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Entrepreneurs Fulfilling the American Dream
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1 2022 WAGMAG.COM NOVEMBER 2020 JANUARY | WAGMAG.COM
Mauricio Guevara, owner of New England Antique Lumber.
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CONTENTS JAN UARY 202 2
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Editor’s letter The financial tables turned Helping ‘vetrepreneurs’ achieve their dreams No ‘bundts’ about it A prince of propane – and pages Head and shoulders above the rest The drinking person’s liquor store Not just for the über-wealthy Planning for rough financial waters Ensuring your biz survives you Security in style Financing eldercare An entrepreneur with kindness A resort dogs can howl about Where a good cigar is really a smoke Super Tuscan vintages at bargain prices A better way to breakfast The real Greek A home design challenge they couldn’t refuse A publisher without vanity Your home as an investment Art as an (emotional) investment Play to your strengths in 2022 When & where
Mauricio Guevara, owner of New England Antique Lumber. Photographs by John Rizzo.
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WAGGERS T H E TA L E N T B E H I N D O U R PA G E S
Dee DelBello
Dan Viteri
PUBLISHER dee@westfairinc.com
CO-PUBLISHER/CREATIVE dviteri@westfairinc.com
EDITORIAL Jeremy Wayne FEATURE WRITER jwayne@westfairinc.com
Georgette Gouveia EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ggouveia@westfairinc.com JENA A. BUTTERFIELD
PHIL HALL
LAURA JOSEPH MOGIL
ART Dan Viteri CREATIVE DIRECTOR dviteri@westfairinc.com
Sarafina Pavlak GRAPHIC DESIGNER spavlak@westfairinc.com
PHOTOGRAPHY DEBBI K. KICKHAM
WILLIAM D. KICKHAM
John Rizzo
BRIDGET MCCUSKER
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Gina Gouveia, Phil Hall, Peter Katz, Debbi K. Kickham, Christina Losapio Doug Paulding, Giovanni Roselli, Gregg Shapiro, Barbara Barton Sloane, Jeremy Wayne, Cami Weinstein, Katie Banser-Whittle
PRINT/DIGITAL SALES FATIME MURIQI
DOUG PAULDING
JOHN RIZZO
Anne Jordan Duffy ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/SALES anne@westfairinc.com Barbara Hanlon, Larissa Lobo, Marcia Pflug MARKETING PARTNERS
MARKETING/EVENTS GIOVANNI ROSELLI
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WHAT IS WAG?
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Some readers think WAG stands for “Westchester and Greenwich.” We certainly cover both. But mostly, a WAG is a wit and that’s how we think of ourselves, serving up piquant stories and photos to set your own tongues wagging.
HEADQUARTERS A division of Westfair Communications Inc., 701 Westchester Ave., White Plains, NY 10604 Telephone: 914-694-3600 | Facsimile: 914-694-3699 Website: wagmag.com | Email: ggouveia@westfairinc.com All news, comments, opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations in WAG are those of the authors and do not constitute opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations of the publication, its publisher and its editorial staff. No portion of WAG may be reproduced without permission.WAG is distributed at select locations, mailed directly and is available at $24 a year for home or office delivery. To subscribe, call 914-694-3600, ext. 3020. All advertising inquiries should be directed to Anne Jordan at 914-694-3600, ext. 3032 or email anne@westfairinc.com. Advertisements are subject to review by the publisher and acceptance for WAG does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service. WAG (Issn: 1931-6364) is published monthly and is owned and published by Westfair Communications Inc. Dee DelBello, CEO, dee@westfairinc.com
IN THE 3 MINUTES IT TAKES TO MAKE YOUR COFFEE, YOU COULD CHECK YOUR HEART HEALTH When it comes to knowing about your heart health, making a big difference shouldn’t take a huge effort. That’s why White Plains Hospital created a three-minute quiz that can help you determine your risk factors and lead you to the right doctors for your treatment. Because knowing is exceptional, every day.
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EDITOR’S LETTER BY GEORGET TE GOUVEIA
J
anuary is the month of beginnings. And what better way to kick-start the new year than with start-ups and entrepreneurs and those who help them — financial advisers and lawyers. We might’ve done this issue back in November as Nov. 19 is Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. We have several great women entrepreneurs here. Susanna Herlitz-Ferguson turned her happy place, Martha’s Vineyard, into her second act with the acclaimed MV Salads eatery, inspired by MV The Dressing, a vinaigrette she concocted in 1995 in her Larchmont kitchen. Margaret Wishingrad, a Scarsdale resident, created Three Wishes Cereal, a high-protein, gluten- and grainfree, low-sugar breakfast food, when son Ellis was born. Twins Andreea and Florentina Enica remembered their grandmother’s cakes in their native Romania in opening a Nothing Bundt Cakes in Hartsdale (Peter’s story). And hair stylist Luciana Adornetto has taken coloring and highlighting to new heights with her approach to the balayage process (Debbi’s article). Other women entrepreneurs are partnering with the next generation, as in Connecticut’s Laura Laaman — a dog trainer, author, speaker and pet business consultant who with son Craig has opened the multimillion-dollar Wiggles Pet Resort in Mahopac. Meanwhile, Tara R. Alemany, owner of the former Aleweb Social Marketing, has teamed with art director Mark Gerber for Sherman-based Emerald Lake Books, which coaches authors along with producing their books (Phil’s story). Our lineup of entrepreneurs doesn’t stop there. Like the Enica twins, Ecuadorean cover subject Mauricio Guevara and wife Patricia are living their version of the American dream, in their case with New England Antique Lumber in Mount Kisco and Westport, a company that reclaims and repurposes old wood, transforming it into exquisitely crafted furnishings. As Jeremy reports in another of his stories, Jay and Michael Goldstein run the carefully curated Salem Wine & Liquor (Salem Liquors) in South Salem, which began life as a restaurant back in the Prohibition Era. Of course, nowadays, everyone is something of an entrepreneur — and everyone has to be, says Christoph Winkler, founding director of the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship &
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French painter Hugues Merle’s illustration for the cover of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” (1861), Walters Art Museum. We guess we’ll be climbing the scaffold with Hawthorne’s adulterous heroine for our eternal Medicare Late Enrollment Penalty (LEP). See below.
Innovation at Iona College in New Rochelle, which is working on a federal pilot program with Syracuse University to help military veterans and/or their spouses get their business dreams off the ground. Entrepreneurship, Winkler says, isn’t about business models and career choices alone. It’s also a state of mind, he adds. And it isn’t just about initial success and growing the business. It’s also about sidesteps and growing creatively. So when Joe Armentano, whose Rye Brook-based Paraco Gas company has made him a prince of propane, didn’t like the book he commissioned on the history of his family-owned business, he rewrote (and rewote) it, publishing it last month. Robert Siegel, principal of Robert Siegel Architects, moved his firm — whose portfolio includes public works nationwide and around the world — from Manhattan’s Chrysler Building to a Katonah storefront to engage with the community in which he lives. Entrepreneurs are persistent, playing to their strengths (Gio’s column). They monetize what they have (Cami’s column on your home as an investment) — and know when not to (Katie’s on art as an emotional investment). They rely on good financial advice (Peter’s story on The SKG Team at Barnum Financial Group in Elmsford, Phil interview with Barry J. Mitchell Jr., founding managing partner of the new, Harrison-based Next Level Private.) They
realize you need not only a financial game plan but an endgame as well. We talk with Pace University law professor Bridget J. Crawford about estate plans, which for the superrich at least are increasingly about less for their heirs and more for charity, a good tax strategy and perhaps a good life lesson about encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit in the next generation. New WAG columnist Abbe Udochi, CEO of Concierge Healthcare Consulting in New Rochelle — welcome, Abbe -- makes her debut with a piece about financing eldercare, a stressful topic for most of us. Her sidebar is about the pitfalls of late Medicare enrollment, something we experienced when we went to enroll for Medicare Part D (drug coverage). It turns out, there’s not only a penalty for late enrollment, which no one told us. It’s a penalty — forever, based on a mathematical formula that only Einstein could understand. (Abbe valiantly breaks it down for us.) But, we asked sweetly, even murderers are often paroled. Yes, you may have done your time in the big house. But you’ll always have a timeshare in the doghouse with Medicare (apparently to discourage others from such unforgivable tardiness.) So we guess we’ll just be fashioning a crimson LEP (for Late Penalty Enrollment), sewing it on our puffer jacket and climbing the scaffold with the adulterous Hester Prynne of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” In the end, Mark Twain was wrong: Death and taxes aren’t the only certainties in life. There are also LEPs. But then, he didn’t have Medicare. A 2020 YWCA White Plains & Central Westchester Visionary Award winner and a 2018 Folio Women in Media Award Winner, Georgette Gouveia is the author of “Burying the Dead,” “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” and "Seamless Sky" (JMS Books), as well as “The Penalty for Holding,” a 2018 Lambda Literary Award finalist (JMS Books), and “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group). They’re part of her series of novels, “The Games Men Play,” also the name of the sports/culture blog she writes. Her short story “The Glass Door” was recently published by JMS and part of “Together apART: Creating During COVID” at ArtsWestchester in White Plains. Her new story, “After Hopper,” is now available from JMS Books. For more, visit thegamesmenplay.com.
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A Helluva Ride By Paraco CEO Joe Armentano Named #1 New Release in Mid-Atlantic U.S. Biographies! Read about how Paraco, a father-son family business, overcame crisis to achieve the American dream. Get a copy today at joearmentano.com
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The financial tables turned BY JEREMY WAYNE
The tables have indeed turned for lumberer, wood restorer and master carpenter Mauricio Guevara and wife Patricia – owners of New England Antique Lumber in Mount Kisco and Westport. In 2006, the economic crisis brought the couple and their three young daughters from their native Ecuador to Westchester County in search of a better life. With no money in their pockets to speak of and no knowledge of English, the couple managed to find employment as nightshift cleaners at the Katonah Art Center in Mount Kisco and later as house cleaners, working seven days a week for seven years in private homes in the county.
Mauricio Guevara, owner of New England Antique Lumber. Photographs by John Rizzo.
A few years in, while still house-cleaning at night Guevara took on an additional job with a construction company after an introduction from his nephew. He had never so much as picked up a chisel, but he quickly found he had an extraordinary aptitude working with wood. “I took to it. I learned fast,” says Guevara, “and my ex-boss was very happy with me.” Little by little, he started to take on clients of his own. Asked by the architect Carol Kurth, who was working with one of his early clients, about the possibility of adding old wood to a project, Guevara admitted to the difficulty of finding reclaimed lumber in southern Westchester. But it also set him to think of it as a gap in the market and an exciting opportunity started to suggest itself to him. After taking a couple of drives upstate to source the kind of hard-to-find old lumber he was looking for, he asked his wife to join him on a trip. Together they tracked down an old barn, bringing back beautiful beams, sidings and flooring. And more convinced than ever that there was nothing of its kind in Westchester, his question to his wife on their return was perhaps inevitable: “Why don’t we open a small showroom?” That question was met with some small resistance. “Yes, it was a little hard to convince her,” acknowledges Guevara with what one suspects is more than a hint of understatement. But the hunt was on, regardless, and in 2015 the Guevaras found their present site in Mount Kisco. They agreed to jump right in and sign a rental agreement. Next, of course, was the need to establish a consistent source of quality lumber, which Mauricio was able to do upstate. He also found himself working closely with Amish communities in New England and Pennsylvania. “Beautiful people,” Guevara says, who “take the barns down for us.” The modest street door on the East Main Street showroom gives little clue as to what lies beyond. The 100-foot-long showroom is something of a barn itself, a veritable treasure house stocked with exquisite hand-carved dining tables, occasional tables, console tables and benches. Off to the sides, groaning stacks of wood and timber are piled floor to ceiling, waiting to be inspected, bought and consigned. Although nearly all the finished pieces you
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Patricia and Mauricio Guevara.
see in the showroom carry a QR code and are for sale, the furniture on display also serves to provide visiting clients with ideas and inspiration. That’s because the thrust of the business is custom-made furniture, along with customized beams, flooring and mantels. The ability to see so many examples, though — to appreciate the different colors, grains and hues and to be able to touch this gorgeous old timber, all under one roof — is unusual. It offers a real service to the prospective customer, Guevara explains, one that could not easily be found elsewhere. He also points out that every piece is unique and mentions that most clients, be they architects, designers or independent retail shoppers, are referrals. Supplementary home goods and decorative items, from rugs and kelims through to chandeliers and light-fittings, glassware, chopping boards and even pepper mills, give context to the larger furniture items and make visiting the showroom a pleasure, even for the casual home decorator. Much as it might have threatened the still fledgling business, the pandemic has brought actual benefits, Guevara says. As people migrated north from New York City, house sales and renovations have created massive demand. Suddenly everyone was redecorating or upgrading, he says, requiring new desks for working from home and large new dining tables and tabletops for extended families hunkered down together during lockdown. (What’s that they say about an “ill wind”?) In October 2021, the Guevaras opened the Westport showroom.
WITH TWO OF THEIR DAUGHTERS NOW IN COLLEGE AND ONE ALREADY GRADUATED AND WORKING IN BOSTON, FOLKS WHOSE FANCY BEDFORD AND KATONAH HOUSES MAURICIO AND PATRICIA GUEVARA WERE CLEANING NOT SO VERY LONG AGO (THE MARRIED ACTORS RYAN REYNOLDS AND BLAKE LIVELY, AMONG THEM,) ARE NOW THE GUEVARAS’ CLIENTS AT NEW ENGLAND ANTIQUE LUMBER. IT’S A NEAR PERFECT ITERATION OF THE AMERICAN DREAM.
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Now working with a team of about 18 carpenters and fitters, the “big stuff,” such as large cabinetry, tables and other furniture, is done at a separate site in New Jersey, while steelwork (for table legs, brackets, etc.) is carried out at a workshop in Brewster. The business is expanding exponentially. With two of their daughters now in college and one already graduated and working in Boston, folks whose fancy Bedford and Katonah houses Mauricio and Patricia Guevara were cleaning not so very long ago (the married actors Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, among them,) are now the Guevaras’ clients at New England Antique Lumber. It’s a near perfect iteration of the American dream. And asked about future plans, Mauricio Guevara, his English no longer quite as faltering as it once was, responds crisply and with a smile: “I hope to open in the Hamptons next.” For more, visit newenglandantiquelumber.com
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HALCYON CONSTRUCTION CORP.
JOSEPH ZUZZOLO
CHARLES D. CASARELLA
65 MARBLE AVENUE PLEASANTVILLE, NY 10570 914-741-1112 JANUARY 2022
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Christoph Winkler, Ph.D., founding director, Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Iona College in New Rochelle. Photographs courtesy Iona College.
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Helping ‘vetrepreneurs’ achieve their dreams BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Entrepreneur — A person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss to make money. One who organizes, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. — Merriam-Webster If Covid-19 and its band of variants have underscored anything, it’s that work — and perhaps more important, people’s relationship to work — has long been evolving. “The nature of work has shifted. Work has shifted,” says Christoph Winkler, founding director of the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Iona College in New Rochelle. Work is no longer a four-letter word defined only by a 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday schedule teased out over 20 years at a brick-and-mortar company that in the end offers you a gold watch and a pension, if that.
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Iona College's Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
Rather, “working remotely” — what used to be called telecommuting — and “coworking spaces” are some of the buzz phrases that made their debut even before the pandemic hit. “Communal workspaces started to bubble up in 2006,” Winkler says. Along with this tectonic shift has come another — from thinking about entrepreneurship as a business or career model solely to viewing it as an individual philosophy. “People are embracing entrepreneurship not only for work but as a mindset,” Winkler says. They are, he adds, recognizing the need to take calculated risks and identify the work situation they’re in — or want to be in — rather than allow larger forces to dictate it.
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For our veterans and their families — who often face profound medical as well as financial adjustments to civilian life — that’s not always easy to do. Now Iona College is helping to give them a leg up as part of a multimillion-dollar federal pilot program. The 82-year-old, private, Roman Catholic college and its Hynes Institute — established in 2017 with an unprecedented gift of $15 million from alumni James P. Hynes and wife Anne Marie to foster business creativity and leadership — have been selected by Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) to take part in its Community Navigator Pilot Program, funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The
announcement was made at Iona in a Dec. 8 press conference with Winkler; U.S. Small Business Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman; Iona College President Seamus Carey, PhD; Mark Madrid, associate administrator in the SBA’s Office of Entrepreneurial Development; Diedra Henry-Spires, senior adviser for Covid Programs, SBA; Marlene Cintron, Atlantic Regional administrator, SBA; New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson; and City Councilwoman Martha Lopez. Overall, the nationwide, $5 million program — part of the American Rescue Plan Act — will provide businesses and start-ups run by “vetrepreneurs” or their spouses with entrepreneurship education, small-business technical
Iona College and its Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation have been selected by Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) to take part in its Community Navigator Pilot Program, funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The announcement was made at Iona in a Dec. 8 press conference. From left: Christoph Winkler, Ph.D., founding director, Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation; Diedra Henry-Spires, senior adviser for Covid programs, SBA; Mark Madrid, associate administrator, office of entrepreneurial development; New Rochelle City Councilwoman Martha Lopez; Iona College President Seamus Carey, Ph.D.; U.S. Small Business Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman; New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson; and Marlene Cintron, SBA Atlantic Regional administrator.
assistance, loan preparation, access to capital and capital readiness, corporate and federal contracting and networking. As one of several participating organizations, including Florida State University, St. Joseph’s University and Texas A&M University, Iona has received more than $350,000 to work with vets and military spouses locally and nationally beginning in March. “Supporting our veteran and military spouse businesses through entrepreneurship training and technical assistance is core to our mission at Iona College,” Winkler said in a statement after our phone interview. “We are honored to join the IVMF as a partner to do this important work over the next two years.”
Housed in a 3,800-square-foot, state-ofthe-art coworking space at 715 North Ave., the Hynes Institute will be setting up operations at its 2-year-old GaelVentures Virtual Incubator at 785 North Ave. to help veterans with their business needs, Winkler says, including planning, financing, marketing, filing tax returns and, if necessary, setting up an LLC. The institute will call on lawyers and accountants — two professions intricately entwined with any business — “and will involve faculty to provide expertise.” Named for the college’s sports teams, GaelVentures brings together student entrepreneurs, alumni, business mentors and industry experts in a 10-week immersive program that takes the students from their concept to the marketplace. Now it’s the veterans’ turn. “This is truly exciting for IVMF and Iona College,” Michael Haynie, Ph.D., Syracuse University’s vice chancellor for Strategic Initiatives & Innovation, Barnes professor of entrepreneurship and IVMF executive director, said in a statement. “Over the next two years, this program has the potential to impact thousands of veterans and families we serve. It is also a wonderful recognition of IVMF and Iona College’s partnership to provide veteran entrepreneurship education programs. Joining with a network of local providers like the Hynes Institute allows for individual attention that understands the nuances of operating in the Westchester community
and beyond. This broadens our national impact, having developed a vast network of alumni and partners who are dedicated to meeting the unique needs of veterans and military-connected families.” The Hynes Institute will avail itself of some of IVMF’s best programs, including Boots to Business (B2B), Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE) and the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV), which have helped more than 75,000 participants. IVMF — one of only eight Tier 1 grantees selected as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s $100 million Community Navigator Pilot Program — has also launched two virtual entrepreneurship programs. EBV Spark and R.I.S.E. (Resilience, Innovate, Sustain, Evaluate) aid veteran military spouse entrepreneurs in adapting to the pandemic economy. The success rate is superb: 92% of these entrepreneurs are still in business. If IVMF and the Hynes Institute have their way, many more will be joining them. “The goal,” Haynie has said, “is for military-connected clients to receive efficient, timely and comprehensive access to the services and resources they need, where they are and when they need them in their entrepreneurial journey.” For more, email hynesinstitute@iona. edu or visit iona.edu/hynesinstitute.
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Nothing Bundt Cakes store owners Florentina and Andreea Enica. 18 JANUARY 2022
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No ‘bundts’ about it STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER KATZ
Andreea Enica came to the United States from Romania to pursue one dream and instead found another, sweeter one. While Andreea studied here on a tennis scholarship, her twin, Florentina, also a tennis player, pursued her studies in France. “After college I just decided to get together with my twin, and the U.S. has so many opportunities,” Florentina said. “This business here brought us together.” “This business” is a Nothing Bundt Cakes franchise, which the pair opened in November at 303 N. Central Ave. in Hartsdale, a hamlet in the town of Greenburgh. It’s part of a company of more than 410 franchised and corporate bakeries in 40-plus states, founded in Las Vegas in 1997 by Dena Tripp and Debbie Shwetz and now based in Dallas. The Enica sisters’ is the first Nothing Bundt Cakes franchise in Westchester County. The cakes, individual bundtlets and boxed bundtinis use milk, eggs and flour; come in eight flavors (chocolate chocolate chip, classic vanilla, red velvet, white chocolate raspberry, confetti carrot, lemon, marble, pecan praline), plus a seasonal one; and are topped with a signature cream cheese frosting, floral bow and personalized decorations.
Nothing Bundt Cakes exterior.
We were gifted with a marble bundt cake and assorted bundtinis from the bake shop and have to say: They fulfilled all our sweet dreams. But for the sisters, the cakes symbolize a sweeter dream still — the American one. “We came to the States not speaking much English,” Andreea told us at the Nov. 4 ribboncutting. “I had the opportunity to come and play tennis and I was offered the scholarship so that was a door opening for me. From there, opportunities came our way. We worked hard and here we are today making this dream together.” Making it even sweeter: Along the way, the sisters met their husbands, who had also immigrated to America — one from Romania and one from Vietnam. “Our love for both tennis and cakes brought us all together,” Florentina said. “As children, we would gather with family and our grandmother welcomed us with freshly baked cake. So bundt cakes to us mean traveling back to those moments of celebration, laughter and priceless memories.” Now they’re helping their customers make memories, too — music to the ears of Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner, who said that the bake shop shines as an example of the type of small business that is needed right now to help fill vacant storefronts and keep Greenburgh’s retail economy healthy.
