Mexican silent film classic El automóvil gris set to a live performance of the soundtrack by Guadalajara, México psychedelic

jazz ensemble Troker at MASS MoCA on November 11? Now, that’s some serious style right there.

In nearby Albany, The Egg is focused on a fantastic lineup of Americana highlighted by Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals on October 8, The Jayhawks on October 21, Lucinda Williams on October 28, The Head and The Heart on November 2 and Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway on November 12.

Meanwhile, the Palace Theatre will be rocking to Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade on October 20, My Morning Jacket on October 25, The Wood Brothers on October 28 and Jethro Tull on November 4.

Just a bit further north, it’s worth the trip to Spa Little Theater at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) for Israeli mandolinist Avi Avital and Chinese accordionist Hanzhi Wang on October 19 and vocal supergroup säje on November 11.

(Woods) SHERVIN LAINEZ; (Williams) DANNY CLINCH

Modern Mountain aesthetic Is a thing

Guess what’s not comfortable for snuggly Sundays in front of the fireplace? Florence Knoll sofas. There was a time when a statement like that would cause me to roll my eyes and gently set you straight, maybe even telling you that with the proper oversized decorative pillows (an Alexander Girard motif?), any sofa was ripe for snuggling. But that’s all changed, because in the nearly two decades I’ve lived in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains, I’ve morphed from a strict modernist to—dare, I say it?—a design maven who embraces any number of styles and periods, from Primitive Americana to French boudoir. To my eye—and to the eyes of others whose taste I applaud— strictly modern is, well, strictly boring.

Case in point: my dear pals, the writer/ editor Jonathan Van Meter and his husband, editor Andy Young, once shared a downtown Manhattan address with me and made the move to the country a few years after I did. The three of us lived in various apartments in and around NYC and while none of us were what I would’ve called minimalists, we most certainly lived in homes that were cameraready for casting directors desperately seeking “SoHo/NoHo lofts.”

I was the first to move Upstate, and settled into a home that in fact looked a lot

like my former Great Jones Street address, a mid-century modern ranch. Much of the furniture from my former loft looked great in that house. And then we began to live in it. Really live in it. And slowly my desire for another Bertoia chair shifted into a deep lust for a leather club chair. My aforementioned Florence Knoll sofas? Well, sure, they were great for sitting, but not for hunkering down My taste started to change, from modern to… mushier. And when I downsized to a smaller home a few years back, a 1920s Arts & Crafts Cape with rooms (actual rooms), decorative trim over doorways, lower ceilings and a peeling-paint front porch, I went full bore into what I call Lady Décor—I want it to be pretty, cozy, snuggle-ready and slightly over the top in terms of layering texture and color.

Likewise, the Van Meter-Young abode is cheekily referred to as “crumbly mansion chic,” with about a billion perfectly decrepit lamps, lots of pattern-on-pattern rugs and floors and a repurposed original built-in book nook that showcases Van Meter’s years of writing celebrity features for Vogue

Modernists, we’re not yucking your yum, don’t get me wrong. But there’s something about country living that softens your edges. The livin’ is easy. And if you want me to tuck you in with a quilt, all you have to do is ask.

My midcentury design taste is loosening its grip the longer I live here. Mushy chic, anyone? | By Abbe Aronson

Like what you see? How to get there:

• Yes, light colored rooms make smaller spaces seem bigger (something all of us former city-ites know), but if you have a hankering for a deeptoned room, the country is the perfect place to try it on, given that your windows open to, well, the great expansive outdoors

• Give up the ghost on perfectly level floors and the rest of it. We spend an inordinate time on my sloping front porch, on rocking chairs, no less. Utterly addicting

• Even the most severe furniture can take on new life via a luscious coverlet to take the edge off. The faux fur throws I bought at Nest Catskills in Livingston Manor are yummy personified