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Nothing Bundt Cakes interior.
The sisters are happy to do their part, as Westchester is much like their native Romania, Andreea said: “I lived in Texas for a few years but, as you know, Texas does not have the four seasons. So being back in this area, just the seasons themselves, reminds me of home. We’ve been welcomed. We want to bring the joy to people, but it really feels like people are bringing the joy to us.” The twins are using the tagline “Bring the
Joy” to help sell the cakes — with additional locations a possibility, Florentina added. ”Our cakes are delicious,” Andreea said, “so every time somebody takes a bite of our cake, we just hear every single time ‘Wow.’ So it’s bringing them joy and them bringing us joy,” Andreea said. The store is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays. For more, call 914-915-9060 or visit nothingbundtcakes.com.
We have a sweet spot for new business. Lindsay’s Handmade Ice Cream was born during the pandemic. In April of 2020, Lindsay Grega began to experiment with recreating a delicious goat cheese ice cream she’d had a few years before at a fried seafood and ice cream stand somewhere in Maine. So she made some. And then she made more. And she kept making it until it was perfect. She made ice cream out of things found in her fridge drawer just to see if she could. Things like fennel, oranges, honey, saffron, tiramisu, donuts, strawberries, rhubarb, jalapeños, sweet corn, rosemary, blueberries and fresh mint. Using only pasteurized dairy, eggs and cheeses, along with organic produce. Nature’s bounty all turned into ice cream. It also turned into a business. So there she was, bringing creamy creations to the public, “new normal” style. Hand-made, smallbatch ice cream and desserts made with the freshest natural and local ingredients available. Sold cashless and contact free. The business grew and then Lindsay outgrew her kitchen. After initially renting a production space by the day in New Jersey, Lindsay found her sweet spot in Norwalk. She’s now leasing her own allergen-free production space in SoNo, where’s she’s lived the last 17 years. Sweet dreams can come true in Norwalk. Redevelopment and new construction have never been healthier, including federally designated Opportunity Zones and an Enterprise Zone to spur investment and growth within our urban core. We welcome you to join our beautiful and evolving community. For more information, please contact Sabrina Church, Director of Business Development & Tourism, at 203-854-7948 or email schurch@norwalkct.org. Please also visit www.norwalkct.org and www.visitnorwalk.org to learn more. PMS 1575
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A prince of propane – and pages BY PETER KATZ
Writing a book, particularly fiction, can be like a comet streaking across the sky. A team of 53 Romanian authors and academics holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to write a novel. On Dec. 15, 2012, it took them just nine hours, five minutes and eight seconds to produce “Santa Claus & Co.” from concept to first printed copy. Georges Simenon apparently spent only nine days on each of his “Maigret” detective novels, which have been endlessly adapted in comics and movies, on radio and TV. Then again it took J.K. Rowling six years to write her first “Harry Potter” book. With nonfiction, which can require a lot more research, a book can take even longer. So it’s not surprising to hear Joe Armentano, CEO of Paraco Gas in Rye Brook, say that it took years for him to write and polish his new book, “A Helluva Ride: How a Father-Son Family Business Overcame Crisis to Achieve the American Dream” (Legacy of Smiles Publications, $17.99, 277 pages), just out in paperback. The book tells the story of how his father Pat, beginning in their garage in Mount Vernon, founded a family business
Joe Armentano in the Rye Brook headquarters of his Paraco Gas company, the subject of his new book “A Helluva Ride.”
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Book jacket photograph by Joe Vericker/Photo Bureau.
specializing in welding supplies. Through a series of acquisitions and expansions, the business grew into the Paraco of today, which has more than 425 employees, 28 locations and $150 million in annual revenue. Over the years, it has acquired 53 companies and services more than 110,000 residential and business customers. It’s both a business story and a family story, he says: “I was there as a kid before he started his business, so I’ve kind of seen all of the things that bridge a few generations, because we’re now in our third generation with my daughter Christina.” The story of the book began with Armentano arranging for his father to be interviewed in a series of audio recordings to preserve the family and business history as well as capture personal thoughts and advice. When his father passed away in 2010 at age 80, Armentano realized it was time to organize and transfer the material into written form. “I said I don’t really have the time to get this done, so let me hire a ghostwriter,” Armentano says. “About eight years ago, I gave her about 100 hours of my tapes. I had her come down and interview about 18 people who I thought were important.” Armentano said that he wasn’t satisfied with what the writer produced, but her efforts did organize the raw material.
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“It wasn’t me; it wasn’t my voice; it didn’t capture the emotions,” he adds. “Over the last seven years, I’ve edited this manuscript probably 50 to 100 times. I don’t think one of her words survived. I’m not winning a Pulitzer with this, but I became a pretty good writer.” In 1968, Armentano’s father established the welding supply company Patsems Inc. The products it carried included items such as welding rods, masks and helmets. To expand the welding supply business, his father had decided to add industrial gases such as oxygen and acetylene. Propane joined the mix since it was used as a source of heat at construction sites and to power forklifts. It became a niche, growing to be about 25% of the business. “Right around ’79 he goes, ‘Joe, find me a propane company,’" Armentano says. “I knew nothing about propane. I had no idea people used it to heat their homes or for cooking. I thought everybody barbecued with it. At that time, we had no clue about the industry. We knew nothing about it and my father’s thought was, ‘Well, I’ll save some money on product and get into another business.’” In 1979, Patsems bought Paraco Fuel Corp., a Peekskill distributor of fuel oil and propane. The operation adopted the Paraco name and expanded to other parts of the Hudson Valley as well as Long Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. It soon expanded even farther
into New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri and Colorado. Born in Mount Vernon, the oldest of four sons, Armentano graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. He earned a Master's in Business Administration from Iona College in New Rochelle I 1988. Armentano says that a successful family business needs to start with passionate family members. “I’ve seen many family businesses where there have been family members who never should have entered a business, because they didn’t have that passion," he says. "Second, there needs to be a commitment to continuing education. Third is a willingness to take risk. "You have to be able and willing to take risks in business, in a family business in particular, because you have all your wealth normally tied up in that family business and, if you’re going to expand and grow, you need to take risk. “Our risk was really through acquisitions, going out and buying companies and assuming that we could make them pay for themselves and work.” Armentano adds that Paraco has been through every business cycle imaginable but what’s happening right now is unusual and affects all forms of energy. “This will be a year when energy prices will be extremely hot,” he says. “I’ve never seen propane prices go up this high this quickly. We’re talking about a 200-plus percent jump in propane prices in a four- or five-month period.” And they’ll stay high throughout the winter, he predicts. “I do think you may see supply shortages in certain energy markets," he says. "For us, we have a very diverse supply strategy to ensure that we have supply for our customers going into this winter. "We’re 100% confident we will have adequate supply but there will be some of our competitors, potentially, and some people in some other areas of energy that may have supply shortages,” Armentano stresses. “The other issue is not just having the supply but making sure that you have the manpower to deliver. We’re reading about labor shortages right now especially in drivers, truckers. We’re working extremely hard to stay ahead of the curve.” For more on "A Helluva Ride," visit joearmentano.com. And for more on Paraco, visit paracogas.com.
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The beachy waves of balayage. Photographs courtesy LA Beauty Bar.
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Head and shoulders above the rest BY DEBBI K. KICKHAM
Luciana Adornetto is the owner of LA Beauty Bar in Katonah. The salon, which has been located there since August 2019, has been featured on Instagram and celebrated for its balayage and custom color and highlights on the Best of Balayage and Masters of Balayage accounts. Tell me a little bit about your background as a hair stylist. “I started working 10 years ago. I started as a salon assistant in Yorktown. Got my hair license when I graduated high school at 17. I’ve been doing hair for 10 years now. I decided in 2018 to try and go out on my own and I did hair in my parents’ basement, and then I created a more private-style salon after I married. We are looking to expand even further in the upcoming year. Right now I have one assistant.”
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Luciana Adornetto of LA Beauty Bar in Katonah specializes in balayage. Courtesy LA Beauty Bar.
Tell me about LA Beauty Bar. When did you start your hair salon business and what makes it special? “LA Beauty Bar — LA are my initials — it’s really just a one-woman show here so I kept my name in it. I’m proud of that. I did it on my own. I grew my clientele from Instagram and word-of-mouth, and clients reposting their pictures. I got pretty established in town on social media. I’m usually booked out two months in advance. I specialize in custom colors. I offer everything, but I’m known for my balayage techniques and lived-in-color. People come from the city and the Bronx and all over the tristate area to have their hair done by me. It’s one-on-one private, versus a salon atmosphere. It feels more like a boutique hair salon and not a general salon with a lot of workers. I give 100% attention to each client. You get the salon experience and a personal experience all in one. That is why it is pretty unique.” Tell me about your balayage. How is this different/better for your hair? “As you get older, the lighter you are, the better it is. It keeps it youthful. Balayage (bah lee aghe) is a French technique that is
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extremely popular and more so than highlights because of the blended, sun-kissed feel — very natural but you can also be very dramatic. The highlights are blended when I put them in, then I tease the hair so it has a blurred effect. I have clients who let their hair go three to four months between visits. It’s less maintenance. You can go longer stretches, because it’s lived-in color. It grows out with no stark lines. But having rooted, lived-in color is the most requested color right now by far, seen by myself and others in the industry, a lived-in, blended color. It’s subtle and natural. I never do the same color on everyone. It’s not “one size fits all,” as I do different sectioning and techniques customized to each client.
highlighted hair. I use Redken glazes for all our clients. We recently started using Unite Haircare and IGK and AMIKA. Those are my top brands for styling.”
Tell me about your color treatments. “The other treatments are your typical gray coverage, glazes, fashion colors — teal, pink, red, purple — all fashion colors. We use Olaplex and its bond rebuilder treatments and do scalp massages and treatments. We do everything. We specialize in blowouts as well and styling.” What brand of products do you use? “Olaplex is added to the bleach, great for
I’m a level-10 blonde — and I get my roots done every five weeks. “I love it. The blonder, the better. When you start ,you get addicted and get more and more blond. We’ve all been there.” (Laughs.)
What is the hot new hair trend for women in 2022? “I don’t think balayage is going anywhere but the hot trend will be voluminous hair — a lot of layering and angles — to get bouncy blowouts.” What is the hot new trend for men in 2022? “For men? Hmmm. I only do women, but I think that the trend is more towards a clean cut and a clean shave — a clean scruff.
For appointments and more, text 914420-5312. And follow Luciana Adornetto on Instagram at https://www.instagram. com/lucianabeauty.
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Jay and Michael Goldstein. 30 JANUARY 2022
WAGMAG.COM
The drinking person’s liquor store STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMY WAYNE
Jay Goldstein had been a longtime salesman for Empire Merchants — a major wine and liquor distributor in the Northeast — looking after all the firm’s accounts in Westchester County when he received a call from one his merchants, asking if he knew of anyone who might like to buy his liquor store. The store owner explained that his wife had recently passed away and the store in question, a small family business in South Salem — now Salem Wine & Liquor, but also known as Salem Liquors — had become too much for him to look after. Goldstein went up to see him and a deal was struck. That was in 2009. Originally opened as a restaurant in the 1930s, the long, low-slung building had been turned into a liquor store by one Si Lavatori in 1966. Years later, Lavatori — the family name is well-known in South Salem — turned the store over to his sister and her husband (the man who later sold it to Goldstein,) before going on to open the town’s Spring Street Market. Jay’s son Michael was a senior in high school when his father took the store over. “He and I ripped down everything together and we tried to clean it up,” Michael explains. “(The previous owners) were an elderly couple, and they lived in Ridgefield and they used the store as a hangout.” He points to a row of signed dollar bills above the counter, yellowed with age and nicotine. “That’s how much cigarette smoke they had in here. We had to scrub it down, tear up the floors. But people in the town kind of grew up knowing the family that ran it. And the owner was friends with (the actor) George C. Scott, who lived across the street.”
Old photographs in the Goldsteins’ possession tell more of the story — the restaurant in the 1930s, the hotel that originally stood behind the gas station that adjoins the store, and a view of the site in the great blizzard of 1948, among them. Today, under the Goldstein father and son’s joint ownership, the store punches well above its weight. “We get people from all over,” says Michael. They’ll come all the way from New Jersey, he says, if they see a specific brand advertised that they know Salem Liquors stocks, with local business coming from Ridgefield, New Canaan and Norwalk. The store stands on Route 35 at a major crossroads connecting Ridgefield, Katonah and Stamford, so is perfectly placed to attract customers from those towns and everywhere in between. “A lot of people just love the atmosphere here,” Michael stresses, “so even though there’s a million places in Ridgefield, we get very loyal, repeat customers here. It’s a little bit of a different vibe from a lot of the box stores.” In the area of fine wines, the store is best known for its
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Michael Goldstein in Salem Wine & Liquor in South Salem.
Napa Valley wines and French wines. “We don’t give out their names,” Michael says, “but we have a lot of celebrities that come in here. Newscasters, actors: They just love the place. They go right for the cellar and collector wines.” “And if they want something special, we’ll search it out,” Jay adds. While they have not returned to the regular wine tastings they used to hold before the pandemic, the Goldsteins regularly keep a bottle open for customers to try and are all too happy to open a particular bottle for a customer showing serious interest. They also offer a delivery service and supply wine and liquor for parties. A word about Champagne. It’s been in short supply recently, say the Goldsteins (supply generally being a gripe they will return to, along with the rest of us). And the price, they point out, has increased by up to 50% since the start of the pandemic, so that inevitably, the authentic French bubbly has given way to the less expensive, more accessible Prosecco, which is popular year-round. And because people tend to mix their bubbles with juice, “they don’t always care what it tastes like,” says Michael. As for personal taste in wine, Jay’s preference is for Napa Cabs. He recalls starting in the business 55 years ago, when the wine would be shipped from California to Port Newark, New Jersey, on the SS Petri, a glass-lined tank ship. “The ship had four compartments, for red, white, Port and Muscatel,” he recalls, with a smile and a hint of nostalgia. “Then they’d run
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a hose from the ship to where the wine was bottled. Italian-Swiss Colony was the big name then, which later became part of United Vintners.” (Today, the descendant of the original company is owned by the E&J Gallo Winery.) The Goldsteins offer invaluable advice to customers. “Ninety-five percent of the time they come back and tell us they loved what we gave them,” says Michael, clearly proud of the service he and his dad provide. Father and son are also great supporters of local causes. They recently donated wine and seltzer for the Lewisboro Playground Extension project and are helping Animal Nation Inc. raise the $100,000 it needs to save its Farm Rescue & Sanctuary, which sits on privately owned land, from being sold. The Wolf Conservation Center, also in South Salem, is another cause they champion. Animal lovers themselves, the Goldsteins are helped in-store most days by Poppy, their Havachon (Havanese and Bichon Frise mix,) who is a favorite with customers and, according to Michael, “one of the more famous dogs in this town.” Back to the shelves and when it comes to spirits, gin still holds sway, with numerous craft distilleries popping up all over, nationwide and abroad. A new item the store carries is the violet-bottled gin from southern England’s Highclere Castle, where “Downton Abbey” was filmed. The gin, which we wrote about in February 2019 WAG, is made using botanicals from the castle gardens. But Salem Liquors is particularly known for its strong bourbon selection,
including many rare bourbons, a section the Goldsteins have worked hard to build up. “Although, they don’t last long,” says Jay. “They come in, they go out.” He points out that any gaps along the store’s densely packed shelves are due only to supply-chain issues, something affecting so many businesses and industries right now. “When the pandemic hit and there were no bartenders, everyone started flocking to the RTDs — the ‘Ready to Drinks,’” Michael says. These are cocktails in premixed bottles or cans. “It was a whole sector that had never existed in the 11 years that we’d been here pre-pandemic.” Companies had been producing these cans for some time, but until the pandemic they had never been popular, at least not with the Goldsteins’ customers. While admitting he doesn’t know if the trend will last, Michael feels there is a good chance it will. “Right now, we’re selling more High Noon than anything,” he says, referring to the 100-calorie, gluten-free, no-sugar-added cans of “hard” seltzer — vodka mixed with various fruit juices — which have taken America generally by storm. That said, production of High Noon, too, has been hit by a shortage of cans, a situation that has also affected the brand’s competitor, On the Rocks, ready-made cocktails that come in glass bottles. Other popular libations include sake, sales of which continue to increase, and Japanese whiskey, and the store is one of the few in the region to stock Pimm’s No. 1 Cup, the highly sought-after UK-made gin-based liqueur, infused with herbed botanicals and orange. But if there’s a spirit of the moment, it is undoubtedly tequila — notwithstanding a growing market too for its sophisticated cousin, mezcal. “Everyone wants Casamigos, the tequila brand founded by George Clooney, Rande Gerber and Michael Meldman, but you can’t get it right now, so we usually have a bottle of something else open for people to try,” says Michael. And while Casamigos still carries considerable cachet, thanks to the combined power of celebrity and advertising, the younger Goldstein asserts that once people are introduced to an alternative quality tequila, they’re easily converted. “Only don’t put that in print,” he says. “I don’t want George coming after me.” Salem Wine & Liquor is at 1156 Route 35 in South Salem. For more, visit salemliquors. com.
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BANKING & FINANCE
COMMERCIAL BANKS FAIRFIELD COUNTY BANKWELL BANK 156 Cherry St., New Canaan, 06840 877-966-1944 • mybankwell.com Top executive: Christopher Gruseke BNY MELLON N.A. 240 Greenwich St., New York, New York, 10286 212-495-1784 • bnymellon.com Top executive: (Interim CEO) Thomas P. (Todd) Gibbons CITIBANK N.A. 5800 S. Corporate Place, Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57108 605-370-6261 • citibank.com Top executive: Jane Fraser CITIZENS BANK N.A. 1 Citizens Plaza, Providence, Rhode Island 02903 401-456-7096 • citizensbank.com Top executive: Bruce Van Saun CONNECTICUT COMMUNITY BANK N.A. 1495 Post Road East, Westport 06880 203-319-6260 • ccbankonline.com Top executive: David W. Tralke DR BANK 1001 Post Road, Darien 06820 656-3500 • drbank.com Top executive: Robert Kettenmann FIRST REPUBLIC BANK 111 Pine St., San Francisco, California 94111 415-262-8767 • firstrepublic.com Top executives: James H. Herbert II, Hafize Gaye Erkan HSBC BANK USA N.A. 1800 Tysons Blvd., Tysons, Virginia 22102 800-975-4722 • hsbc.com Top executive: Michael Roberts JPMORGAN CHASE BANK N.A. 1111 Polaris Pkwy., Columbus, Ohio 43240 614-213-6995 • jpmorganchase.com Top executive: Jamie Dimon
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KEYBANK N.A. 127 Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio 44114 216-689-5580 • key.com Top executive: Christopher M. Gorman M&T TRUST CO. 345 Main St., Buffalo, New York 14203 716-842-4470 • mtb.com Top executive: Rene F. Jones PATRIOT BANK N.A. 900 Bedford St., Stamford 06901 888-728-7468 • bankpatriot.com Top executive: Frederick K. Staudmyer PEOPLE’S UNITED BANK N.A. 850 Main St., Bridgeport 06604 203-338-7001 • peoples.com Top executive: John P. Barnes SIGNATURE BANK 565 Fifth Ave., New York, New York 10017 866-744-5463 • signatureny.com Top executive: Joseph J. DePaolo TD BANK N.A. 66 Wellington Street West P.O. Box 1 TD Bank Tower Toronto, Ontario M5J 416-307-8500 • tdbank.com Top executive: Gregory B. Braca THE FIRST BANK OF GREENWICH 444 E. Putnam Ave., Cos Cob 06807 203-629-8400 • greenwichfirst.com Top executive: Frank J. Gaudio THE NORTHERN TRUST CO. 50 S. La Salle St., Chicago, Illinois 60603 312-630-6000 • northerntrust.com Top executive: Michael O’Grady WEBSTER BANK N.A. 137 Bank St., Waterbury 06702 203-578-2200 • websterbank.com Top executive: John R. Ciulla WELLS FARGO BANK N.A. 101 N. Phillips Ave., Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57104 605-575-6900 • wellsfargo.com Top executive: Charles W. Scharf
THRIFTS AND SAVINGS FAIRFIELD COUNTY FAIRFIELD COUNTY BANK 150 Danbury Road, Ridgefield 06877 438-6518 • fairfieldcountybank.com Top executive: Daniel A. Schneider FIELDPOINT PRIVATE BANK & TRUST 100 Field Point Road, Greenwich 06830 413-9300 • fieldpointprivate.com Top executive: H. Russell Holland III FIRST COUNTY BANK 160 Atlantic St., Stamford 06904 462-4401 • firstcountybank.com Top executive: Robert J. Granata NEWTOWN SAVINGS BANK 39 Main St., Newtown 06470 426-2563 • nsbonline.com Top executive: Kenneth Weinstein SAVINGS BANK OF DANBURY 220 Main St., Danbury 06810 743-3849 • sbdanbury.com Top executive: Martin G. Morgado UNION SAVINGS BANK 226 Main St., Danbury 06810 830-4200 • unionsavings.com Top executive: Cynthia C. Merkle
COMMERCIAL BANKS WESTCHESTER COUNTY BNY MELLON N.A. 240 Greenwich St., New York, New York 10286 212-495-1784 • bnymellon.com Top executive: Thomas P. (Todd) Gibbons CAPITAL ONE N.A. 1680 Capital One Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102 877-383-4802 • capitalone.com Top executive: Richard D. Fairbank
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BANKING & FINANCE
CITIBANK N.A. 701 E. 60 St., Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57104 800-285-3000 • citibank.com Top executive: Jane Nind Fraser CITIZENS BANK N.A. 1 Citizens Plaza, Providence, Rhode Island 02903 401-456-7096 • citizensbank.com Top executive: Bruce Van Saun
OCEANFIRST BANK (Division of OceanFirst Bank NA) 655 Third Ave., Ninth floor New York, New York 10017 212-818-9090 • oceanfirst.com Top executive: Joseph J. Lebel III PATRIOT BANK N.A. 900 Bedford St., Stamford, Connecticut 06905 888-728-7468 • bankpatriot.com Top executive: Frederick K. Staudmyer
CONNECTONE BANK 301 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 844-266-2548 • ConnectOneBank.com Top executive: Frank Sorrentino III, CEO & Chairman
PCSB BANK 2651 Strang Blvd., Yorktown Heights, New York 10598 914-248-7272 • PCSB.com Top executive: Joseph D. Roberto
FIRST REPUBLIC BANK 111 Pine St., San Francisco, California 94111 415-262-8767 • firstrepublic.com Top executives: James H. Herbert II, Hafize Gaye Erkan
PEOPLE’S UNITED BANK N.A. 850 Main St., Bridgeport, Connecticut 06604 203-338-7001 • peoples.com Top executive: John P. Barnes
HSBC BANK USA N.A. 1800 Tysons Blvd., Tysons, Virginia 22102 800-975-4722 • us.hsbc.com Top executive: Michael M. Roberts
SIGNATURE BANK 565 Fifth Ave., New York, New York 10017 866-744-5463 • signatureny.com Top executive: Joseph J. DePaolo
JPMORGAN CHASE BANK N.A. 1111 Polaris Pkwy., Columbus, Ohio 43240 614-213-6995 • jpmorganchase.com Top executive: Jamie Dimon
STERLING NATIONAL BANK 400 Rella Blvd, Montebello, New York 10901 845-369-8040 • snb.com Top executive: Jack L. Kopnisky (Acquisition by Webster Bank will be finalized by mid-February 2022.)
KEYBANK N.A. 127 Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio 44114 216-689-8481 • key.com Top executive: Christopher M. Gorman M&T TRUST CO. 345 Main St., Buffalo, New York 14203 716-842-4470 • mtb.com Top executive: Rene F. Jones NEW YORK COMMUNITY BANK 615 Merrick Ave. East Meadow, New York 11554 516-683-4600 newyorkcommercialbank.com Top executive: Thomas R. Cangemi
TD BANK NA 66 Wellington Street West, P.O. Box 1 TD Bank Tower, Toronto, Ontario M5J 416-307-8500 • tdbank.com Top executive: Gregory B. Braca THE FIRST BANK OF GREENWICH 500 Westchester Ave., Port Chester, 10573 914-908-5444 • greenwichfirst.com Top executive: Frank J. Gaudio TOMPKINS MAHOPAC BANK 1441 Route 22, Brewster, New York 10509 845-278-1011 • mahopacbank.com Top executive: David DeMilia
VALLEY BANK 12 Water St., White Plains, New York 10601 914-368-9919 • valley.com Top executive: John M. Tolomer WEBSTER BANK N.A. 137 Bank St., Waterbury 06702 203-578-2200 • websterbank.com Top executive: John R. Ciulla WELLS FARGO BANK N.A. 101 N. Phillips Ave., Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57104 605-575-6900 • wellsfargo.com Top executive: Charles W. Scharf
THRIFTS AND SAVINGS WESTCHESTER COUNTY APPLE BANK FOR SAVINGS 122 E. 42 St., Ninth floor, Manhasset 10168 212-490-4490 • applebank.com Top executive: Steven C. Bush NORTHEAST COMMUNITY BANK 325 Hamilton Ave., White Plains 10601 684-2500 • necommunitybank.com Top executive: Kenneth A. Martinek ORANGE BANK & TRUST CO. 212 Dolson Ave., Middletown 10940 845-341-5000 • orangecountytrust.com Top executive: Michael Gilfeather RIDGEWOOD SAVINGS BANK 71-02 Forest Ave., Ridgewood 11385 718-240-4900 • ridgewoodbank.com Top executive: Leonard Stekol SUNNYSIDE FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION OF IRVINGTON 56 Main St., Irvington 10533 591-8000 • sunnysidefederal.com Top executive: Timothy D. Sullivan TRUSTCO BANK 1 Sarnowski Drive, Glenville 12302 518-344-7510 • trustcobank.com Top executive: Robert J. McCormick
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Not just for the uber-wealthy BY PHIL HALL
I
n September, Barry P. Mitchell Jr. announced the launch of his Harrison-based Next Level Private as a fully independent, registered investment adviser. Mitchell, who began his financial career in 1987 at Merrill Lynch, was formerly affiliated with UBS as Mitchell WealthCare. Today, his new endeavor features an eight-person team managing $850 million in assets and offering a range of financial services, including goals-based planning, fiduciary advice and financial advocacy. Mitchell recently spoke with WAG about his new endeavor and his distinctive approach to financial advisory services. When and why did you decide to begin this new chapter in your company's history? “Next Level Private started as a concept many, many, many, many years ago, but officially the company itself started on Sept. 3. And it really started with the two questions that I had. The first was, “What am I doing?” I was 56 years old with 34-plus years in the business, working for big banks the entire time. And the second was, “What are you doing, and why are you doing what you're doing?” Of course, when you ask yourself wide open questions, that can be somewhat challenging and thought-provoking. “It led to many, many other questions, and ultimately led us in a direction to try to figure out what is the best way that we can be an advocate for our clients. We decided that an independent, registered investment adviser made the most sense, where we can truly be a fiduciary for our clients and advocate for our clients. “It's all about trust. Without trust, you’ve got
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nothing in this business. And we felt the way that we could deliver the best for our clients (was) this level of independence.” Who are your clients? And how do you get your clients? “Our clients are what I call tremendously successful normal people. Not the ultra, ultra wealthy, just good people who recognize that by improving their financial situation they may have a positive impact on the quality of their lives. “I grew up in a middle-class family and my dad was very hard-working. He never really made a lot of money — we didn't realize we didn't have any money, but we had a great upbringing — and he just never got great financial advice, because he didn't have enough money. So, we've decided to forego a minimum to work with successful regular people who need help. “For the second part of your question, we get our clients from the community. Just being out there, through reputation, other clients do introductions. I can't tell you how many times a week the phone rings, and it's someone saying, ‘Can you talk to my brother? Can you talk to somebody else? I was talking to my sister, she's getting divorced and etc., etc.’ “A lot of times, we can generally help in almost all scenarios with some good advice. But sometimes they're not the right clients for us. They don't need a full-service (approach), but we're still always willing to help and, from that, we built a great reputation in our community.” You're being joined in Next Level Private by your entire team from Mitchell WealthCare. What kind of a person are you looking for to join your team? “Somebody who cares and understands that people want to be heard and listened to. We can always teach somebody to learn a skill
Barry P. Mitchell Jr., founder and managing director of Next Level Private in Harrison. Courtesy Next Level Private.
and become proficient in an area around finance or financial planning. But are you somebody who truly wants to help other people? “Nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes, Yours Truly included. But when you really care, you generally do a better job.” From an investing perspective, 2021 was an interesting and often unpredictable year, particularly with the newfound mania for meme stocks and cryptocurrency. What is your opinion of these types of investment assets? “It's fun until it's not. And I had some great training over the years, and some years of hard knocks from experience that I realize there's a difference between investing and speculating. “Our job is not to gamble or speculate with somebody's financial future. We're not telling people that they should not invest in crypto or meme stocks on their own, if that's what they want to do. We try to distinguish the major difference between speculating and long-term investing that really should be based on a financial plan with specific outcomes that a client's looking for from a cash -flow standpoint to improve their financial situation. And we've been very successful helping people stick to their plans and not worry what could be on the other side — avoiding the tech wrecks of the world that happened back in 2000.” What are some of the concerns you're hearing from your clients at this point regarding the overall state of the economy and their investments? “We've done a good job to get our folks not to focus much on the short-term noise, if you will, because we believe there's always going to be noise or concerns that are out there on a daily basis. “What we try to get people to do is to go back into focus on their specific financial plan and to see how that fits into what they're trying to achieve long term. Now, I will say inflation is a concern, and we have to ask them the right questions on why they're concerned about inflation and what effect inflation will have on the probability of their financial plan being successful. Those are the conversations that we're having with a lot of clients — going back to the plan to try and improve its durability.” For more, visit nxtprivate.com.
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Chris Kampitsis and Ben Soccodato of The SKG Team at Barnum Financial Group. Courtesy The SKG Team at Barnum Financial Group.
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Planning for rough financial waters BY PETER KATZ
T
he annualized U.S. inflation rate hit 6.8% in November, the highest since 1982. As year-end approached, economic analysts such as The Conference Board downgraded growth forecasts to indicate the U.S. economy will slip from annualized gross domestic product growth of 5.5% in 2021 to 3.5% in 2022 and 2.9% in 2023. At the same time, the stock market has been maintaining historically high levels while interest rates remain so low that ordinary savers continue to lose ground if they’ve parked their money in traditional bank savings accounts. While some financial prognosticators develop gloom-and-doom outlooks from trying to gaze into crystal balls that have fogged over, people who want to ensure their fiscal comfort and not sacrifice solvency have learned that it pays to be proactive. “Inflation for sure has impacted all of us over the course of this year,” says Ben Soccodato, financial planner with The SKG Team at Barnum Financial Group in Elmsford. “I think looking at the Social Security wage increase for 2022, which is the highest of all time at 5.9%, gives us a sense of what real inflation is in our economy, but that doesn’t take into account things like housing prices. In Westchester, we know how great the housing market has been, maybe if you’re selling a home but not if you’re buying one over the last year or so. I think where we feel it the most is at the gas pump. Although electric vehicles are a thing of the future and that’s where we’re headed, for most of us we’re still filling up our vehicles at $3.50 and $4 a gallon.” Adds Chris Kampitsis, another financial planner at The SKG Team (which stands for The Soccodato Kampitsis Group): “We’re seeing clients who want to have a better understanding of the changes that we’re seeing in the economy and how that might impact their financial lives and their portfolios. I would not say it’s a nervousness. “ Kampitsis adds that as we get further and further away from the financial distress of
2008 and the market drop in 2020, people are becoming more conditioned to accept shortterm volatility and maintain a long-term focus. “That’s our mission as financial advisers and wealth managers, to communicate the importance of having a long-term vision related to your portfolio, and I do think the message is being heard by more and more investors,” Kampitsis says. Soccodato notes that everybody is in a different financial position. “This market right now is a very difficult market in which to be super-conservative,” Soccodato says. “If your money is sitting in the bank and we just lost 6% of purchasing power and if we do the same thing next year and inflation runs at 4% or 5%, well, in a two-year span on a conservative investment we’ve just lost 10% in real purchasing power.” The other end of the spectrum, being super-speculative, might bring big paydays as claimed by some who put money into things such as cryptocurrency and penny stocks, but the downside can be quite steep. “As financial planners, we still have to be very cautious about how we approach less-regulated investments like cryptocurrency,” Kampitsis says. “That being said, Ben and I and our team are big believers in taking a ‘bucketed’ approach to your portfolio. That involves having a portion of your assets extremely focused on capital preservation and safety, having a portion of your assets focused on your intermediate-time horizon goals with your priority being consistency of return and having a portion of your assets reserved for long-term growth and even potentially a portion reserved for speculation. So, if someone is looking to invest in this sort of new frontier of cryptocurrency, we certainly can have a conversation about it. But it’s important that they not let any one concept or idea overwhelm their portfolio.” Soccodato, who is in his 17th year with the firm, says that they welcome clients as if they’re family and learn as much about them personally as they’re willing to share. “It’s years and years of building a relation-
ship and trust that I think separates us most from the approach at some other firms,” he adds. “This is a serious role. We’re not only assisting people with their money, but in many cases they’re entrusting us with their life savings. Our role as a fiduciary where we’re guiding them as if we’re in their shoes is really the most important thing to Chris and myself and the other members of the team.” Soccodato explains that The SKG Team has added more than 12 members over the past year and totals about 34 inside of Barnum’s firm of 700. “We have found people have less time than ever before, so more and more they want to rely on a single trusted resource that understands their holistic situation,” Kampitsis says. “Initially it was really about meeting their needs and more and more it’s now getting ahead of their needs and understanding as they age, as their families change, as they transition to different stages of their life, what they will need so we’ll be better prepared to assist them from a thought leadership standpoint.” Soccodato says that tax planning is becoming more important than ever. “We know definitively that in 2026 tax rates change. The Trump tax cuts expire in 2025 so we know we’ll have a new set of circumstances at that point, which brings all the brackets up, if not sooner, and the likelihood that it could happen sooner is a pretty good one,” Soccodato says. “We also believe in diversification from a tax perspective. I want to have money that is going to be subject to tax later, money that I’m diverting tax on until later like a 401k. I also want to have money that I’ve paid tax on now and will be tax-free for me later so in the event that taxes rise I have a ‘bucket’ that I can pull from that’s already been taxed.” Kampitsis sums up by saying, “None of us knows what we don’t know. The reality is we don’t have a crystal ball. The most important thing clients can do is actually plan for different scenarios.” For more, visit skgbarnum.com.
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Ensuring your biz survives you BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
L
aw professor Bridget J. Crawford has a message for us, though it’s not one we’re likely to want to hear: “We’re all going to die.” And, oddly enough, that means we have to plan for the future. “Regardless of your level of wealth, you should have an estate plan,” says Crawford, who teaches federal income taxation; estate and gift taxation; and wills, trusts and estates at Pace University in White Plains, where she is the university distinguished professor of law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law. If you own a business, or are thinking of starting one, she adds, that includes a plan of succession. A lawyer and an accountant/financial adviser will, of course, be part of any start-up/business team. But having an estate plan in place is an important step in ensuring that your enterprise outlasts you. This doesn’t mean, however, that your plan will necessarily go unchallenged. Generally, though, Crawford says, it’s difficult to contest a will successfully. Those who do so must prove either that there was fraud involved or that the subject was unduly influenced, under duress or mentally incapacitated. One infamous example of a successful challenge, she says, was the case of Leona Helmsley, the haughty hotelier of Helmsley Palace Hotel (now Lotte New York Palace Hotel) fame and so-called “Queen of Mean.” When she died at her summer home in Greenwich of congestive heart failure in 2007 at age 87, Helmsley left $12 million of her $4 billion estate to her Maltese Trouble, who bit everyone but his mistress, and nothing to two of her four grandchildren. In 2008, Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge Renee Roth decreed that Helmsley was mentally incapacitated when she executed her will, reducing Trouble’s inheritance to $2 million — still a lot of kibble — and awarding $6 million to the disinherited grandchildren. (The remaining $4 million went to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. When Trouble died in 2010, the money unused for his care reverted to the trust.) At least Helmsley, who famously said “only the little people pay taxes,” had a will. Those who die without one die “intestate,” resulting in the state stepping in. Under Connecticut and New York state law, the spouse in such circumstances is entitled to half of the deceased’s estate, with the children “by representation” sharing the other half. “By representation” means that if one child should predecease you, that child’s children would inherit the share. “The very rich,” to borrow a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald, “are different from you and me.” They not only have estate
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plans. They’re increasingly leaving the bulk of their wealth to charity. Many are familiar with the Giving Pledge created in 2010 by Warren Buffet, Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates, in which they and more than 40 of their fellow billionaires have committed the bulk of their wealth — either in their lifetimes or in their wills — to society’s most pressing needs. More recently, actor Daniel “Bond, James Bond” Craig and CNN’s Anderson Cooper — the son of artist-actress-enterpreneur Gloria Vanderbilt, who transcended her socialite status as the creator of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans for women in the 1970s — have been among the celebrities who’ve announced that they won’t be leaving their heirs great wealth. Other like-minded celebrities include Simon Cowell, Elton John, Ashton Kutcher, Marie Osmond, Gene Simmons and Sting. Of course, charitable giving is one way to avoid taxes if your estate is worth at least $12.06 million (federal); $9.1 million (Connecticut) or $5.93 million (New York), Crawford says. (The others are spend all the money or leave it to your spouse.) In the new charitable giving, Crawford says, celebrities may be echoing John D. Rockefeller Jr., who worried that an inherited fortune is a disincentive to the independence and fulfilling lives and careers of future generations. The Rockefellers, of course, have had a multigenerational tradition of philanthropy. Yet we remember that when Nelson A. Rockefeller — the former vice president of the United States (under President Gerald Ford) and New York state governor — left Kykuit, the family estate in Pocantico Hills, in part to the National Trust for Historic Preservation at his death in 1979, there was a certain wistfulness among some of his relatives. It had, after all, been their grandparents’ home. Wisftulness in some turns to anger and resentment in others at the “loss” of a potential inheritance that wasn’t theirs to begin with. Others don’t wait until their parents die to claim what they believe to be theirs. In 2006, New York and the rest of the world was stunned to learn that beloved philanthropist and centenarian Brooke Astor was a victim of elder abuse at the hands of her son and guardian, Tony Marshall, who raided her estate to enrich himself and fund his Broadway shows. He was convicted of grand larceny and scheming to defraud her and sentenced to three years in prison, which he began serving in 2013. (A few months later, he was granted a medical parole and died in 2014.) That’s why it’s important, Crawford says, particularly for seniors, to have a conversation with their trusted advisers and heirs about their wills so that grief is not compounded by the shock of getting less than they imagined. For more, visit law.pace.edu.
Daniel Craig, seen here at the Academy Awards in 2007, is among the growing number of celebrities who think inheriting great wealth will hamper their children in developing themselves – to say nothing of the tax incentive to leaving large sums to charity.
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IONA COLLEGE JOINS WITH SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY’S IVMF TO HELP “VETPRENEURS” WITH SBA GRANT The Small Business Administration (SBA) launched a $100 million competitive grant program to strengthen outreach to businesses in underserved communities enacted through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Iona College’s Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation was selected by Syracuse University’s Institute for Veteran & Military Families (IVMF) to support their $5 million SBA funded Community Navigator Pilot Program. Iona College serves as one the “spokes” to work with the IVMF “hub” to provide free services to the veteran entrepreneurship community in New York State and the National Capital Region in the following program areas: • Entrepreneurship education through workshops and webinars in the areas of financial literacy, financial assistance, business planning, marketing, accounting, legal issues, and government contracts. • 1:1 technical assistance to veteran-owned small businesses through business advisors and access to free services provided by the Community Navigator Pilot network such as: loan assistance, financial literacy, credit counseling, CDFI services, corporate and federal contracting, legal services, insurance and risk management, and accounting/taxation. • Referral services to — Programs offered through IVMF (EBV-SPARK, VWISE, EBV-Accelerate) — Regional SBA resources (e.g., SBDC, WBC, SCORE)
For more information and inquiries on the program, please contact us at hynesinstitute@iona.edu. TO RECEIVE PROGRAM UPDATES: Sign up for our mailing list at Iona.edu/sbaveterans or Scan QR Code
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ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INNOVATION FOR ALL At Iona College, we know that everyone — regardless of major or program — can be an entrepreneurial and innovative leader. The Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is an interdisciplinary hub for the development of creativity and leadership skills critical for success in a global economy. Learn how to take your ideas from concept to execution. Take a course on the entrepreneurial mindset, attend a guest lecture and collaborate with peers and mentors in our coworking space.
LEARN TO LEAD The Hynes Institute has curricular offerings for every type of Iona student. Get a taste of entrepreneurial thinking, then dive deeper into design thinking, business modeling and leadership with our undergraduate minor, two undergraduate majors, or graduate certificate program that can be taken alone or as part of an MBA.
iona.edu/hynesinstitute
Robert Siegel, principal, Robert Siegel Architects. Photograph by Gabe Palacio.
Security in style BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Crisis has had a way of bringing international architect Robert Siegel from Manhattan to Katonah. After 9/11, he moved from Battery Park City to a Katonah house that he designed, earning an American Institute of Architects (AIA) High Honor Award. Ten years later, amid the Covid pandemic, he decided to relocate Robert Siegel Architects — which had had several homes in Manhattan, most recently in the Chrysler Building — to a Katonah storefront. “The Chrysler Building is a beautiful building and it’s steps away from Grand Central,” he says of one of the finest extant examples of Art Deco architecture. “Every day I’d walk by the lobby,” he adds of the ancient Egyptian temple-like space, which is embellished with Carrera marble and English boxwood and whose elevator cars are each distinct. “After that, it’s an office building like any office building in New York City.” Now he’s in a Katonah storefront where he and his staff of 15 can connect with the community. “People stop by our windows to look at the models of the buildings we design,” says Siegel, who is the principal in his firm. “There’s this conversation: What do architects do? That’s been great.” What this architect does is a range of work, from home design in the style of what he calls “sumptuous Modernism” — “I’m a Modernist through and through Modernist in a forward-looking way”; to historic preservation at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx and Purchase College’s Conservatory of Dance (garnering an AIA Westchester Historic Preservation Honor Award for the latter); to renovations for such retail spaces as Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue, both at their Manhattan flagships and nationwide. In Brewster, he’s creating a dining room with a retractable roof in a horseshoe-shaped garden at the Italian restaurant Rraci’s. But what makes Siegel different from many other architects is a particular kind of public work, for the United States government and those of other countries. He designed the stunning green, glass Republic of Korea (South Korea) Embassy in Beijing, a 1995 commission resulting from taking first place in a compe-
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The United States’ Land Port of Entry building in Calais, Maine, reflects Robert Siegel’s gift for accessible yet secure design. Photograph by Paul Warchol.
tition for best design. At home, he’s designed border stations — officially Land Ports of Entry — that welcome immigrants and visitors to our country, like the one in Calais (pronounced “Callus” in English, “Cal LAY” in French), Maine. What makes these buildings especially challenging, Siegel says, is their seeming contradiction. They’re at once transitional and permanent, accessible and yet necessarily formidable. Taking stock of a proposed building’s surroundings and the materials native to those, Siegel says he plays with scale, using windows and doors to make official buildings less forbidding. At Calais, he used aluminum and the inspiration of Maine’s distinctive rocky landscape and natural light, so beloved by artists like Edward Hopper. “The façade panels are expanded aluminum mesh with a bright anodized finish,” he says. “The combination of embossing to create the rock-like form, the open weave of the mesh and the bright anodized finish…reflects the light conditions around them and appears to change color with the sky.”