• Ever been to the Brimfield Antique Shows in Massachusetts? Just a stone’s throw away. Literally everything under the sun. My last visit yielded a French enamel kitchen canister set from the ’40s, a wooden genie lamp from the ’20s and yes, an Atomic ceramic ashtray from the ’60s (some habits die hard)

mountain pique Journalists Jonathan Van Meter’s and Andy Young’s “crumbly mansion chic” on full display; (opposite) In the two decades Aronson’s lived in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains, she’s “morphed from a strict modernist to a design maven,” she says.

hudson

The Wick, Hudson, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel

41 Cross Street Hudson, NY 12534

518.249.6825

Marriott.com

Catch a show at the nearby Hudson Opera House or take in the grand views of the Hudson Athens Lighthouse at this elegant boutique property near the Hudson River.

Nautical Nest Hudson

12 City Hall Place Hudson, NY 12534

518.302.9400

NauticalNestHudson.com

Wm. Farmer & Sons

20 South Front Street Hudson, NY 12534

518.828.1635

WmFarmerAndSons.com

The Amelia Hudson 339 Allen Street Hudson, NY 12534

518.768.7900

TheAmeliaHudson.com

The Maker 302 Warren Street Hudson, NY 12534

518.509.2620

TheMaker.com

Nest Hudson 330 Union Street Hudson, NY 12534

518.302.9400

NestHudson.com

St. Charles Hotel 16 Park Place Hudson, NY, 12534

518.822.9900

StCharlesHotel.com

Hudson Whaler 542 Warren Street Hudson, NY 12534

518.217.4334

HudsonWhaler.com

Life House, Berkshires 194 Pittsfield Road Lenox, MA 01240 LifeHouseHotels.com

Apple Tree Inn 10 Richmond Mountain Road Lenox, MA 01240 413.200.8456 AppleTreeInnLenox.com

Miraval Berkshires Resort & Spa

55 Lee Road Lenox, MA 01240

844.440.1589

MiravalResorts.com/berkshires

Blantyre 16 Blantyre Road Lenox, MA 01240

844.881.0104

Blantyre.com

33 Main, An Annie Selke Luxury Lodging Experience 33 Main Street Lenox, MA 01240

413.400.3333

ThirtyThreeMain.com

The Whitlock 16 Church Street Lenox, MA 01240

833.797.0713

TheWhitlockLenox.com

Canyon Ranch Lenox

165 Kemble Street Lenox, MA 01240

866.494.9279

CanyonRanch.com/lenox

Wheatleigh Hawthorne Road Lenox, MA 01240

844.704.8337

Wheatleigh.com

GREAT BARRINGTON + BERKSHIRES

The Barrington

281 Main Street Level 3

Great Barrington, MA 01230

413.528.6159

TheBarringtonGB.com

Thornewood Inn

453 Stockbridge Road

Great Barrington, MA 01230

413.528.3828

ThornewoodInn.com

Granville House

98 Division Street

Great Barrington, MA 01230 201.450.1824

GranvilleHouseInn.com

The Red Lion Inn 30 Main Street Stockbridge, MA 01262

413.298.5545

RedLionInn.com

This iconic property in the heart of the Berkshires celebrates their 250th anniversary this year and features the original main inn, a contemporary 17-room guest house and charming turn-of-the-century firehouse.

The Porches Inn at MASS MoCA

231 River Street North Adams, MA 01247

413.664.0400

Porches.com

A one-of-a-kind adventure in the northern Berkshires, Porches is a sanctuary for wayfaring tastemakers.

Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marrio

249 Stockbridge Road Route 7 Great Barrington, MA 01230 413.644.3200

Marriott.com

Tourists

915 State Road North Adams, MA 01247 413.347.4995

TouristsWelcome.com

The Williams Inn

101 Spring Street Williamstown, MA 01267 413.458.9371

WilliamsInn.com

RHINEBECK + HYDE PARK (NY)

Mirbeau Inn & Spa Rhinebeck

46 West Market Street

Rhinebeck, NY 12572 877.647.2328

Rhinebeck.Mirbeau.com

The Gables of Rhinebeck 6358 Mill Street Rhinebeck, NY 12572 845.613.9955

TheGablesRhinebeck.com

This historic 15-gable 1860 Gothic Revival Victorian is right in the heart of Rhinebeck Village. Each guest room features high ceilings, period moldings and wide plank floors.