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The result is a structure that is both imposing and enticing. Like Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses, Siegel would say, “I am a part of all that I have met.” That’s especially true of his childhood in Levittown, Long Island, the first in a series of postwar suburban developments in the Northeast and Puerto Rico for returning GIs and their families, created by William J. Levitt and his firm, Levitt & Sons. (Initially, the developments excluded African Americans, which led to the involvement of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s and legislative change.) As a high school student in the late ’70s, Siegel worked on some of the Levittown houses while apprenticing with a local architect. But he also crewed and played piano in a jazz band. He earned academic scholarships to the Syracuse University School of Architecture, from which he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree, and to the Facolta di Architetturà di Siracusa in Florence, Italy — a city that is no slouch when it comes to great buildings. Siegel calls his time in Italy “the best year of my life,” as it brought together
many of the things he loves. After practicing and teaching in Boston, Siegel won another academic scholarship, this time to attend Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where he earned his Master of Science in architecture and building design. In 1989, he went to Russia to participate in an exchange program with the Moscow Institute of Architecture. Two years later, he established his practice, working with a partner for 10 years before heading up his own firm. Siegel also taught undergraduates and graduate students at the Boston Architectural Center, City College, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute and Syracuse University. Now he’s engaged in another kind of teaching as well — educating the Katonah community by being in its midst. “What’s amazing is that people come in off the street and thank me,” Siegel says, marveling. “They say, ‘This is so great for our town.’” For more, visit robertsiegelarchitects. com.
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Financing eldercare BY ABBE UDOCHI
M
y grandmother told me that she wanted her death to be easy on her family. “No muss, fuss or chaos,” she said. She wrote and updated her will, named a health-care proxy, assigned power of attorney, added my mother — her only child — to her bank and other accounts and made her endof-life wishes known. She died peacefully in her home at age 84. She had a plan and it worked for her. I think of this as my grandmother’s legacy as I serve clients as CEO and care manager at Concierge Healthcare Consulting LLC in New Rochelle. I know the consequences of not having a plan. In one case, a couple with advancing dementia were incapable of managing their care. Documents made years ago — trusts, powers of attorney (POA), wills, living wills — were outdated or incomplete. Financial and insurance documents were in disarray. There was no long-term care insurance (LTCI). Their attempts at asset protection remained unfinished. Resources were squandered because they were ill-equipped to make important decisions. Can we escape these weighty steps and take it day-by-day with eldercare? While we all would like to drink from the fountain of youth, statistically the font will eventually run dry. According to the Lewin Group, 48% of Americans 65 and older have a chronic condition or functional limitation. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that nearly 70% of retirees will need long-term care. When health needs arise, having an adaptable care plan and a strategy to finance it for yourself or your loved ones can take much of the stress out of a needed transition. Whether you’re managing multiple health conditions in your 50s and 60s or healthy and active in your 80s and 90s, everyone needs a plan.
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FINANCING HOME CARE
J Heinlein, president and owner of Synergy Home Care of Westchester, says that home care has financial advantages. “Private pay home care allows the family the greatest degree of flexibility on days and hours of care, the caregiver, location and specific tasks/activities,” he says. To calculate costs, research the charge for a private individual versus an agency hire, include the level of care, multiply by number of hours. Remember that It’s not unusual for a few hours of companion care to expand to 24/7 skilled nursing care. “Always have a fallback plan in place,” says Heinlein who also suggests identifying all potential caregivers within the family's network who could fill in during a crisis.
WHEN CARE COSTS ESCALATE
There may come a time when what’s required exceeds care that can be set up in the home in a cost-effective way. Aging in Place, as my grandmother did, isn’t always feasible. Move in with “the kids”? Sandwich Generation members in their 40s and 50s may be balancing the needs of growing teens and senior parents. Explore the costs of independent living, assisted living, memory care or a nursing home before a move is imminent. Paul Doyle, president of Oasis Senior Advisors, says, “Decisions are emotional, financial and clinical. Once you’re looking into care this is Retirement 2.0.” Before any move is made, he advises all to ask, ‘Why am I (or my parent) moving?’ Is it because home maintenance and household chores — mowing the lawn, shopping for food — have become too difficult? Is help needed with personal hygiene, mobility, medication management or meal preparation? The latter will entail increasing care, which could become cumbersome and costly if you stay at home.
Long-term care insurance (LTCI), purchased preferably in your 40s, 50s or even early 60s, can help defray costs, but be prepared to keep up with the premiums. Lapse and you’ll lose the benefits. And don’t naysay LTCI because it didn’t work for Aunt Mia six years ago. “The new products are totally different. Some even have a death benefit,” says Doyle. Once the policy is activated, you’ll stop paying premiums, so don’t delay usage if care is needed. Veterans’ aid can be a funding source. “The VA’s Aid & Attendance benefit can be valuable to anyone who served in the military and their surviving spouse with modest eligibility rules,” says Doyle.
LEGAL ASPECTS OF FINANCING ELDERCARE
Ariel Rosenzveig, an eldercare and trusts and estates attorney, notes that a will is never enough. Not only do you also need advance
How to avoid Medicare’s late enrollment penalties
An eldercare plan requires not only specific documents like wills, living wills, trusts and powers of attorney but continual fine-tuning.
directives — a POA, health-care proxy and a living will — but these need to reflect your current financial circumstances. While a standard statutory POA will take care of day-to-day expenses, a more expansive document enables planning that goes beyond paying bills. Proper planning considers future eldercare needs and, in many cases, includes asset protection. Since care can cost as much as $15,000 to $18,000 a month and the average person will need at least two and a half years of care, assets can be eviscerated. While the very wealthy can self-insure, most cannot. Various mechanisms help shield assets so that a person can ultimately qualify for Medicaid to cover long-term care. “The earlier planning is done, the more opportunity there is to protect a greater amount of assets, Rosenzveig says. “With New York’s look-back period for nursing home care and soon-to-be home care (15 months of records as of Jan. 1), it is best that planning be done in
advance. That said, even when the need is imminent, you need a plan.” Most nursing homes in the metro area accept Medicaid. Community Medicaid includes home care and assisted living. Institutional Medicaid deals specifically with nursing home care.
SO MANY CHOICES AND DECISIONS
Breathe deeply. Repeat. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the many aspects and potential costs of eldercare. Remember that while the goal is to plan, the best laid plans of …You know the rest. In any health-care situation, the unexpected is expected. Try to craft a proactive plan, but if a crisis hits, create a reactive one — within your budget. Examine the choices and develop a thoughtful strategy rather than act impulsively. Heed those you trust or find new advisers. You don’t have to do this alone. Then breathe deeply. Repeat. For more, visit concierge-care.com.
While unexpected eldercare expenses can create cracks in your nest egg, Medicare coverage is vital to any financial plan. In 2019, it paid almost $800 billion in medical and drug expenses for older Americans, according to the National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA). Yet the lifeline can have a string in the form of late enrollment penalties that don’t expire. Ben Abboa-Offei, a Medicare health insurance assistance program counselor, urges, “As soon as you are no longer receiving employerbased health coverage, enroll in Part B. It is one of the prerequisites for Part D.” Part B covers medically necessary and preventive services; Part D, prescription drugs. If you work past 65, find out if your employer-based drug coverage is ‘creditable coverage’ —equal to or better than Part D. If not, you have 63-days to enroll in a drug plan or incur a penalty calculated by multiplying by 1% the months you weren’t covered by a base beneficiary premium, which goes up annually. In 2022, it is $33.37. To protect your wallet from penalties: Confirm enrollment deadlines and Medicare timeframes. Secure a notice of creditable coverage from your employer every year and keep it handy for proof of coverage. Start shopping for a Part D plan if your drug plan changes and no longer equals or exceeds Part D. Abboa-Offei says, “Medicare is insurance. They want a pool of people to sign up. Without a penalty, some will delay enrollment until a health crisis occurs and expensive medications are required… The permanent penalty … encourage(s) timely enrollment.” Late enrollment penalties can be disputed under reconsideration within 60 days of notification. For more, visit medicare.gov.
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An entrepreneur with kindness BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
“I always had it in the back of my mind that I was going to start some kind of business on Martha’s Vineyard, my happy place,” says Susanna Herlitz-Ferguson. But what kind of business? One day a little voice brought her back to her kitchen in Larchmont in 1995. There her sister-in-law, who was helping her prepare a family dinner, asked, “Why don’t you whip up the dressing?” “I must admit that I’m not the best in the kitchen or in love with dressing,” Herlitz-Ferguson remembers. But she didn’t want to disappoint her sister-in-law, so she made a vinaigrette of oil, balsamic vinegar and herbs that family and friends said was “marvelous. It became known as Susanna’s dressing.” For years, though, she resisted requests to bottle it, not seeing herself in a food-related business — just yet. But on the Vineyard, to which she moved four years ago, that little voice said, “What about the dress-
Susanna Herlitz-Ferguson, creator of MV The Dressing and founding owner of MV Salads on Martha’s Vineyard. Photograph by Paul Morejean. 50 JANUARY 2022
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Photograph by Heidi Wild.
ing?” Thus MV Salads, which opened in 2019, was born. The salad shop, which was named “Best New Restaurant” by Martha’s Vineyard magazine, has indoor and outdoor seating and features branded products that include the dressing born in Westchester County 27 years ago. MV The Dressing comes with a recipe tag that allows you to spice it up or turn it into a Green Goddess iteration. As with the dressing label, MV products — including T-, golf and sweatshirts, hoodies, pullovers, tote and insulated grocery bags and to-go utensils — are graced with leaning coral hearts, because Herlitz-Ferguson says she wants to be an entrepreneur with kindness, something that’s apparent from the warm, welcoming attitude she conveys in our phone interview. The design also speaks to a graphics background honed in what was West Berlin,
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where she was born, raised and imbued with the shame and guilt of Germany’s Nazi past, “even though my family was on the victim side of things.” Wanting to leave, she came to the United States and settled on the west coast of Florida. But though she found it “beautiful,” it didn’t have the culture she was seeking so she came to New York City, continuing her work in graphics design. She also went to work for the now-defunct Herlitz International Inc., a paper and pulp trading business in Greenwich. A short-lived marriage left her a single mother of four in Larchmont. She continued to work with the paper company as a consultant and to make her dressing for fun. But eventually with her youngest grown and her life centered on the Vineyard, she decided to
embark on a business in which she had no expertise. She began with the dressing itself in 2018, producing a small, shelf-stable batch that met with U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval, as well as her own, at a bottling plant in Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Ready to give the dressing a permanent home in an eatery, she turned to Ronald Levine of RL Hospitality Network for the kitchen design and James Beard Award-winning chef Bradford Thompson for the farmto-table salad menu that includes vegan and gluten-free offerings. The designs of MV Salads — right down to the succulents on the communal tables — are all her own. “The first year of MV Salads looked amazing to the outside world. We were crazy busy and excited to get rave reviews from customers,” Herlitz-Ferguson has said of the spring 2019 launch. “However, behind the scenes there was a lot of commotion as I learned how to run a food business. The good news is that we didn’t lose any money and we actually made some.” When the seasonal salad shop closed for fall and winter, Herlitz-Ferguson expanded production of the dressing, using a co-packing manufacturer in New Haven. Adding online food ordering got her through the pandemic summer of 2020. The restaurant flourished once again this year, although it had to close for the season earlier than planned, because of the labor shortages that have plagued so many other businesses. “When customers left the Vineyard this season, many purchased cases of MV The Dressing to take with them,” Herlitz-Ferguson says. “That’s when I knew my salad dressing had truly achieved success and that I needed to ramp up production for the upcoming holiday season.” To date, she has sold more than 3,500 bottles. Herlitz-Ferguson wants to continue to grow her business slowly. She’s considering putting the dressing on Amazon and opening another shop on the Vineyard. Though she is moving cautiously, she has big dreams for her baby: “The plan is to make the dressing famous.” For more, visit mvsalads.com.
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A resort dogs can howl about BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
The first time dogs come to Wiggles Pet Resort in Mahopac, Laura Laaman says, they’re shy. After all, this may be a veterinarian’s office or a shelter. But no, this is a new luxury pet resort. The second time they arrive, their tails are wagging. “That’s why we named it Wiggles,” adds Laaman, who owns the resort with son Craig. The pair bought Stone Meadow Kennel in April and spent three months — and $3 million — on the 2-acre site, including “well over” $1 million in renovations. The approximately 8,000-squarefoot interior space includes a kitchen and 100 glass-fronted suites with privacy panels, raised beds, fuzzy blankets and soothing music designed for dogs.
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Laura Laaman, co-owner (with son Craig) of the new Wiggles Pet Resort in Mahopac. There’s plenty of room for dogs to relax or run, engage or not at the new Wiggles Pet Resort in Mahopac. Photographs courtesy Wiggles Pet Resort. JANUARY 2022
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“We actually did a lot of research on music that would be relaxing,” Laaman says. (Classical is a favorite.) DogTV, with images of dogs romping, plays at night. “Seeing other dogs playing really relaxes them,” Laaman says. “It’s calming and entertaining.” Speaking of romping, she adds that there’s also an indoor/outdoor pavilion with a heated, evaporative cooling system that dogs can run around in regardless of the weather. Both indoor and outdoor play areas feature approximately 20,000 square feet of K9 Grass turf at a cost of more than $200,000. It’s an antimicrobial forever lawn known for its superior drainage — which is a good thing as there’s lots of splashing about in the dog bone-shaped wading pools. Forget about the dogs: When can we move in? Alas, Wiggles is designed for pooches and pet parents looking to take advantage of any of four services the Laamans and their staff of 20 offer — training, grooming, daycare and boarding. “We’re seeing more boarding and daycare is booming,” Laaman says. “People are going back to work, and dogs need an outlet to run around in and engage with other dogs.” Growing up outside Buffalo, Laaman “was
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always interested in animals. I wanted to be a vet.” Instead, life dealt her a challenging hand, one that would lead her to help businesses, pets and pet businesses. Laaman’s father lost a leg and most of his platoon — he was with the 509th Infantry Battalion — during World War II. With a small GI severance, he started a furniture and appliance business but died at age 57, leaving Laaman on her own at 15. Because her father was a World War II veteran, Laaman was able to enroll in college, supporting herself with waitressing and sales jobs. It was her work in sales and observing salespeople that led her to become a consultant, speaker and author. Laaman’s Outstanding Pet Care provides veterinarians and pet-lodging businesses with strategies for improvement. She also operates Laura Laaman & Associates, a management consulting firm in Southbury, Connecticut. Because of her background, Laaman has a special place in her heart for the military. “We love working with vets,” she says. And she advocates for the United States War Dogs Association, a nonprofit providing lifetime practical support to military working dogs, their handlers and their adopted families. “I’m very proud to have adopted, raised
and trained Belgian Malinois myself,” Laaman says of a breed that plays a key role in the U.S. military. (You may remember that Cairo, a Mal, was part of the Seal Team 6 takedown of Osama bin Laden.) “Although Malinois don’t always thrive in a family pet setting, I find their loyalty, intelligence and capability difficult to ignore.” Now she’s blending her love of animals and business in Wiggles, along with her experience as a pet parent. She and husband Phillip, have two sons, Craig and Derek, and three dogs — Guinness, a black Labrador Retriever; Piccadilly, a chocolate Labradoodle; and Eiffel, another Labradoodle. Craig — with whom Laaman has helped more than 200 pet-care facilities in North America — and his wife, Natalie, have a son and two Goldendoodles — father and son Archer and Jet. “We love all dogs, all breeds,” Laaman says. “Every breed is a great dog if raised well.” At Wiggles, Laaman not only wants to help pet parents raise their pooches but to see every dog use all of his senses and revel in the surroundings. “We want this to be a second home for every dog to enjoy.” For more, visit wigglespetresort.com.
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Where a good cigar is really a smoke BY JEREMY WAYNE
W
hen the music business started to become unpredictable owing to the shift to digital online music 15 or so years ago, music marketing supremo, talent scout and cigar aficionado Nick Casinelli decided to quit the industry and open his own business. In November 2007, he launched the Connecticut Cigar Co. in downtown Stamford. “From a marketing point of view,” says Casinelli, a soft-spoken Stamford native, whose flowing gray locks perfectly evince his music-industry background, “I approach the cigar business like the entertainment business. Cigars are a big form of entertainment.” That “entertainment” might start with watching Max Compres, the company’s Dominican Republic-born cigar roller, at work at his high table in the window of the store, rolling the Connecticut Cigar Co.’s own cigars, which it sells alongside established retail brands from countries like the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras. “Max has been our chief roller from day one,” says Casinelli. “In fact, he was rolling for six months prior to us opening in 2007, to make sure we got exactly the blend we wanted.” Rolling cigars, which involves wrapping, filling and binding the tobacco leaves before placing them into molds before they are finished is an art that takes a lot of knowledge of tobacco, as well as experience, of course. There is also a degree of experimentation, Casinelli explains, finding new and nuanced blends to suit customers’ tastes. No two types of cigar should be the same, he says, with the age of the tobacco, the blend, the rolling process and the size of the cigar all playing their parts in creating a unique, even “boutique” smoke. Constantly, Casinelli returns to the comparison between cigar manufacture and
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Nick’s Cigar Social. Photograph by Jeremy Wayne. winemaking, where grape varietal, vintage, length of time during which the wine is aged in whichever type of barrel — all coupled with the vintner’s special skills — produce wines that are individual and distinct. And just as a wine label is no guarantee of a wine’s quality but can nevertheless be intriguing and inviting, a work of art in its own right, so, too, with the packaging and “labeling” of cigars. Cigar boxes are often beautiful. Metal cigar tubes may be tantalizing, even sexy. (Perhaps this was another aspect of the cigar business that appealed to the marketing man in Casinelli.) Like the company’s own cigars, its imported brands encompass a variety of blends, with tobacco coming from Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecua-
dor, Cameroon and — not least — Connecticut. It may come as a surprise to learn that tobacco has been grown in the Constitution State for well over 100 years. Soil enriched with nutrients from the Connecticut River, coupled with hot summers and high humidity, make for excellent growing conditions, although unlike the tropical and subtropical growing regions, Connecticut has only one growing season. While the store’s inventory seems large and varied, Casinelli points out that he can carry only a fraction of what he would like to. He has to compete with online retailers, a universal struggle faced by so many small, independent, brick-and-mortar storekeepers across the board. On the other hand, online buyers don’t
Cigar wall at the Connecticut Cigar Co. Photograph by Cristian Apruzzese.
get to hold and smell the product — or to imbibe the atmosphere of a store like the CCC. Casinelli buys based on quality, value, what he thinks will sell, what he himself enjoys and what he can confidently recommend. A Prensado from manufacturer Alec Bradley, a flavorful blend of Honduran and Nicaraguan tobacco that is a “small well-constructed cigar and not too strong and not too light;" a “benchmark” Romeo y Julieta, which Casinelli guarantees is “always going to be fine, with a reasonable price point”; and an Avo cigar with a consistency that is “as good as it gets” are among his best sellers. Cigars, he points out, too, are “situational.” An inexpensive cigar, something you can chew on, like a relatively thin, CCC house-
brand Corona, might be a great smoke with a morning cup of coffee at the computer, or while cutting the grass, but an evening with cigar-smoking friends around the firepit, or a formal dinner, might call for a bigger, longer-burning cigar and likely one with a stronger, richer profile. As for what to drink, Casinelli’s best advice is to stick with what you enjoy. While red wine traditionally makes a great cigar accompaniment, Casinelli says, if you don’t like red wine — cigar or no cigar — it’s never going to do it for you. But as a general rule, think about a regular beer with a simple, straightforward cigar, he advises, moving up the ranks with a “better” cigar, and on to red wine, Scotch, single malts and brandies (what Casinelli calls “the brown liquors”) with the pricier, more complex smokes. Another amenity online retailers can’t provide is a space to smoke. At the rear of the company’s retail store is an atmospheric members’ cigar lounge, known as Nick’s Cigar Social. Renovated by Casinelli himself during the long months of Covid when the store was closed, this ambient space, where soft drinks and snacks are available, features rich, maroon-colored walls, hardwood floors, deep and comfortable leather club chairs, a wonderful collection of vintage jazz instruments and assorted jazz fedoras and trilbies left casually on side tables. A magnificent, vintage Art Deco
poster advertises the appearance of Josephine Baker at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, in February 1927. Great jazz and good cigars seem to be natural bedfellows and, to that end, the lounge regularly hosts live jazz performances, as well as blues, singer-songwriter, classic rock and standup comedy nights. Themed movie and sports nights are a feature, too, and lately, burlesque has entered the lineup. “It’s quite the night of entertainment, the burlesque,” Casinelli reveals, with a twinkle in his eye. (Nonmembers may use the lounge with the purchase of at least two cigars.) The company will also attend events offsite, setting up its cigar rolling station with a cigar roller and an attendant, a popular sideshow at weddings, country club outings, golf and charity events and special birthdays — basically, wherever cigars are socially acceptable. Back at the lounge, meanwhile, members can store their own liquor, along with cigars, in private lockers. (Connecticut law prohibits the sale of alcohol on the premises but allows the consumption of it) and the lounge is open 24 hours, with member access directly from the street via a code. It’s such a wonderfully sophisticated, cultivated, clubby and urbane setup, it could have even the most smoke-averse, jazz-phobic, teetotal moralist scrambling to sign the membership application form. For more, visit ctcigarco.com.