Journey Inn Bed & Breakfast

1 Sherwood Place Hyde Park, NY 12538 845.229.8972

JourneyInn.com

Beekman Arms and Delamater Inn

6387 Mill Street Rhinebeck, NY 12572 845.876.7077

BeekmanDelamaterInn.com

Roosevelt Inn of Hyde Park 4360 Albany Post Road Hyde Park, NY 12538 845.229.2443

RooseveltInnOfHydePark.com

Inn the Woods Bed & Breakfast 32 Howard Boulevard Hyde Park, NY 12538

845.229.9331

InnTheWoods.com

Veranda House 6487 Montgomery Street

Rhinebeck, NY 12572 845.876.4133

VerandaHouse.com

The Baker House Bed & Breakfast 65 West Market Street Rhinebeck, NY 12572 917.680.1855

TheBakerHouseRhinebeck.com

lenox (ma)

ultimate places to stay

LITCHFIELD COUNTY (CT)

The Litchfield Inn 432 Bantam Road Litchfield, CT 06759

860.567.4503

LitchfieldInnCT.com

Mayflower Inn & Spa 118 Woodbury Road Route 47 Washington, CT 06793

866.217.0869

AubergeResorts.com

Winvian 155 Alain White Road Morris, CT 06763

860.567.9600

Winvian.com

Wake Robin Inn 106 Sharon Road Lakeville, CT 06039

860.435.2000

WakeRobinInn.com

The Kent Collection | The Firefly Inn 88 North Main Street Kent, CT 06757

860.592.0042

KentCollection.com

Manor House Inn 69 Maple Avenue Norfolk, CT 06058

860.542.5690

ManorHouse-Norfolk.com

Interlaken Inn 74 Interlaken Road Lakeville, CT 06039

800.222.2909

InterlakenInn.com

The White Hart 15 Under Mountain Road Salisbury, CT 06068

860.435.0030

WhiteHartInn.com

Originally built as a farmhouse in 1806, this charming inn features 16 guest rooms, three dining rooms, a taproom with a full-service bar and two outdoor dining patios.

BEACON (NY)

The Roundhouse

2 East Main Street Beacon, NY 12508

845.765.8369

RoundhouseBeacon.com

Beacon Hermitage 376 NY-9D Beacon, NY 12508 917.880.0791

RevJimRooney.com

Beacon Bed and Breakfast

4 North Elm Street Beacon, NY 12508

845.416.0486

BeaconBnB.com

The Dutchess Inn & Spa: Beacon 151 Main Street Beacon, NY 12508

845.205.2900

TheDutchessInn.com

This elegant, European style inn lets you star-gaze on the rooftop amidst panoramic views of the Hudson Valley, along with a fire-lit living room lobby with 24-hour coffee and tea.

The Swann Inn of Beacon 120 Howland Avenue Beacon, NY 12508

845.831.6346

SwannInnOfBeacon.com

Botsford Briar 19 High Street Beacon, NY 12508

845.831.6099

BotsfordBriar.com

Overlook Lodge at Bear Mountain Inn

55 Hessian Drive

Highland Falls, NY 10928

855.548.1184

VisitBearMountain.com

Stone Co ages at Bear Mountain Inn

55 Hessian Drive Highland Falls, NY 10928

855.548.1184

VisitBearMountain.com

WOODSTOCK + ULSTER COUNTY (NY)