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Super Tuscan vintages at bargain prices STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG PAULDING
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he last time I was in Tuscany was about six years ago on a media trip to explore the wines from the west coast of this Italian region near the Tyrrhenian Sea. Maremma and Montecucco are two Tuscan subregions experiencing major infusions of interest and money. As the price of vineyard land in central Tuscany exploded, other nearby regions became more attractive. Many of the new vineyards and some existing established wine estates that have been producing wine for generations now are owned by some of the titled and royal names of Italy. Antinori and Frescaboldi are two such names that have wine and other holdings throughout Italy and have been making wine for many generations. Frescobaldi’s wine production stretches back 700-plus years to the year 1308 and Antinori’s wine emergence happened 636 years ago in 1385. Throughout Italy there exists a qualitative wine-ranking system. Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) is the highest designation for Italian wines, while the Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) is slightly more relaxed. These two classifications require strict adherence to grapes allowed and oak aging and bottle release times among other things, and both require a wine-jury tasting before the label is affixed to the bottle. On the label is a specific number and a QR code so the curious consumer can learn virtually everything about the wine. But these restrictive measures in place didn’t work with some producers who wanted to grow grapes not allowed by these standards. Sassicaia began to plant some Bordeaux noble varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Verdot in the 1960s. Thus was born the Super Tuscan
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A white and a red wine from Ornellaia's prestigious estate in western Tuscany.
unofficial designation. Within the region of Maremma in and around the city of Bolgheri along the western coastline several other Super Tuscan producers are now fully established and making some wonderful wines. Solaia, Ornellaia, Tignanello, Messorio and Tua Rita Redigaffi are a few of the wines that have bucked the system and the prices they command are proof of their excellence. I recently received a package containing a red and a white wine from Ornellaia. Le Serre Nuove Dell’ Ornellaia is known as the vineyard’s second label, “Made with the same passion and attention to detail” as the flagship brand Ornellaia. It showed flavors of dark fruit, blackberry and dark cherry with balsamic presence and a velvety texture. The wine was layered with pleasant tannins for mouthfeel and presented great spicy aromatics. The white wine, Poggio Alle Gazze Dell’Ornellaia, also from 2019, exhibits Sauvignon Blanc dominant flavors accented with Vermentino and Verdicchio, showing crisp, fresh citrus, puckery lemon and finely ground white pepper. Both are delicious, worthy discoveries.
The top labels for these Super Tuscan producers will typically cost you $200 to $300 per bottle. This obviously is a special occasion wine for most of us. But each of these producers also make other labels, often from the same or adjacent vineyards, made by the same winemaker with all the winery’s tanks, barrels and staff. In good vintage years, these second- and third-label wines can be found for a fraction of the first-label cost, sometimes with little or no discernable difference between the tiers. In lesser vintage years, most of the best quality grapes will be employed in the first label. But in regional banner vintages, it is possible to buy the second labels for $50 to $60 per bottle. Each of the wines I tasted here have a suggested retail price of $82. But I found each online for considerably less. For those vintage years, find a well-stocked store like The Wine Connection in Pound Ridge, Total Wines in Norwalk or Zachys in Scarsdale that offers case discounts, and you can be essentially savoring a $250 bottle for $50 or $60. That’s smart shopping and will put a smile on your face — guaranteed. Write me at doug@dougpaulding.com.
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A better way to breakfast BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Growing up in Brooklyn after emigrating from Israel with her parents in 1993, Margaret Wishingrad ate cereal for breakfast – like most American kids. It wasn’t until her son Ellis was born in 2017 that she began to think about what cereal consists of. “I realized there was no truly clean cereal,” says the Scarsdale resident. So in October 2019, just months before the pandemic hit, she launched Three Wishes Cereal, now a multimillion-dollar company. Its product is a high-protein, low-sugar, gluten- and grain-free cereal made with four to eight ingredients, including chickpea, pea protein, tapioca, organic cane sugar, monk fruit and vegetable juice. And it comes in six flavors — cinnamon, honey, frosted, fruity, cocoa and unsweetened. There’s also a seasonal flavor, the present one being pumpkin spice. The Three Wishes in Three Wishes Cereal are the Three original Wishingrads on the project — Margaret, husband and co-founder Ian and muse Ellis.
Margaret Wishingrad, CEO and co-founder of Three Wishes Cereal. JANUARY 2022 WAGMAG.COM 63
Margaret Wishingrad, CEO of Three Wishes Cereal, with her husband and brand co-founder Ian Wishingrad. Their elder son, Ellis, was the inspiration for the brand.
“I’ve always loved food,” Margaret says. “What I really wanted to do was go to culinary school, but my parents didn’t think it was good enough.” So instead she majored in sociology at Hunter College in Manhattan. Looking back, she says, sociology was good preparation for creating and marketing a cereal as it helped her understand how people think. After college Margaret worked in real estate. When she met and married the Stamford-born and raised Ian, she joined his Manhattan ad agency, BigEyedWish, whose clients have included AT&T, Macy’s, Nestlé and Diageo, a beer and spirits producer. As chief of staff for BigEyedWish over eight years, Margaret worked with Fortune 100 companies to seed start-ups. Little did she know she was preparing the ground — or should we say palate — for her own start-up once Ellis was born and she began feeding him solid foods. Creating a product that was not “dessert masquerading as breakfast” by turning the family cupboard upside-down, as Three Wishes Cereal’s website notes, is one thing. Producing it (in the United States) and get-
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ting it onto store shelves is another. Here’s where the couple’s marketing savvy came in to play. “Retail is a whole different game,” Margaret says. “A grocery store isn’t going to expand its shelves. To get that placement (on the shelves), something is going to have to be taken down.” Which means that you’re going to have to convince stores that what you have is worth the placement. Clearly, the Wishingrads have been able to make the case that their brand — part of a venerable tradition that is as American as apple pie — is a better way to breakfast. The cereal is in all the high-end supermarkets, including Balducci’s, DeCicco & Sons, Erewhon, The Fresh Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, Stew Leonard’s and Whole Foods. It has a “decent footprint” in Bronxville Natural Market. It also has a strong DTC (direct-to-consumer) arm. “I think consumers over time have be-
come more knowledgeable about what they put into their bodies,” Margaret says. “They want products that are healthy.” Products like the Fruity cereal, which was going into production last year as Margaret was on another production — giving birth to younger son Jonah. “The saying ‘it takes a village’ is a cliché, because it is extremely true,” she says of her support team, led by Ian, whom she calls “a great helper” both at home and in business, where he handles the advertising end of Three Wishes Cereal. Margaret in turn serves as consultant to BigEyedWish. And what is their BigEyedWish for Three Wishes? “Our next wish is for the cereal to become a staple in every home in America,” she says. “Being known as a classic is the goal.” For more, visit threewishescereal.com and bigeyedwish.com.
“OUR NEXT WISH IS FOR THE CEREAL TO BECOME A STAPLE IN EVERY HOME IN AMERICA ... BEING KNOWN AS A CLASSIC IS THE GOAL."
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Floral Design - Spring in the Winter Friday, January 28, 7 PM - 9 PM Floral Design Workshop Coordinator: Nadia Ghannam Over 20 years of experience in the arts and museum field
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The real Greek BY JEREMY WAYNE
“E
nter as strangers, leave as friends,” the menu at Greca, the new Greek restaurant in White Plains commands you. In some circumstances that might be regarded as somewhat fresh — an impertinence, if you will. But at Greca, where recent meals have both delighted and impressed, it seems an entirely reasonable ordinance. First things first and I’m a sucker for a good olive. Nice, fat purple ones, for preference, a whole dish of them, fleshy with Mediterranean sunshine. That’s what you get at Greca as soon as you’re through the door and have parked your behind on one of Greca’s burnt umber banquettes or well-upholstered chairs or barstools. Greca, you may wish to know, not that it particularly signifies, is on the site formerly occupied by Mediterraneo, opposite the dancing fountains on Main Street. (WAG’s Peter Katz covered the opening party in our October 2021 issue.) The restaurant, spread over three floors with a bar at street level, seats up to 200 people. It’s big and bright, with floor to (extremely high) ceiling windows, gets mobbed at weekends but is atmospheric, too, on a Monday lunchtime, although its look is as far removed from your archetypal Greek taverna as it is possible to get. Not that you should hold that against it, because there are other elements to consider — and looks, after all, are only skin deep. Take the welcome, which is kind and considerate. It comes from a smiling waiter who has relieved you of your coat and other wintry accoutrements and thrust a menu into your hand and those olives onto the table before you even know it. Or, if you’re lucky, it comes from co-owner and former journalist, chef and restaurant consultant, Constantine “Dino” Kolitsas, whose dad emigrated from
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Constantine “Dino” Kolitsas, co-owner of Greca in White Plains. Photograph by Vickey Hochman.
Andros in Greece in 1955 but who grew up in Danbury, and whose deep love of Greek food came from his aunt’s exceptional cooking. He is often at the door, waiting to greet guests. Kolitsas heard about the White Plains site from the designer of his other restaurant, also Greca, in New Milford. Her husband worked for Rexon, a company affiliated with the Louis Cappelli Organization, based in White Plains. Cappelli, it so happened, was looking for an operator for the site and a meeting was set up. Kolitsas met with Bruce Bird, CEO of Cappelli’s company, walked the restaurant, loved the space and suggested he cook for Louis Cappelli up at the New Milford restaurant. “Mr. Cappelli,” he was informed, was not ac-
customed to leaving White Plains, so Kolitsas headed south with his chef and kitchen brigade to cook for him in White Plains instead. Greca Mule (cocktails) and Old Fashioneds were served, a dozen or so appetizers, salads and around 10 different entrées followed. Kolitsas said to Louis Cappelli, “What do you think?” and Cappelli replied, “You had me at the dips.” Ah, those dips. There are around eight of them, including melitzanosalata (roasted eggplant), tyrokafteri (feta with yogurt and chilies) and taramasalata (the classic dish of whipped cod’s roe, as common in Greece as hummus is throughout the Middle East, but which is virtually impossible to find in the United States)
Greca exterior. Photograph by Voyin Hmak.
and they are winners, every one. Salads, like the Greca bowl, with pligouri (cracked wheat) and soft kefalgraviera are fresh and generous, and at lunchtime the sandwiches, filled pitas and spanakopita (spinach pie) all have a ping of freshness as well as the ring of authenticity to them. There are grills, too, like lavraki, a whole branzino cooked on the open fire, or kalamakia — skewers of chicken or pork. Salmon comes simply seared with a little sage and a light Champagne sauce and is superb. Imam baildi is a wonderful dish of slow roasted eggplant with lemony potatoes, while hilopites — Greek egg pasta with whipped cauliflower, roasted mushrooms, truffle oil and Pecorino —
reinforces the message that Greca can be just as fine a restaurant for vegetarians (and often vegans), as it is a terrific place for meat. In the evenings, dolmades (stuffed vine leaves), spicy sausages, grilled octopus, a seafood stew and chargrilled steaks and chops fill out the dinner menu, while desserts include those glorious confections of phyllo pastry and milky custards that makes Greek desserts generally so compelling. The man responsible for all these dainties is Albanian-born chef Kosta Ndreu, whose cuisine Kolitsas describes as “rustic and reimagined” Greek food. “‘Rustic’ describes the authentic things that my grandmother made and my aunt still makes on the island,” he says. “‘Reimagined’ is the direction in which a lot of chefs on Mykonos, in Santorini and in Athens are taking Greek cuisine.” They’re taking Greek elements, specialty items, he says, and making them exciting and new. “In one dish for instance, (chef) takes a crab cake and wraps it in kataifi (super-thin, spirally phyllo,) then tops it with some feta and truffle-laced honey. It’s an incredible bite — very Greek — but not a dish my grandmother would have made.” Another is trahana — a
kind of dried pasta made with yogurt — which incidentally Kolitsas tells me was how the starving Greeks survived the Nazi occupation in World War ll. At Greca, they rinse out all the starch from the trahana until they’re left with something which looks like Israeli couscous, which is then roasted with shallots and mushrooms and tossed with extra virgin olive oil. I haven’t tried it yet but I plan to. With two Grecas already under his belt, Kolitsas makes no secret of developing Greca as a brand and, although he prefers not to say where, he already has his sights set on some other towns. “It’s all about the scaleability and design,” he says. “The lemons on the tables, for instance, they’re not an accident. Everything is intended to convey what we’re about. Everything is fresh, clean, healthy and upscale.” More than 25 million tourists — many of them Americans — visit Greece every year, Kolitsas says, or did pre-pandemic, and come back looking for the food. If they follow their noses to Greca, they will certainly find it. Greca is at 189 Main St. in White Plains. For reservations and more, visit grecamed. com.
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Duncan and Renea Dayton on the front porch of Bucland. Photograph by Jeremy Wayne.
A home design challenge they couldn’t refuse BY JEREMY WAYNE
T
hree and a half years ago, a woman he didn’t know walked up the driveway of Duncan Dayton’s North Salem home and asked him if he would consider selling the house, because she believed she had a buyer for it. While it wasn’t for sale and he didn’t want to sell, Dayton nevertheless replied, ‘Well, everything’s got a price.’” Duncan Dayton is the entrepreneur, former racecar driver and racing team owner, a scion of the Dayton-Hudson retail corporation, which later became Target. His wife of nine years, Renea, now also a racing enthusiast, founded and runs the popular destination café and florist, Hayfields, in North Salem Everything, it transpired, does have a price. The prospective buyer who was so keen on
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their property turned out to be Bill Gates’ daughter Jennifer. The Daytons accepted the offer (which was clearly not to be refused) and set about building a guesthouse, greenhouse and antique car barn on a 22-acre lot the couple owned across the street. But as Covid hit and the Daytons were settling down to life in their guesthouse, the broker who had originally inquired if the first house was for sale approached them again, wanting to know if the additional site was for sale. And once again, the couple accepted an offer they couldn’t refuse. Although they also owned a farm down the street from the original property, where they had planned to build their dream house, they now needed somewhere to go for a couple of years while that project took shape. “We were scrambling around, looking. We looked at
probably 20 different houses and then saw this house in Waccabuc online,” Duncan says. “We didn’t think anything of it but decided to come and take a look.” They liked what they saw. The house, which was built in 1998, sits on around six acres and, as Duncan says, had “a very Cotswold-y feel to it,” which, knowing the picturesque Cotswolds in England, he loved. And the couple were already members of the Waccabuc Country Club next door and had actually got married at the Mead Chapel along the street (the chapel, incidentally, where Arthur Miller and Marylin Monroe had wanted to get married but were not permitted to do so,) so they felt they already had a connection to the small, exclusive Waccabuc community. They decided to buy the house, but the plan was simply to renovate it, live in it for a
little while and then flip it. “And then go back to Mills Road, to the dilapidated horse farm we’d bought and where we going to build our dream house,” says Renea. But as the renovation started and the architect started to point out all manner of features they hadn’t noticed, gradually a house bought as a temporary dwelling seemed like it could become a more permanent home. “I mean, yes, there are some limitations with this house,” says Duncan. It doesn’t even have a dining room, but then again, we’re very casual. We’re not fancy or formal.” Renea elaborates: “And what we really like is how the house reminds us of the house Duncan bought when he first came to North Salem. (That house) was cozy and quaint and it’s where I fell in love with Duncan and with North Salem, so this house is sort of reconnecting with those feelings, which I think is really fun. And this house, the size…it feels like home.” As for the renovations, the Daytons have not changed the footprint. There are very low ceilings throughout, some of which they have been able to raise, and a beautifully dry but unfinished basement, which they are polishing up. Additionally, two back-to-back living rooms seemed a little bit redundant, so they have opened the walls as much as possible to make it flow better, and flipped the front bedroom to the back of the house, which Duncan says was done at a friend’s suggestion. And apart from naming the house ‘Bucland’ — a compound of Buckland, a favorite spot in the Cotswolds, along with the ‘buc’ of Waccabuc — that has really been the extent of it. Nevertheless, the architecture had to be right. Duncan is himself a graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and sets a high bar, so for the work the Daytons chose Two Tall Trees Design, whose principals, Rick and Liz O’Leary, also happen to be friends. They valued the understated elegance of their design, which Duncan describes as “very clean, very calm — in many ways very simple, not a lot of tchotchkes, just really elegant.” He adds: “I grew up in a Romaldo Giurgola house, who was a disciple of Louis Kahn, and it was all white and very stark, but it still felt homey, very clean and simple.” Duncan describes the O’Learys as “super fun-loving, easy to work with and dedicated to the craft.” Renea also points out that theirs is an interesting dynamic — Rick the “creative dynamo,” Liz the “nuts and bolts” person who does the drafting. The inspiration for the bedroom, which has floor-to-ceiling windows, came from the great room in the spa at the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Washington, Connecticut., which we wrote about in last October’s WAG. Renea adds that they wanted the room to be like a hotel suite:
Bucland exterior. Photograph by Renea Dayton.
Bucland master bedroom. Photographs by Gretchen Farrell.
“It’s not your bedroom in your house, but a little oasis, and they really accomplished that.” For the interior design, they went with Gretchen Farrell from Gretchen Farrell Interiors. A designer to the stars, Farrell’s client list is so “A-list” that many of them require an NDA from her before she even sets foot on the property — although you suspect she would be far too discreet to talk about them anyhow. Duncan was aware that Farrell had moved into the area (North Salem) and liked her aesthetic but didn’t really have a project for her until the Waccabuc house came along. With a soft palette of creams, taupes and pastels, occasionally straying into bolder territory of cobalt and pale bronzes, Farrell has delighted the Daytons, helping to give them, in Duncan’s words, the “serene, calm house” they wanted. They also speak enthusiastically about Yonni Sosa from Sosa Construction in Brewster. “We’d hired a larger contractor at the old place and towards the end of the project it was becoming not a good situation…it was unravelling… and Yanni was brought in to do some detail work and finish up some loose ends. He was super-thoughtful, a super-organized and clean and a master-craftsman.” When it came to finding a contractor for the Waccabuc house, they went with Sosa without a second thought. Another nice thing about the property, the couple remark, was that they found garaging for six cars already in situ. “That was a fun feature, because we’re definitely car people,” says Renea, in what must rank as the most colos-
sal understatement this side of Westchester. Duncan, a self-professed motor head since he was a little kid, started racing in Formula Continental in 1990 and made his debut in the American Continental Championship in 1994. He won the first Historic Grand Prix of Monaco and a further nine Monaco Grand Prix events in different historic classes between 1997 and 2010. Renea, meanwhile, was director of marketing at Lime Rock Park when she met Duncan and now hosts Cars and Coffee, a vintage and historic car gathering on the first Sunday of every month at Hayfields. ‘I feel very fortunate to have owned and driven some of the greatest cars in the world,” says Duncan. But although he’s on the board of two racing tracks and still follows Formula One and IndyCar racing closely, what with a young son and gently advancing years, he says he is now transitioning out of racing cars and into road cars. The road car, which takes him to the supermarket and doubtless soon on the school run? That would be the Audi RS6 Avant Wagon. It’s an impressive machine in anybody’s book, although it’s hard to square what Google describes as “one wicked station wagon with an intimidating appearance and a raucous 591-hp engine,” with the mild-mannered, unpretentious Duncan or the naturally warm, friendly, genial Renea. For more visittwotalltreesdesign.com, gretchenfarrel.com, sosa.construction and hayfieldsmarket.com.