Piaule Catskill 333 Mossy Hill Road Catskill, NY 12414 518.719.1919

Piaule.com

The Herwood Inn 148 Tinker Street Woodstock, NY 12498

TheHerwoodInn.com

Hotel Dylan 320 Maverick Road Woodstock, NY 12498 845.684.5422

TheHotelDylan.com

Bu ermilk Falls Inn & Spa 220 North Road Milton, NY 12547 845.795.1310

ButtermilkFallsInn.com

Woodstock Way Hotel 10 Waterfall Way Woodstock, NY 12498 845.684.5911

WoodstockWay.com

Mohonk Mountain House 1000 Mountain Rest Road New Paltz, NY 12561 855.883.3798

Mohonk.com

INNESS

10 Banks Street Accord, NY 12404 845.377.0030 x1 Inness.co

Berne a’s Place Inn by the Lake 12 Calderone Drive Wallkill, NY 12589 845.464.5106 BernettasPlace.com

KINGSTON + SAUGERTIES (NY)

Courtyard by Marrio Kingston 500 Frank Sottile Boulevard Kingston, NY 12401 845.382.2300

Marriott.com

Hotel Kinsley 301 Wall Street Kingston, NY 12401 845.768.3620

HotelKinsley.com

This collection of four architecturally distinct and restored 17th to 19th century buildings filled with inspired designs have been reimagined for the modern-day traveler.

Hu on Brickyards

Retreat & Spa 200 North Street Kingston, NY 12401 845.514.4853

HuttonBrickyards.com

Smythe House Luxury Rooms 158 Burt Street Saugerties, NY 12477 845.532.5565

SmytheHouse.com

The Villa at Saugerties 159 Fawn Road Saugerties, NY 12477 845.246.5440

TheVillaAtSaugerties.com

Diamond Mills Hotel 25 South Partition Street Saugerties, NY 12477 845.247.0700

DiamondMillsHotel.com

Hotel Mountain Brook 57 Hill Street Route 23C Tannersville, NY 12485 518.589.6740

HotelMountainBrook.com

The Village Inn 135 Partition Street Saugerties, NY 12477 845.372.6608

VillageInnSaugerties.com

Carving out Some Pumpkin Fun

200-year-old Kelder’s Farm in kerhonkson was rated among the best in the nation.

By Isabel Hochman

What makes a pumpkin patch in our region stand out? Besides a top-five ranking by USA Today? Kelder’s Farm is a 200-year-old farm located in Kerhonkson, NY. Owner Chris Kelder says having a close-knit family, being blessed with good soil and creating new experiences for families have all contributed to the success of the farm. The senior Kelder runs the farm with his wife and son, John, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that on any given weekend, John ’s kids, sister, brotherin-law, nieces, and nephews are all helping with the farm.

“It’s really gratifying to see my father, who’s in his 80s, still doing a lot of field work,” John says. “He loves that. It’s a family affair. We have some great key staff that helped us a lot; but at its core, it’s a family business.”

Does running a business with family entanglements ever get to be too much? “We all respect each other’s space,” John says. “I think as a family business it certainly brings a different dynamic because you may work with your coworkers all week, but you don’t have to sit at the Thanksgiving table and smile. It’s not easy all the time either. But it’s a blessing that we do have so many people involved and enjoying the farm.”

Kelder grows the pumpkins on about 15 acres of the farm, which he says has very good soil they can irrigate, allowing them to take good care of the pumpkins. “We work very hard on growing really healthy pumpkins, and we hope that everybody can find their special one.” During high season, the farm offers pumpkin painting and decorating. John offers a pro-tip for anyone looking to carve one: “We recommend that you don’t carve until you’re very close to when you want to display your pumpkin because once carved, it has a very short shelf life.”

But when stopping halfway there with your family, stay for Kelder’s Farm’s top-notch agrotourism activities, from the corn maze to the petting zoo, hayrides, milk-a-cow, mini-golf, cannons, vegetable picking, fishing and so much more. And after all that family fun, you’re sure to want to partake in Kelder’s Farm’s delicious apple cider donuts, burgers and assorted pizzas.

“When people come, there’s a lot to do and we hope that they have a great experience,” John Kelder says. “The fact that so many visitors voted for us must mean something.”

We’re pretty sure it does indeed.

orange you glad It’s pumpkin season at Kelder’s Farm in Kerhonkson. On weekends, John Kelder’s children, sister, brother-inlaw, nieces, nephews and father are helping with the family farm.