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A publisher without vanity BY PHIL HALL
T
ara R. Alemany never intended to become a book publisher. Indeed, she owned and operated Aleweb Social Marketing, which provided social media and publicity services for businesses, public speakers and authors. “I had different authors and speakers ask for help with their books in terms of editing and layout and design,” she recalls. “And after about seven or eight projects, I realized I had nothing pointing back to me as a business or brand. So, I started Emerald Lake Books as a division of this other company in October 2014.” However, things didn’t go as Alemany planned. “Within six months, Emerald Lake Books took over the whole thing, so it's been running as the primary business since,” she says, adding that Aleweb Social Marketing was officially shuttered last year. Alemany defines her Sherman-based company as “a boutique publisher, which means that we are paid for services rendered. But one of the things that makes us very distinct from other boutique publishers is that we provide a lot of coaching for our authors. So instead of just producing their book, we also spend a lot of time with them talking about what their goals are, what they hope the reader gets out of it and what they want to accomplish with it. And then we help them figure out their launch and marketing plans so that we aren't just giving them a book, but we're giving them the process they need to follow in order to achieve the goals that they've set.” Authors pay the company between $6,000 and $8,500 to publish their works. One of the key players in the authors’ road to publication is input from Mark Gerber, the company’s co-owner and art director. “I've worked with all the major book companies in the city since the ’80s,” he says. “When I met Tara, we just kind of clicked and she asked me to start helping her with a few things within
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the company, and it kind of grew from there.” Emerald Lake Books typically published five works per year, but Alemany notes that “because of the pandemic, everybody who ever wanted to write had time to write. And so, we were under contract for 12 in 2021.” Alemany initially focused on nonfiction books designed to help people interested in building a business, but it later expanded into fiction featuring authors who saw their career goal of becoming professional writers. “They want this to be their livelihood,” she says. “We help them focus on fiction writing in the same way if they were starting any business with any other product. Right now, we're fairly
evenly split between fiction and nonfiction.” For Gerber, the challenge is creating an original cover design that will help the book stand out on e-commerce sites. “It has to work first in black and white,” he explains. “The way we present them, if it doesn't work in black and white, then it's not going to work in color. Beyond that, it really needs to capture the eye and draw attention when it's viewed at a thumbnail size, as most people are seeing books for the first time online. “It's basically a poster for the book and it has to fit within the genre and draw the attention so that at least you read the description,” he adds. “In a bookstore, it's the spine that draws
Tara R. Alemany, co-owner of Emerald Lake Books, (with Mark Gerber,) and some of their titles. Courtesy Emerald Lake Books.
your attention first because you don't often see the cover. And that's where a really good title comes in — a lot of consideration is given to that as well.” Emerald Lake Books coaches its authors on how to promote their works, although Alemany acknowledges that “a lot of people feel very uncomfortable with promoting their own book because it feels like they're bragging.” From a marketing perspective, she strategizes on helping the authors find new and distinct ways to address different audiences, even encouraging multiple launches of the books if there is a tie-in to an ongoing trend or issue. “What does that audience want to hear?”
she says. “Because how they're going to talk about it to a librarian or a bookseller is completely different than how they're going to talk about it to their next-door neighbor.” To date, the company’s most popular book is John Suscovich’s “Stress-Free Chicken Tractor Plans,” which Alemany describes as a guide “for backyard poultry enthusiasts who want to be able to have a mobile chicken coop to move around their yard, or small homesteaders. We sell thousands of copies a year.” For 2022, the company is planning to start the year with a book on grieving and healing from grief by a retired physician from Southbury, a book for business owners on how to sell their opera-
tions, and two young adult fantasy novels. While the authors pay the company to publish their works, Emerald Lake Books is particular about what it puts forth — political books, poetry collections, faith-based meditations and illustrated children’s books are not part of the company’s catalog. And Alemany points out that not every author who queries the company winds up working with them. “There are so many vanity publishers out there, and people that will simply take a book, because the author has the money to do it,” she says. “They don't really assess the quality of the book or how it's going to affect the author if that particular book goes out in its current condition. For us, a lot of it is about the ethics behind this and about having a very high sense of integrity. We're not going to take a book that we don't feel there is a market for or that we don't feel is ready to be published. There are times when we've had books submitted to us that were from first-time authors that we've said, ‘Hey, listen, we really recommend you join our writers’ critique group, spend some more time honing your craft, bring it back to us once you've had more time with it and we'll take another look at it.’ “We don't like being taken advantage of in our own lives, so it's important to us not to take advantage of somebody else.” For more, visit emeraldlakebooks.com.
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ACCOUNTING FIRMS
FAIRFIELD COUNTY BEERS, HAMMERMAN, COHEN & BURGER LLC 1 Post Road, Fairfield 06824 333-2228 • bhcbcpa.com dcole@bhcbcpa.com Managing partner(s): Dennis W.Cole, managing partner Services: auditing, business planning, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1959 BDO 1055 Washington Blvd, Fifth floor, Stamford 06901 905-6300 • bdo.com mkaralis@bdo.com Managing partner(s): Maria Karalis Services: auditing, business planning, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting and tax services Year established: 1991 BLUMSHAPIRO 2 Enterprise Drive, Shelton 06484 944-2100 • blumshapiro.com tdevitto@blumshapiro.com Managing partner(s): Joseph A. Kask, CEO; Andrew Lattimer, managing partner, Connecticut office Services: auditing, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1980 CAPOSSELA COHEN LLC 368 Center St., Southport 06890 254-7000 • capossela.com info@capossela.com Managing partner(s): David J. Fuchs Services: auditing, business planning, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1946
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CIRONEFRIEDBERG LLP 24 Stony Hill Road, Bethel 06801 798-2721 • cironefriedberg.com tcirone@cironefriedberg.com Managing partner(s): Anthony W. Cirone Jr. Services: auditing, business planning, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1945 CITRIN COOPERMAN 37 North Ave., Suite 300, Norwalk 06851 847-4068 • citrincooperman.com mfagan@citrincooperman.com Managing partner(s): Matthew Kuchinsky Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1979 COHNREZNICK LLP 4 Landmark Square, Suite 410, Stamford 06901 399-1900 • cohnreznick.com jeffrey.rossi@cohnreznick.com Managing partner(s): Frank Longobardi, CEO; Thomas Fassett, chief growth officer; Philip Mandel, regional managing partner Northeast; Jeff Rossi, office managing partner, Connecticut offices Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services, tax services Year established: 1919 DELOITTE LLP 695 E. Main St., Stamford 06901 708-4000 • deloitte.com hziegler@deloitte.com Managing partner(s): Heather Ziegler Services: audit and assurance, consulting, tax, and risk and financial advisory services Year established: 1845
ERNST & YOUNG LLP 300 First Stamford Place, Stamford 06902 674-3000 • ey.com Managing partner(s): Bud McDonald, Stamford office managing partner Services: auditing, business planning, government accounting, management consulting, tax services Year established: 1989 GRANT THORNTON LLP 300 First Stamford Place, Stamford 06902 327-8300 • grantthornton.com Lawrence.griff@us.gt.com Managing partner(s): Lawrence Griff, managing partner, Stamford/Westchester Market Services: auditing, management consulting and tax services Year established: 1924 GRILL & PARTNERS LLC 30 Old Kings Highway South, Darien 06820 140 Sherman St., Fairfield 06824 203-254-3880 • 203-655-3205 • grill1.com n.grill@grill1.com Managing partner(s): Norman Grill Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1984 KAHAN, STEIGER & PC 1100 Summer St., Stamford 06905 327-5717 • kahansteiger.com bmcgeady@kahansteiger.com Managing partner(s): Brian McGeady Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1970 KPMG LLP 677 Washington Blvd, Stamford 06901 356-9800 • kpmg.com Managing partner(s): Allan Colaco Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, small-business services, tax services Year established: 1987
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MARCUM LLP 35 Mason St., Suite 1D, Greenwich 06830 681-3100 • marcumllp.com Managing partner(s): Anthony Scillia, regional managing partner; John Mezzanotte, office managing partner Services: auditing, business planning, estate planning, litigation support, personal planning, small-business services, tax services Year established: 1951 MARTIN, DECRUZE & LLP 2777 Summer St., Suite 401, Stamford 06905 327-7151 • mdcocpa.com kdecruze@mdcocpa.com Managing partner(s): Kathleen DeCruze Services: auditing, business planning, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1979 MCGOLDRICK & MCGOLDRICK CPAs LLP 2 Greenwich Office Park, Suite 300, Greenwich 06830 845-878-7703 • mcgoldrickcpa.net mcgold@computer.net Managing partner(s): Thomas J. McGoldrick; Ruth J. McGoldrick Services: auditing, business planning, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1988 PKF O’CONNOR DAVIES LLP 3001 Summer St. No.5, Stamford 06905 323-2400 • pkfod.com bblasnik@pkfod.com Managing partner(s): Bruce Blasnik, managing partner, Connecticut offices Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1891 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS LLP 300 Atlantic St., Stamford 06901 539-3000 • pwc.com scott.w.davis@pwc.com Managing partner(s): Brian J. Carroll, Stamford office managing partner Services: auditing, computer consulting, management consulting, small-business services, tax services Year established: 1849 REYNOLDS & ROWELLA LLP 90 Grove St., Suite 101, Ridgefield 06877 438-0161 • reynoldsrowella.com scottc@reynoldsrowella.com Managing partner(s): Scott D. Crane Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1985
MAXIMIZE VALUE
In delivering world-class client service to your business, the advisory, assurance, and tax professionals at CohnReznick will partner with you to understand your strategic goals – helping you optimize performance and profitability while managing risk. Industries We Serve Construction Consumer Products Financial Services Healthcare Hospitality Manufacturing & Distribution Not-for-Profit/Education Professional Services Private Equity/Venture Capital Real Estate Renewable Energy Retail Technology/Life Sciences Transaction Services Looking for a more valuable relationship with your accounting firm? Contact us today. Jeff Rossi Managing Partner – Connecticut Offices jeffrey.rossi@cohnreznick.com 203-399-1903
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ACCOUNTING FIRMS
ROY A. ABRAMOWITZ AND CO. 21 Locust Ave., New Canaan 06840 594-7360 • rafinancial.net rafinancial@optonline.net Managing partner(s): Roy A. Abramowitz Services: business services, Quickbooks services, services for individuals and tax services Year established: 1987 RSM US LLP 200 Elm St., Suite 200, Stamford 06902 327-3112 • rsmus.com jena.rascoe@rsmus.com Managing partner(s): Greg Budnik, market managing partner, Connecticut and Westchester County, New York Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services, tax services Year established: 1926
GOLDSTEIN LIEBERMAN & LLC 1 International Blvd., Suite 700, Mahwah, New Jersey 07495 201-512-5700 • glcpas.com mail@glcpas.com Managing partner(s): Phillip E. Goldstein Services: auditing, business planning, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1946 RBT CPAs LLP 11 Racquet Road, Newburgh 12550 845-567-9000 • rbtcpas.com muturturro@rbtcpas.com Managing partner(s): Michael A. Turturro Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1975
PKF O’CONNOR DAVIES LLP 500 Mamaroneck Ave., Harrison 10528 381-8900 • pkfod.com kkeane@pkfod.com Managing partner(s): Kevin J. Keane Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1919
PRAGER METIS CPAs LLC/ D’ARCANGELO & LLP 800 Westchester Ave., Suite N-400, Rye Brook 10573 694-4600 • pragermetis.com lroth@pragermetis.com Managing Partner: Lori Roth Services: business advisory, assurance and accounting, business management, client accounting services, international services, tax services, tax controversy, litigation support, estate planning, CFO advisory, crisis response and PPP loan-forgiveness services Year established: 1920
CITRIN COOPERMAN 709 Westchester Ave., White Plains 10604 949-2990 • citrincooperman.com abadey@citrincooperman.com Managing partner(s): Matthew Kuchinsky Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1979
COHNREZNICK LLP 10 Bank St., Suite 1190, White Plains 10606 684-2700 • cohnreznick.com Managing partner(s): Stephen J. Harrison CPA office managing partner, White Plains Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1919
WESTCHESTER COUNTY
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MARKS PANETH LLP 4 Manhattanville Road, Suite 402, Purchase 10577 524-9000 • markspaneth.com mlevenfus@markspaneth.com Managing partner(s): Mark Levenfus Services: auditing, business continuity, business planning, estate planning, government accounting, litigation support, management consulting, nonprofit, personal planning, small-business services, technology services and tax services Year established: 1907 GKG CPAs 777 Chestnut Ridge Road, Suite 301, Chestnut Ridge 10977 845-356-6100 • gkgcpa.com Managing partner(s): Donald R. Karlewicz, Scott Goldstein, Wayne Martin, partners Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1990 MAIER, MARKEY & JUSTIC LLP 2 Lyon Place, White Plains 10601 644-9200 • mgroupusa.com AJJ@mgroupusa.com Managing partner(s): Anthony J. Justic Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1986 A. UZZO & CPAs PC 287 Bowman Ave., Purchase 10577 694-8800 • auzzo.com auzzo@auzzo.com Managing partner(s): Anthony Uzzo, Blaise Fredella, Richard Vaccariello, Anthony Siniscalchi and Raymond Magi Services: auditing, business planning, estate planning, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1984
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WAG
ACCOUNTING FIRMS
PERETZ, RESNICK, MITGANG & MARCUS LLP 303 S. Broadway, Suite 105, Tarrytown 10591 332-5393 • peretzcpas.com dperetz@peretzcpas.com Managing partner(s): David M. Peretz, Mark Hausner and Robert Mitgang Services: business planning, estate planning, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1992 BAND, ROSENBAUM & MARTIN PC 440 Mamaroneck Ave., Suite 508, Harrison 10528 636-7200 • brmcpa.com bchipelo@brmcpa.com Managing partner(s): Scott Martin, Larry Holzberg and Hal Martin Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1919 VICTOR J. CANNISTRA CPA PC 43 Kensico Drive, Second floor, Mount Kisco 10549 241-3605 • cannistracpa.com victorc@cannistracpa.com Managing partner(s): Victor J. Cannistra Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1988 GRASSI ADVISORS & ACCOUNTANTS 2 Westchester Park Drive, Suite 200, White Plains, 10604 849-0320 • grassicpas.com rbernstein@grassicpas.com Managing partner(s): Louis C. Grassi Partners: Robert Bernstein, Derek Flanagan Principal: Elizabeth Gousse Ballotte Services: business advisory, audit, tax, nonprofit services, outsourced CFO, HR consulting, forensic accounting, valuations, litigation support, M&A due diligence, private client services, trust and estate planning, administration and family office Year established: 1980
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ABD ASSOCIATES LLP Merging With Goldstein Liberman & LLC, January 2022 100 Summit Lake Drive, Suite 120, Valhalla 10595 747-9000 • glcpas.com rebeccad@abdcpa.com Managing partner(s): Rebecca Drechsel, managing partner Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1979 ROSENBERG & CHESNOV CPAs LLP 565 Taxter Road, No.105, Elmsford 10523 (212) 382-3939 • rcmycpa.com alan@rcmycpa.com Managing partner(s): Alan D. Rosenberg and Jody H. Chesnov Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1975 SANOSSIAN, SARDIS & LLP 700 Post Road, Suite 301, Scarsdale 10583 725-9800 • sscpa.co george.sanossian@sscpa.com Managing partner(s): George Sanossian Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1985 Blum & Bernstein LLP 220 White Plains Road, Tarrytown 10591 631-1010 • ericb4@optonline.net Managing partner(s): Eric Blum Services: business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1945
HYMES & ASSOCIATES CPA PC 55 Pondfield Road, Bronxville 10708 961-1200 • hymescpa.com michael@hymescpa.com Managing partner(s): Michael S. Hymes Services: business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1995 MAXWELL SHMERLER & CPAs 11 Martine Ave., Suite 970, White Plains 10606 681-0400 • msco-cpa.com cybercpa3@aol.com Managing partner(s): Ford J. Levy Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, management consulting, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1913 REDA, ROMANO & LLP 800 Westchester Ave., Suite N405, Rye Brook 10573 701-0170 • redacpa.com Al@redacpa.com, info@redacpa.com Managing partner(s): Al Reda, CPA Services: business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, litigation support, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1980 WEINSTEIN & FORMANEK PC CPAs & FAMILY OFFICE ADVISOR 141 E. Boston Post Road, Mamaroneck 10543 698-4123 • foadvisor.com Peter@foadvisor.com Managing partner(s): Peter Formanek Services: auditing, business planning, computer consulting, estate planning, management consulting, personal planning, small-business services and tax services Year established: 1965
FROM WAG’S EDITOR COMES A TRUE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN COMING OF AGE AND FINDING LOVE AND LOSS IN WARTIME NEW YORK. THEGAMESMENPLAY.COM JANUARY 2022
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Your home as an investment BY CAMI WEINSTEIN
F
or many if not most people, their home is the largest investment they will make in their lifetime. And while some are more “nesters” than others, a home is always something to be cared for. A home’s value — to you and the marketplace — can fluctuate over time. In the last 30 years, there have been several times where home prices have risen so fast that people just wanted to get into a home and stay a short period of time and then “flip” it. What happened was that homeowners were flipping so fast that they barely put a coat of cheap paint on it and then cashed out. They barely spent three to five years in their homes. Then for a period around the Great Recession, housing crashed and, no matter how much money you put into it, you could barely get out of it without losing on your investment. Since your home is such an important asset, consider the following principles when purchasing one: Buy the least expensive house on the block. Although I definitely agree with this rule in general, there are some red flags that you should consider. Does the house have “good bones”? A house needs to be solidly constructed and have a good layout to start with. Consider the cost to get the house in comfortable working order and the amount of cosmetic dollars it will take to make the house your home. No one wants to be house-poor and struggle every month to pay the bills. Make sure the house is in good enough shape to put off some of the projects that you would like to do and still live comfortably. Be careful about the money that is needed to upgrade and repair, because that can exceed your home’s value even if it is in a desirable neighborhood. Be prudent about the repairs you do make. Updated kitchens and bathrooms give you the most return for your dollar. Therefore, try to opt for timeless design, especially if you want to sell your home in a few years and not in 20. Although trendy colors are wonderful op-
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Whether or not you’re a “nester,” your house may be the largest investment in your lifetime. So you’ll want to keep it well-tended, with an inviting, well-manicured presence.
tions for paint and fabric, they are much more difficult and costly to change than tile, stained floors, woodwork and kitchens. The trendier the colors and patterns, the faster they go out of style and immediately date the house and it’s style. The trend is to hold onto your homes for longer periods of time than in the recent past. When you upgrade, keep this in mind and renovate accordingly. Landscaping is a costly must. A beautifully landscaped home with lots of curb appeal is a winner in the investment arena. It’s worth it to hire a professional landscaper to create a nice walkway, driveway, patio and garden area. Which brings us to painting and exterior design. Create a welcoming entry with a standout door in a welcoming color. Add a bench perhaps or pots of flowers to make guests feel welcome. Caring for your home and yard
is important. Don’t leave debris around and clutter. This distracts from your yard and from your neighborhood. A perfectly cared for home and neighborhood can bring years of lasting enjoyment for family and friends to share. With Covid still with us, thanks to its trickle of variants, people are treasuring their homes now more than ever. They are looking to stay in them for longer periods of time. They are also looking to make them more personal retreats, specifically designed to their tastes and needs. If you keep your home tended and updated, it should command a great price when you decide to sell it. That’s when you’ll realize that the years of nurturing your investment have paid off. For more, call 914-447-6904 or email Cami@camidesigns.com.
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Nationally certified and recognized fitness trainer and Precision Nutrition coach. • Mention this WAG Magazine ad and receive 20% OFF the program. As a thank you, veterans receive 50% OFF. • Daily nutritional habits and reminders guide you through your transformation. • Workouts come complete with videos and modifications specific to the individual. • At the end of the program, if not completely satisfied, you will receive a full refund. Visit www.GiovanniRoselli.com for more info or contact him directly at Gio@GiovanniRoselli.com.
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Thomas Hart Benton’s “Threshing” (1941), lithograph on paper, edition of 250. Sold for $3,750. Courtesy Skinner Inc.
Art as an (emotional) investment BY KATIE BANSER-WHITTLE
S
tocks, bonds, real estate: Mention the word “investment,” and these are the categories that immediately come to mind. Other possibilities are considered, too, as people look to diversify, to build and safeguard wealth. These days, with headlines about record prices for all forms of artwork, from Old Master paintings to an NFT — or nonfungible token, the digital world’s answer to a provenance on paper — of a Banksy creation (it proved to be a $366,000 hoax), the idea of art as an investment keeps coming up. In the serious world of serious money, an investment is an expenditure on something that (you hope) will be worth more than its purchase price at a future date. An expenditure that is expected to result in a profit in the short term (again, you hope) isn’t an investment. It’s a speculation. The plain truth is that the art market is driven by trends. And trends can and do change — quickly, dramatically and unpredictably. Often, by the time “everybody” is talking about an artist (or a style of clothing, or a restaurant — you get the idea) the market
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has peaked and demand has started to drop. Most knowledgeable art buyers are collectors who buy works that are meaningful to them. They intend to enjoy their art for a long time and don’t approach their purchases with profit in mind. Their watchwords are “Buy what you love, love what you buy.” An increase in value is always welcome, of course, but it’s not a primary motivation. The single most important and most repeated advice to collectors in any category is to buy the best you can afford. “The best” keeps its value, gives pride of ownership and, if the time comes to sell, it always finds a market. That doesn’t mean that art collecting is just for those who can afford a major work by Rembrandt, Picasso or Jeff Koonz. A multimillion-dollar budget isn’t the only way to acquire great art, in great condition, by great artists. You can purchase fine art prints, photographs and other limited-edition pieces by important artists for as little as a few hundred dollars. Robin Starr, Skinner’s vice president and director of American & European Works of Art, gives us as an example a comparison between American Realist Thomas Hart Benton’s painting “Threshing” with his 1941 lithograph
of the same title. “The lithograph will cost you a mortgage payment or two. The painting will cost you the price of the whole house. So why not have your house and decorate it, too?” When collecting art, it makes sense that pleasure of ownership should come before considerations of profit. But it’s also sensible to expect value for money. The condition and, of course, the authenticity of any artwork are of prime importance, and determining these matters is where experience counts. Sometimes condition issues can be hard to identify. It may come as a surprise to find out that a signature isn’t always a guarantee of authenticity. The best values in works of art can be found most reliably at sales held by auction houses that have specialist art departments. They offer the expertise that assures buyers and sellers alike of reliable research and deep knowledge of a rapidly changing marketplace. Buying trendy artwork with the intention of quickly selling it for a big profit is like trying to time the stock market — an exercise in futility. Today’s “hot” is often tomorrow’s “not.” Tastes and trends change, taking prices with them. Lasting value is the pleasure that comes from living with the things you love.
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or anyone in any other career for that matter, there were points in time where they were faced with tremendous hardships and battled through. I constantly remind myself of this and realize that obstacles are simply opportunities for growth. If I stopped at every obstacle or listened to the naysayers, I would have never achieved much of the success I’ve had in my life.
Your biggest success? No rules here. This can be anything in your life that you view as your greatest accomplishment to date. Becoming a father.
Your motto: What is your personal mantra, saying or adage that you tend to live life by or believe in strongly?
BY GIOVANNI ROSELLI
I have several so I will give a few. The first one is: “Consistency, Persistency, and Intensity.” I believe that to become truly successful you need to be consistent in your practices, persistent in your efforts and intense with your drive. The second, a quote by Coach John Wooden, someone who I’ve read up on quite a bit: “Failing to plan in planning to fail.” Last, and arguably my favorite at this point is, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” I truly believe that the way we do certain things in our lives has a large carryover and represents how we do most other things in life.
“Play to your strength. Then you are always strong.” — author Silvia Hartmann
Your current passions? No rules here either. This can be anything in your life that you are currently excited about or enjoy.
Giovanni Roselli. Courtesy Roselli Health & Fitness.
Play to your strengths in 2022
A
s we enter a new year filled with uncertainty once again, I implore you to answer some questions about yourself. I’ll go ahead and start us off with answering the questions from my own standpoint. Give these some good thought and play to your strengths in 2022.
What do you do best?
That’s a tough one to answer for me, because I always feel like there is room for improvement in everything. I feel like I do a pretty good job of staying on top of things. I’ve worn a lot of hats over the years and oftentimes have a lot of pots on the stove, and I
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manage to keep them all going on a very high level. I don’t waste my time and always feel like something can be done to better myself, my business and/or my family. To go along with this, I’ve done a good job of developing and cultivating relationships over the years.
What makes you the best version of yourself? What is the most important quality or characteristic that has gotten you to where you are today?
Perseverance. I think that out of all the qualities you can possess, this may well be the most important. It’s constantly pushing and pushing and pushing, not letting obstacles stop you and slow you down. If you look at any successful businessman, athlete
I really enjoy educating and mentoring. To that point, I’m always looking to learn from my own mentors, while striving to improve every day. I’ve had such amazing mentors over the years that I realized and experienced the power of mentorship. Knowing this, I find great satisfaction in paying it forward. I’m in a position in my life and career now where I feel like I still have my best years ahead of me. I can use my experience not only in business but in life, to help those who are either just starting out, seem stuck or just want to take it to another plane. Now it’s your turn. Give these questions your attention and turn to your answers into a plan for how you will conquer 2022 and beyond. Wishing all the readers out there a happy, healthy and safe new year. Reach Giovanni at GiovanniRoselli.com.
WAG
WHEN & WHERE
THROUGH JAN. 2 Untermyer Gardens Conservancy welcomes visitors to its “Grand Holiday Illumination.” The display includes more than 100,000 lights that adorn the walled garden and music selections from multicultural holiday traditions. 4:30 to 8 p.m., 945 N. Broadway, Yonkers; 914-613-4502, untermyergardens. org.
THROUGH JAN. 9
New Castle Historical Society’s “The Great Holiday Train Show” features numerous vintage model train sets that will run throughout the cheerfully decorated rooms of the Horace Greeley House Museum. This display will travel through backdrops with festive themes, including a Bavarian countryside scene, the 1920s “golden age” of train travel and more. Also included are a pop-up holiday shop with train-themed items, candy and more. 11 a.m., and 12:30, 2 and 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Horace Greeley House, 100 King St., Chappaqua; 914-238-4666, newcastlehs.org.
THROUGH JAN. 16 Hudson River Museum presents “African American Art in the 20th Century,” featuring 43 paintings and sculptures by 34 African American artists who came to prominence during the period bracketed by the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights movement. The works range in style from modern abstraction to stained color to the postmodern assemblage of found objects. Noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, 511 Warburton Ave., Yonkers; hrm.org.
THROUGH FEB. 20 The Center for Contemporary Printmaking’s Annual Members Exhibition, “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” asked artists to savor the moment, reflect on the vibrancy of a life well-lived, and submit work that would capture the essence of the Cajun French phrase meaning “Let the good times roll” Alongside this exhibition is “A Show of Hands,” photopolymer intaglios, screen prints and collagraphs by Diane Cherr, 2020 Members’ Exhibition-Best in Show Award recipient. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Mathews Park, 299 West Ave, Norwalk; 203899-7999, contemprints.org.
Jan. 27: Adger Cowans' "The Cat" (circa.1960s), silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York. © Adger Cowans
THROUGH MARCH 31
“Women of Waveny: Artists, Patrons and the Lapham Legacy” explores and celebrates women’s work in the creation of New Canaan’s Waveny House and Park. The show highlights two innovative artists – Abastenia St. Leger Eberle, sculptor of the bronze nymph on the Waveny Park fountain; and photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston, who captured that work in hand-painted lantern slides in 1915. Bronzes and images by both artists are on view, alongside historical material on the Lapham women who commissioned and bequeathed this Waveny work to New Canaan. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays by appointment. New Canaan Museum & Historical Society, 13 Oenoke Ridge; 203966-1776, nchistory.org.
JAN. 7 THROUGH 23 Curtain Call Theatre presents Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express.” Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for winter, but by the morning it is one passenger less. An American tycoon lies murdered in his compartment, his door locked from
the inside. With a killer in their midst, the passengers rely on detective Hercule Poirot to identify the murderer – in case he or she decides to strike again. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. 1349 Newfield Avenue, Stamford; 203-461-6358; curtaincallinc.com.
JAN. 8 AND 9 Mélisse Brunet, a protégé of Pierre Boulez, will be the guest conductor of the Greenwich Symphony in a concert, including Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman;” Lalo’s “Symphonie Espagnole” and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7. Brunet will be joined by guest violinist William Hagen. 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Greenwich High School Performing Arts Center, 10 Hillside Road; 203-869-2664, greenwichsymphony.org.
JAN. 9
Katonah Museum of Art will host an evening with storytellers who have appeared on the “Moth Radio Hour” and will share their own experiences navigating immigration and American identity. This program is part of the museum’s exhibition “Arrivals,” on view through Jan. 23. 5:30 to 7 p.m., 134 Jay St.; katonahmuseum.org.
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WAG
WHEN & WHERE
JAN. 15 THROUGH 23
JAN. 22
The Play Group Theatre presents “The Spongebob Musical,” a family-friendly production based on the Nickelodeon animated TV series “SpongeBob SquarePants.” The performance will feature music by Cyndi Lauper, Tom Kitt and more. Times vary, 1 N. Broadway, White Plains; playgroup.org.
Enjoy the opening reception for The Carriage Barn Arts Center’s “42nd Annual Photography Show,” juried by Platon, internationally renowned photographer, staff photographer for The New Yorker and founder of The People’s Portfolio. The exhibition runs through Feb. 19 and features a selection of images chosen from submissions by professional, amateur and student photographers. 4 p.m. 681 South Ave., New Canaan; 203-594-3638, carriagebarn.org.
JAN. 16
The Wall Street Journal has called Morgan James “the most promising young vocalist to come along so far this century. What’s more, she sounds as much at ease on the bandstand of a nightclub like Dizzy’s CocaCola as she does standing in a Broadway spotlight. 7:45 p.m. Fairfield Theatre Company, 70 Sanford St.; 203-259-1036, fairfieldtheatre.org.
JAN. 17 Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Connect-Us presents: “Bridgeport Has a Dream,” a special MLK Day performance organized by the young people of the city. King spoke at The Klein Auditorium in 1961 and 1964 and, four days after his assassination in 1968, The Klein housed an overflowing memorial service in honor of the slain leader. Connect-Us works to improve the quality of outcomes for young people living in communities of concentrated poverty. Its youth programs complement formal education with afterschool growth opportunities that expand the vistas of youth. 1:30 p.m. The Klein, 910 Fairfield Ave.; 203-864-9129, connectusct. org.
JAN. 18, 20 AND 26
Play With Your Food returns with lunchtime theater readings in Fairfield (Jan. 18), Greenwich (Jan. 20) and Westport (Jan 26). Featuring all new one-act plays, boxed lunches from local restaurants and discussions with its professional cast of actors (many of whom are known to audiences from stage, screen and TV). Noon to 1:30 p.m. Jan. 18, Fairfield Theatre Company, 70 Sanford St, Fairfield; Jan. 20, Greenwich Arts Council, 299 Greenwich Ave.; Jan. 26, MoCA Westport, 19 Newtown Turnpike; 203-293-8729 jibproductions.org.
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JAN. 22 Bethany Arts Community presents “Got My Wings,” a dance triptych that explores the metaphor of light, freedom and hope with an original score by Dan Blake and choreography by Todd Hall and James Jandrok. 4 to 6 p.m., 40 Somerstown Road, Ossining; bethanyarts.org.
JAN. 23 The Stamford Symphony, in partnership with the Carriage Barn Arts Center, presents a string quartet as part of the symphony’s chamber concert series. Robert Zubrycki, violin, Lisa Tipton, violin, Adria Benjamin, viola, and Eliot Ballen, cello, will play Jennifer Higdon’s “Amazing Grace” for String Quartet; Mozart’s String Quartet No. 14 in G major, K. 387; William Grant Still’s “Spring” and “Danzas de Panama” Puccini’s “Crisantemi” (“Chrysanthemums”) and “Wood Works” (traditional folk music), arranged by the Danish String Quartet. 3 p.m. Carriage Barn Arts Center, 681 South Ave., New Canaan; (203) 325-1407, stamfordsymphony.org.
JAN. 27 Emelin Theatre will host a live concert with five-time Grammy Award-winning Ladysmith Black Mambazo. This South African male choral group sings in the local vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. 8 to 10 p.m., 153 Library Lane, Mamaroneck emelin.org. “Lizzy Rockwell and Friends, Art Made for and With People” opens with a reception at The Norwalk Art Space exploring the many influences on this celebrated quilt maker and children’s
book author/illustrator. Rockwell won the Connecticut Book Award for Young Readers/Picture Books for her “The All-Together Quilt” and founded Peace by Piece: The Norwalk Community Quilt Project. Her career has been devoted to creating artwork that unites generations through lovingly illustrated stories and community-developed quilts. Opening Reception 6 to 9 p.m. On view through March 3, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. 455 West Ave.; 203-2522840, thenorwalkartspace.org. Join author and art historian Deborah Willis, Ph.D., and curator Halima Taha, Ph.D., for a conversation with photographer Adger Cowans: “The Illustrious Career of Adger Cowans.” The conversation will be followed by the opening reception for the exhibition, “Adger Cowans: Sense and Sensibility.” Cowans is one of the founding members of the Black photographers’ group Kamoinge. Curated by Halima Taha, this exhibition will explore how Cowans uses photography as a vehicle to articulate beauty within the human condition and the world in which we live, and will feature more than 50 works from across his career as a photographer of portraiture, landscape and film. Conversation at 5 p.m.; reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Bellarmine Hall Galleries, Fairfield University Art Museum, 200 Barlow Road; 203-254-4000x4046, fairfield.edu/museum.
JAN. 30
Dave Brubeck’s sons, Chris and Dan, who performed and recorded with their father since the 1970s, celebrate the centennial of the jazz giant by curating a multimedia show with their own Brubeck Brothers Quartet. Guitarist Mike DeMicco and pianist Chuck Lamb complete the group. Through stories told by his sons and music performed by the quartet, the show invites audiences to travel along the timeline of the senior Brubeck’s life and career. 4 p.m. The Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org. Presented by ArtsWestchester (artswestchester.org) and the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County (culturalalliancefc.org).
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LEADERSHIP TEAM
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MUSICAL DIRECTOR
PRESIDENT: Stephen Banker
Keith Harris
SECRETARY: Walt a.k.a. “Skip” Adams
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS
TREASURER: Simon Landless
Al Fennell Scott Kruse
MUSIC VP: Bill Kruse
Chet Miechkowski
SHOW VP: Thom Rosati
Stash Rossi
MARKETING VP: Stephen Bartell
OVERTONES STAFF
OPERATIONS VP: David Gasparik
EDITOR: John Fotia
MEMBERSHIP VP: Joe Dempsey
PUBLISHER: Stephen Bartell
YOUTH IN HARMONY VP: Al Fennell
AD SALES DIRECTOR: Mitchell Stein
GIG MASTER: Marc Schechter
PROOFREADER: Stephen Banker
MEMBERS AT LARGE: Victor Marino, Carlos Cruz,
HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS: Connie Delehanty
Richard Roberts, Bob Sideli HONORARY DIRECTOR: Howard Sponseller
OUR MISSION STATEMENT
1
We aspire to become one of the best musical organizations in the barbershop tradition. We embody and share the joy of quality singing, entertaining, performing and community service. We strive to increase the awareness and appreciation of our art form locally and worldwide. We achieve this through a commitment to musical growth, mutual support, fellowship and fun!
Do you need to hire a quartet for a special occasion, like a birthday or a wedding? Would you like our
HIRE US
chorus to perform at your next corporate event? Would you like to do a concert fundraiser for your charitable organization or cause? Barbershop music can be just what the doctor ordered! Call us today with any and all of your questions 914-298-7464 or visit Chordsmen.org and fill out our contact form and we will call you right away. Contact us via “snail mail” at: The Westchester Chordsmen, P.O. Box 587, White Plains, New York 10602.
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THE WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN is a non profit 501(C)(3) performing arts organization.
2021
OVERTONES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2
CHORDSMEN.ORG | 914-298-SING [7464]
4
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE – WE’RE BACK IN BUSINESS – STEPHEN BANKER
6
SINGING IN THE RAIN – JOHN FOTIA
8
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
10
FROM THE MUSICAL DIRECTOR – KEITH HARRIS
12
THE WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN – HIGH ON EACH OTHER AND BARBERSHOP – STEPHEN BARTELL
14
TAKING THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE – CONNIE AND STEVE DELEHANTY
18
SURVIVING IN THE AGE OF COVID – STEPHEN BANKER
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STAYING TOGETHER AND GATHERING AS A GROUP - THOM ROSATI
22
BARBERSHOP IS FOR EVERYONE! – SCOTT ROTHSTEIN
23
WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN OPEN THE SHOW AT YANKEE STADIUM
24
LETTING SINGING CONSONANTS DO THEIR WORK - STASH ROSSI
26
IT’S WONDERFUL BEING A WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN - MARTY TAYLOR
28
READY, SET, AND I SING - CARLOS CRUZ
30
THE 2021 SCHOLARSHIP WINNER
31
KEITH HARRIS INDUCTED IN WESCO HALL OF HONOR
32
CHORDSMEN PERFORM AT 9/11 MEMORIAL
OVERTONES
2021
A note of thanks to the
Westchester Chordsmen
for bringing joy to people around the world with your a cappella performances!
Douglas C. Lane & Associates
3
Doug and Gay Lane, Ned Dewees, Sarat Sethi, John R. Sini, Jr., Matt Vetto, Andrew P. Segal, Barbara Colucci, Marc Milic, Mike Razewski, Charlie Bustin and Nicole Solinga-Stasi Registered Investment Advisor 777 Third Avenue, 38th Floor, New York, NY 10017-1424 (212) 262-7670; Email: info@dclainc.com
Douglas C. Lane & Associates (DCLA®) is an SEC registered investment advisory firm offering customized management of common stock and bond portfolios for high net-worth individuals, families, trusts and institutions, managing over $5 billion of clients’ capital.
CHORDSMEN.ORG | 914-298-SING [7464]
_______________________________________________
2021
OVERTONES
FROM THE PRESIDENT WE’RE BACK IN BUSINESS STEVE BANKER
4
STEPHEN BANKER. To quote the musical sage Stephen Sondheim, We’re “Back in Business.” After 15 months in COVID seclusion, we’ve emerged from Zoom-land (see my article elsewhere about how we survived) and are now meeting in person! While we’re not yet able to be fully engaged in our usual schedule of activities, we’ve been busy and are making even more plans. We’re all excited to be back, and to share the joy of music with each other and with the entire community. Our coming out party has been ongoing, and we hope it will continue and expand throughout the year and into 2022 (subject of course to existing and changing COVID restrictions). Here are some highlights:
CHORDSMEN.ORG | 914-298-SING [7464]
1.Arts Organization of the Year! ArtsWestchester has named us Arts Organization of the year – quite an honor. 2. National Anthem at Yankee Stadium. In July we recorded a video of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and it was shown on the big screen at Yankee Stadium as they played the Twins on August 19. The audience loved it, and many of us were on hand to accept the honor. 3. Picnic. For the first time in several years, we held our “annual” family picnic. It was especially important for our guys to get together in person since we’ve been missing that social contact. A good time was had by all. 4. Ready, Set, Sing. Ongoing COVID protocols required us to cancel our plans for a Fall session of our free singing lesson program, but with the world opening up, we expect to restart, and to see some new faces, in the Winter. As in the past, we plan to run this program twice a year.
5. Youth Festival. Our annual Youth Festival scheduled for November 14 has been postponed, and we are exploring dates in the Spring. We are hoping to host GQ, a fabulous quartet, as our special guest. 6. Holiday Performances. Unless there’s an even bigger decrease in COVID cases, we may not be able to resume our annual holiday concert and sing-outs at local senior residences and rehab facilities. Instead, we will be performing at four community tree/meno-
rah lightings and are hoping for even more. In addition, we may update our virtual holiday show. 7. And More! We hope to return to sing at the Darien Sugar Bowl in December, and you can count on singing Valentines in February, a return to regional competition and a Spring Show. And we’re always looking for other opportunities to spread the joy of singing. So, join us for this great ride. WE’RE BACK!
OVERTONES
2021
The Westchester Chordsmen Tenors Celebrate the Sixth edition of Overtones
Tom LaMotte
Steve Delehanty
Marty Taylor
Matt Norris
Marc Schechter
Adam Samtur
5
CHORDSMEN.ORG | 914-298-SING [7464]
Dan Rendich
2021
OVERTONES
SINGING IN THE RAIN JOHN FOTIA
6
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JOHN FOTIA. Over the past year, The Westchester Chordsmen, as with other singing groups, had to find new ways to continue the work of their mission. According to that mission, the Chordsmen pledge to “embody and share the joy of quality singing, entertaining, performing and community service.” The rest of that pledge can be found on the Chordsmen Team page at the beginning of this issue. Over the more than 65-year history of the chapter, leaders have always emerged during difficult times. Men and women who have contributed to the continued health of the organization. This past year has proven to be no exception. How to continue meeting? How to continue singing? How to continue to improve? How to survive financially? How to continue to provide services to the community? Will it surprise you to learn that each of those challenges were met? It didn’t surprise me one bit. It starts with a good board led by a strong president. Steve Banker has proven to be the right man for the job. You must have a terrific music team and you will be hard pressed to find a better one in Keith Harris, Steve Delehanty, Al Fennel, Stash Rossi and Bill Kruse among others. It’s a big group so there are many others. Thanks to Bob Sideli, our Zoom meetings were handled with an expertise that was absent the confusion and problems reported at the time by others using the tool. Mitch Stein, Simon Landless and Tony Weiner were a great help and saw that the meetings were produced and broadcast on social media. Bob, along with Thom Rosati, Tony and key members of ‘the lunatic fringe’ put together a wonderful show that
reached the widest audience in Chordsmen history. Virtual Singing Valentines were provided and delivered on schedule and the tradition of the youth festival is on track; as is the production of this publication. Our commitment toward service to the community continues thanks to the efforts of the men and women who make up the Westchester Chordsmen family. In the first issue of Overtones, several members answered the question “Why are you a Chordsmen and why are you still here?” In this issue, we hear from some more who write about their introduction to the family. Stash Rossi, recipient of the 2009
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cab Calloway Foundation, offers some expert advice on singing consonants. And, in a spread that will certainly be of interest to our fans around the country, our resident photographer, Connie Delehanty, shares some photos of the Chordsmen performing on the international stage. As the world adjusts to a new normal, and in keeping with a long and proud tradition, the Westchester Chordsmen continue to carry out the objectives of their mission. And no matter how divided the world may seem, music will continue to bring us together. In the words of Hans Christian Anderson “Where words fail, music speaks.”
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159 Underhill Lane, Peekskill NY, 10566
Schedule of Westchester Chordsmen Performances/Activities
FEBRUARY 2022 Ready, Set, Sing! Free Singing Lessons for six weeks APRIL/MAY 2022 Mid Atlantic Division Contest
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Choruses and Quartets compete for right to compete in District Contest in the Fall of 2022 MAY 2022 Spring Show Extravaganza SEPTEMBER 2022 OVERTONES Magazine 8th Edition OCTOBER 2022 Fall District Convention and Contest Schedule subject to change and subject to Covid restrictions Check our website for latest update: chordsmen.org.
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OVERTONES
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Any celebration or event is better ♪ with music from ♪ The Westchester Chordsmen Chorus Quartet, Small Chorus or Full Chorus
4-part A Capella in the Barbershop Style chordsmen.org
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68TH ANNIVERSARY 2021
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OVERTONES
FROM THE MUSICAL DIRECTOR KEITH HARRIS
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KEITH HARRIS. On March 12, 2020, I received a phone call from the rehearsal office at the Metropolitan Opera that the rehearsal that afternoon had been cancelled. I was 15 minutes from heading to the theater. Within a few hours, all of New York city had shut down and the entire world turned upside down. Only a couple of days earlier the Westchester Chordsmen had met for what would be our last rehearsal. What started as a two-week safety hold turned into a very long winter. Before the end of March, Monday night meetings were moved to Zoom and regular attendance rose to almost
60 members each week. What initially brought us together was the music but what kept us together was the community. The fine singers of the Chordsmen, having always been one-part family and one-part chorus, quickly became a support group, keeping track of sick members who had come down with Covid, and using Zoom as a muchneeded social outlet. The Chordsmen quickly learned how to create virtual music videos. Not only did we need to sing to enrich our own lives, but we felt our communities could use the inspiration as well.
We created numerous virtual shows focusing much of our attention on the hospitals and health centers hit the hardest. From there we moved to an international showing of our Holiday Extravaganza which has received over 4,000 views on YouTube. Shortly into the new year we continued our tradition of custom-made singing valentines… which sold out by February 1st. We cannot wait to sing together again in person and welcome our audience back into the theater. In the meantime, we fully intend to use our music to inspire hope, inclusion, and peace.
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Are you man enough to sing with us? The Westchester Chordsmen Chorus invites men who like to sing to audition for us! We meet every Monday evening from 7-10 PM. You may bring a prepared audition song, but it is not required. Music will be provided. Prior vocal experience or music reading ability may be helpful but not essential for chorus membership. An experienced mentor will be assigned to each new member. Visit <chordsmen.org/audition> to complete an application to arrange for an audition time. A Cappella Broadway | Barbershop | Doo-Wop | Gospel | Pop | Rock 11
2022 The Westchester Chordsmen Chorus will be proud to publish its Seventh Annual Edition of OVERTONES Magazine to be published in November, 2022. We are accepting advertising for your business—or post a personal message for your student (or spouse) singer!
OVERTONES READ ABOUT OUR 2019 A CAPPELLA YOUTH FESTIVAL WITH SPECIAL GUESTS 2019 INTERNATIONAL BRONZE MEDALISTS MIDTOWN A PUBLICATION OF THE WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN
For ad rates and sizes, please contact: Stephen Bartell, VP Marketing at 914-833-8683, or email sjbartell3@gmail.com
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Distributed via the Westchester County Business Journal on-line, given out at Chordsmen performance venues and other locations all over Westchester County.
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OVERTONES
THE WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN – HIGH ON EACH OTHER AND BARBERSHOPPING! STEPHEN BARTELL
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STEPHEN BARTELL We must be doing something right! The Westchester Chordsmen has a growing membership, stable finances, an active and varied schedule of performances, a dedicated fan base, extensive community outreach programs, an active quartetting program and high musical standards and goals. When asked how do we do it and what advice we might offer to other chapters, we usually say: “First and foremost, have fun. Enjoy singing with your ‘pals’ and the rest kind of takes care of itself.” Clearly, that’s a bit over-simplified, but it’s a good attitude from which all else can follow. The real secret sauce is a combination of hard work and, most importantly, our culture. Our Culture. We’re a group of guys who love to sing together and share the joy of singing with our community. That is the paramount defining feature of our chorus. We are proud of the members in our chapter. We come from every walk of life, profession and interest. None of that matter when we hit the risers – we’re just a bunch of guys singing in sweet harmony. Our diversity is part of the magic. Our members are all friendly, caring and contributing men, many of whom have been with the chorus for a very long time. We often hear about the “camaraderie,” but I believe our guys (and their spouses) go beyond that. Many of our members swear that joining the chorus has changed their lives for the better, and several have said they have gained 70 new friends and brothers. Our Ready-Set-Sing participants tell us that this happy, jovial and friendly environment is what attracted many of them to join. We believe in good riser discipline,
but it doesn’t hurt to have a few “comedians” who just can’t seem to withhold their occasional one-liners from leaking out. Good spirits are yet another factor in our choral cohesion. We have high standards and enjoy going to contests. While contest is a fabulous incentive to hone our skills and gauge our competence in the disciplines of barbershop, a high score is not essential to our mission. We have found (and heard from other choruses) that obsessing over getting high scores can lead to reduced morale and even defec-
tions. We do not ask members to leave, or sit out, if their skills have diminished, just for the sake of a higher score. Instead, we find other ways to maintain our high level of performance. We value the participation of all of our members, and this helps to maintain our culture of friendliness and mutual support. We are an entertainment-focused chorus. This inspires us to enjoy our “craft” while giving the audience something really positive to react to. We always strive for a standing “O”(vation)! Fortunately, we succeed consistently.
Culture of Leadership. We are blessed to have dedicated and talented leadership. This starts with our exceptionally talented director, Keith Harris, and our four assistant directors. Keith is a tremendous draw: to our audience, our members and our recruiting efforts. He knows how to get the most out of us, without alienating our members. He helps to maintain our culture. We are also fortunate to have a very active and qualified Board and many members who contribute their time and energy to keeping us going strong. It’s a lot of work, and often akin to herding cats, but very rewarding for those of us in leadership positions. Finally, we have some extraordinary talent within the chorus, including several arrangers and a very special composer/arranger (thanks, Steve Delehanty), a few music educators, a Tony nominee and others who write our shows, and our own in-house learning track man – Scott Kruse – who enables us to learn all of the original compositions in our repertoire. He is also one of our four very talented associate directors. Proud History. The Westchester Chordsmen, founded in 1953, is the only BHS chapter in Westchester County, New York, with 70 active members. In our 66 years, we have been fortunate enough to travel the world: England, Ireland, Italy, Russia, and China (twice). We’ve also sung at the White House, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and were mic testers at International in Toronto. We have a long and proud tradition of comedic presentations of original material at contests. One of our members has published a history of The Westchester Chordsmen, so all of our members can appreciate our legacy. Community Outreach. We are constantly expanding our public awareness in Westchester County and beyond with our outreach programs. In addition to our annual holiday singouts at 11 senior care facilities, we’re preparing for our sixth annual Youth A Cappella Festival and the eighth edition of our Ready-Set-Sing program.
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We are most proud of the Youth A Cappella Festival. Every year we invite 9-10 high school a cappella groups to perform in a free concert sponsored by us and a local high school partner. This gives the participating schools an opportunity to perform before an enthusiastic audience, and to experience their peers, all in a non-competitive environment. The event is topped off by a brief performance by the Chordsmen, and finally all of the students join us on stage for a song they have learned and practiced with us. All the students consider this a highlight of their year (and so do we!). We also sponsor a scholarship for a graduating high school senior who plans to study voice in college. Since 2016, we’ve been running two Ready-Set-Sing programs per year, with 150 participants. All the students appreciate the six-week program of free singing lessons, and it increases our profile in the community. Most importantly, we have 28 members who were introduced to us through this program. The success of this program has required a buy-in from all of our members as mentors and supporters for the participants and supporters and is truly a full-chorus team effort. Performances. In addition to our performances at contest, the Youth A Cappella Festival, singing Valentines and whatever gigs may be available, we now schedule a scripted show in the Spring, and a Holiday concert in the Fall. Our director carefully schedules our weekly rehearsals so that we can learn all of the new music necessary for our shows, and to refresh our performance of songs already in our repertoire. We have four standing quartets in the chorus, and more pick-up quartets. We had six quartets delivering Singing Valentines this year. Our quartets perform at our shows, and whenever gigs are available. Fund Raising. Like all chapters, we have many expenses, only a small part of which is covered by the chapter portion of our dues. Instead of selling ads for each of our shows, we now publish
an annual magazine, OVERTONES, full of photos and editorial content pertinent to barbershopping and our chorus. We have now published five profitable editions, and it has become our largest source of income. Our members are asked to sell ads for OVERTONES, Singing Valentines and tickets to our Spring and Holiday shows. Consistent with our culture, we do not impose any minimum requirements for sales, but only ask members to do what they can. This has been sufficient for us to maintain a reasonable (but not excessive) financial position. Media. I’d be negligent if (as VP PR) I didn’t mention the importance of developing a media list (e-mails for local and regional news outlets – papers, on-line news sites and other media outlets). Press releases with pictures may be tough to get published, but when they are, they can have a very big impact. Our website is also extremely important as an open door to the public for inbound inquiries, ticket buying and to post our latest accomplishments in print and video. Goals. One of our goals for the near future is to continue to grow our membership. There is so much impact on the chorus when “new blood” joins, bringing their curiosity, enthusiasm (and audience members!). We also hope to continue our performing focus with bigger and better shows and venues (in a very competitive entertainment market), while ensuring that our guys continue to be enthusiastic about the chapter and are having fun in the process. When asked what advice we might offer to other chapters, we usually say: “First and foremost, have fun. Enjoy singing with your ‘pals’ and the rest kind of takes care of itself.” Clearly, that’s a bit over-simplified, but it’s a good attitude from which all else can follow. I’ll close with an echo (maybe better called an overtone!) of HAVE FUN, first and foremost. This is an amazing hobby with wonderful people involved. Enjoy them and yourself. Keep the whole world singing!
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OVERTONES
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OVERTONES
TAKING THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE CONNIE AND STEVE DELEHANTY JOHN FOTIA: When putting this issue together, the usual call for submissions went out. It was mentioned that contributions might be in the form of photographs, articles, or letters to the editor. The following response came from our resident photographer, Connie Delehanty, otherwise known as Mrs. Stephen Delehanty. Over the years, Connie has provided the chapter with a treasure chest of photographs. For these, and decades’ worth of cherished mementos we are grateful.
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CONNIE DELEHANTY: Many of our current chapter members sang as mic testers for the 2013 International Chorus contest in Toronto and new chapter members have heard about the Music Man package that was sung. However, many do not know that the Chordsmen also had that honor in 1977, singing as mic testers for the International Chorus contest in Philadelphia. The privilege of singing as mic tester for the International Chorus contest is traditionally by invitation to the secondplace chorus champ of the host district for the international convention. In October 1976, the Chordsmen won second place in the MAD chorus contest in Atlantic City, singing the Smile Medley (arranged by Delehanty) and I Will Be There (Delehanty original). Bob Sideli made the 1977 recording of I Will Be There available via a YouTube link that was emailed on June 7 last month. In 1977, the Dapper Dans of Harmony from Livingston NJ represented our district in the International Chorus contest held in Philadelphia where MAD was the host district. The Westchester Golden Chordsmen sang as the mic testers, performing the Smile Medley (arranged » A HISTORY 26
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Congratulations the Congratulations to to the
Westchester Chordsmen
Westchester Chordsmen on the seventh edition of edition of on the seventh OVERTONES Magazine
OVERTONES Magazine "The toughest part goes to the toughest guys!"
"The toughest part goes The Chordsmen Baritones to the toughest guys!" The Chordsmen Baritones 15
To Al Fennell, Benjamin and Stephen Banker: May your chords always ring true! Call (914) 328-0163 280 Mamaroneck Ave. or visit Suite 201 White Plains, NY 10605 www.Smiles4Families.com For more information
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We Salute the WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN Chorus and Quartets
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2013 INTERNATIONAL CHORUS CONTEST, TORONTO, CANADA
by Delehanty) and Here’s an Invitation to Go Out Dancing (Delehanty original). I’ve attached a few related documents and photos.
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STEVE DELEHANTY: Connie said I should write something about what I remember. Well, I do remember that Dave Schuman announced when we got back at the next rehearsal that we were scored by the judges, and we would have finished about 7th or 8th (maybe 6th) which was great. He also announced that we finished 1st in the Arrangement Category which was nice. I don’t have any documents to back that up, but I think my recollection is accurate.
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What does it take to be a Lead? Leads sing the melody. The melody must be sung with authority, clarity and consistent quality throughout his range. The lead sings with limited vibrato to add color and warmth to the sound.
The lead conveys the interpretation, emotion, and inflections of the song.
Have you got what it takes to be a Lead? Visit our website at Chordsmen.org
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Too much vibrato and the chord will not “lock” or “ring” or produce the unique, “expanded” or full sound that is characteristic of barbershop harmony.
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SURVIVING IN THE AGE OF COVID STEPHEN BANKER
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STEPHEN BANKER. On March 11, 2020, The Westchester Chordsmen decided to shut down our activities, at least for a few weeks, due to the danger posed by the spread of COVID-19. Little did we know that our usual activities would be shut down for more than a year, and even now we are subject to some limitations. After announcing our shut-
down, one of our primary concerns was preserving what we have built – how do we maintain an interest in singing, and in belonging to a performing group, when those core activities would not be possible for an indefinite period. I’m glad to report that we not only survived as a group, but we have
thrived! How did we do it? First, we created innovative and compelling internal programming for our members. This gave us the confidence and the tools to then create virtual performances, giving purpose to our continued singing at home and great entertainment for our communities. Zoom Meetings. We quickly estab-
lished a committee to create and program weekly Zoom meetings for the chorus, in lieu of the in-person rehearsals which were no longer possible. The committee met every two to three weeks, for 14 months, until we were able to resume in-person meetings. The first Zoom meeting was on April 6, 2020 (we had missed only three weeks of rehearsals) and continued until May 17, 2021. Attendance at these meetings frequently exceeded the average attendance for our in-person rehearsals! The programming for our Zoom meetings varied from week to week, but always started with vocal warmups and concluded with the singing of “Keep the Whole World Singing” (the Barbershoppers’ anthem), just as we had concluded every in-person meeting. We occasionally held sectionals to help us learn a new song (or improve an old one). Of course, Zoom is not singer-friendly, since every computer has a different (but slight) time lag, so we generally had to put ourselves on mute while we sang along with one member, or a recording, or as directed. Still, we had the sense of singing together. The weekly programming was varied. Occasionally we had an interview – “meet the Chordsman” – so we were able to get to know each other better. Some members shared their hobbies. We always had a video watch party, viewing classic videos of past performances by the Chordsmen and by championship choruses and quartets. We frequently had a guest speaker, some luminary from the barbershopping world. There was always time for socializing, and we occasionally had a special fun event, like a trivia contest, name that tune or identifying Chordsmen from their baby pictures. All in all, the Zoom meetings served
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their purpose – maintaining the sense of group, and belonging, with a common interest, and keeping us together for the day when we could again emerge. Virtual Performances. Our first virtual project was a tribute to the health care workers in local medical facilities. A few of our members recorded messages of gratitude and encouragement, and the tribute concluded with a few videos of inspirational songs which had been previously recorded. We then experimented with recording songs stitched together from individual videos prepared by our members at home. This morphed into our Polecat Program, preparing videos of the chorus singing all twelve traditional barbershop songs called Polecats. The challenge of singing all twelve provided a motivation to keep singing, and a project to maintain unity of purpose through love of song. Most of our members met the challenge and were personally recognized in a guest appearance from CEO Marty Monson of the Barbershop Harmony Society. All of this recording gave us the confidence to undertake a much more ambitious project - our virtual holiday show “Home for the Holidays.” This was a combination of material from prior performances, new (“stitched together”) material specially created for the show and some guest virtual appearances. The show was praised by many, and has drawn over 100,000 views on YouTube, our biggest audience ever. With all this experience, virtual Singing Valentines naturally followed, and were even more popular than our usual live Singing Valentines. No doubt we will keep the virtual version as an option in the future. Then we prepared and distributed musical
Mothers’ Day tributes. Emerging From Zoom-Land. Following the example set by other groups, this Spring we experimented with “car singing” or “carbershop” - live rehearsals in a parking lot, socially distanced in our cars, with microphones and an FM transmitter to unite our sound. This quickly morphed into outdoor rehearsals, until we finally had the green light to return to indoor rehearsals. Yet this was not exactly a return to pre-COVID days, but rather a hybrid, with the need to always have one eye on the virus, and adopt cautionary measures as appropriate. Our first official not-quite-in-person performance was a great one - singing the National Anthem at Yankee Stadium on August 19, 2021. Following Stadium protocols, we couldn’t sing live, but we recorded it a few weeks earlier, and it was played on the BIG SCREEN. Fortunately, many of us were there to see and hear it in person, and it has attracted over 80,000 views on social media! As for our upcoming schedule of performances, we have yet to determine any restrictions to be placed on our performance or on the audience. This experience has given us many lessons: we all love singing, and singing for others; when that becomes difficult, we find a way to meet that goal; we are flexible, rolling with the impediments placed before us; we are unified in our aim to stick together and find a path forward; and we have many talented and dedicated members whose technological expertise has permitted us to thrive during this period. None of us wants to go back to the days when we were limited to Zooming and remote singing, yet from this experience we have grown as a group and as individuals.
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OVERTONES
STAYING CONNECTED AND GATHERING AS A GROUP
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Thom Rosati. When Covid came to Westchester, the group was rehearsing a mile away from where the first major outbreak was reported. People were trying to figure out how we could stay together as a singing group. To the rescue came Bob Sideli, our “Barbershopper of the Year,” along with Keith Harris, Simon Landless and Mitch Stein to audaciously craft ways we could be together, yet apart. Here are some of the ways the group was able to find work arounds and become a tighter group. Zoom Meetings. A month after we stopped, we had the groundwork in place to meet via ZOOM as we always did. The meetings had singing and challenges, surprises, and support for the 50 members who regularly showed up. We had guests stop in to warm us up and got to know all about habits, hobbies, and home life with “Interviews with a Chordsmen.” Polecat Project. The group came up with the idea of having every member learn and record themselves singing every polecat and earn a coveted Barbershop Polecat certification. These were premiered during these Monday get togethers and were a hit with everyone hearing and seeing the final project. Forty members participated. Their awards were individually “handed out” by Marty Monson, president of the Barbershop Harmony society. A Live Murder Mystery. The Spring show, which was planned for 2020 had to be scrapped, but we found a way to have the show still go on. Lots of technical hurdles, but lots of laughs! Jamulus. We found out quickly that you could not sing together online. Performers around the world looked for alternate ways to do this and found a program called Jamulus. The program wasn’t for everyone because of techni-
cal issues, but it was something we got working for a dozen or so members who met each week. We were finally back busting chords together with people around the world. Carbershop. What if you reversed a drive-in movie so the people in the cars ran the show? This is sort of the way Carbershop worked. People sitting in their cars could sing and hear the chorus singing together in real time over their car radio. It was an emotional experience. To finally sing like a chorus
safely after so much time only being able to see your friends but not be able to sing with them. The outcome is that after a year and a half, where many groups have drifted apart and disbanded, we have an active chorus that has met weekly and remained together. We learned more about the people who make up the group and have stronger bonds between members who appreciate even more when they say “it’s great to be a Chordsman!”
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and the Chordsmen for the music The Quinlan Family
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Thank you to Director Keith Harris
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OVERTONES
BARBERSHOP IS FOR EVERYONE! SCOTT ROTHSTEIN
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SCOTT ROTHSTEIN. Reporting for The Westchester Chordsmen Inclusion Committee. Did you know that many of the most popular African American musicians of the 20th century, including Scott Joplin, Sydney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, W. C. Handy, and even the great Louis Armstrong, all began their musical journeys singing in Barbershop Harmony quartets? “Barbershop Harmony” singing is firmly rooted in African American musical traditions of the nineteenth century. This complex form of four-part vocal harmony originated with African Americans in the late 19th century, and blossomed in the early 20th, alongside other African American musical forms such as ragtime, blues, and jazz. The Westchester Chordsmen are proud of the many decades in which we have welcomed men of all backgrounds and ethnicities. The members of the Westchester Chordsmen not only accept differences in our chorus, but we also celebrate them. We are committed to having a diverse membership, considering it to be a source of strength. All membership applicants receive equal consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or age. A basic ability to sing, and a desire to share in the joy of singing with others, are the only prerequisites for membership. Seeking to overcome a regrettable early history of racial discrimination that it has acknowledged and firmly rejected, the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) through its various programs actively supports and encourages di-
versity throughout the ranks of its membership. Similarly, this last year, the Westchester Chordsmen formalized our commitment that barbershop is for everyone in an Inclusion Statement that adopted a set of principles to guide our proactive efforts to reflect and embrace the wonderful diversity of the region we represent. These principles are: ● We will reach out to more diverse communities for cooperative or joint performances. ● We will seek more diverse venues and audiences. ● We will increase our visibility throughout the entire community in which we live, without exception, to enhance our membership recruiting efforts. ● We will expand our scholarship program to include a broader range of candidates, more representative of our community’s demographics. ● We will practice cultural awareness and sensitivity in the selection of our music, and in the manner of its presentation. Our Board has established a committee dedicated to pursuing and implementing these principles. This pledge extends to every member of the Westchester Chordsmen. We are energized by the thought that our dedication to the ideal of inclusion will advance the cause of brotherhood and spread the joy of Barbershop Harmony singing to new participants who will engage in an old, but treasured art form, and to new audiences who will be awakened to its glories. We hope you will join us!
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chordsmen.org
OVERTONES
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WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN OPEN THE SHOW AT YANKEE STADIUM On August 19th, The Westchester Chordsmen had the honor of performing the national anthem at the one and only Yankee Stadium! When advised of the upcoming event, the members of the chorus were asked to keep the secret under wraps and not to post it on social media beforehand. The performance can be viewed on YouTube or on the Chordsmen Facebook page. Baseball has always been a favorite hobby for the Chordsmen who once wore the actual Yankee uniforms provided by George Steinbrenner for their annual show. Photos by Connie Delehanty.
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MAD District Photo.
Photo courtesy of Connie Delehanty.
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Photo courtesy of Connie Delehanty.
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LETTING SINGABLE CONSONANTS DO THEIR WORK Dr Anastasio Rossi, assistant director of the Westchester Chordsmen, director of the Golden Apple Chorus, and the recipient of the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cab Calloway Foundation, offers some expert advice on singing consonants. Most of us have been taught that the English language has five vowels and 21 consonants. Basically true. But the other truth is that many of the 21 consonants act just like vowels and do similar work. In music, we call them Singable Consonants. Learning about their characteristics and functions can play a large part in making your singing sound better.
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First, let’s see what separates singable consonants from the others. Singable Consonants (also called voiced consonants) have voice and pitch. They use the voice when produced. Examples are f, l, m, n, r, s, th, v, w, y, z. The rest have no voice or pitch: c, h, k, p, q, t. Voiced consonants continue the sound and flow of air as vowels do. Most unvoiced consonants stop the sound and flow of air. Finally, some consonants do double duty: NOTE: f, s, th, b, th, and x have both voiced and unvoiced modes. EXAMPLES: of/fun, say/is, this/thin, tax/exact. b, d, g, j, and x are semi-voiced just before opening Speak these above examples aloud to see, hear, and feel the difference between voiced and unvoiced modes. It is also important to know that 1) Vowels begin on the beat, 2) Vowels are sung through the full value of their notes. 3) Initial voiced consonants begin just before the beat, and take their time from preceding vowels, notes, or rests. 4) Final voiced consonants take their time from preceding vowels or notes. One of the most effective tools to put singable consonants to work in a song is subdivision. Subdivide the note into smaller components and assign the singable consonant to one of the subdivisions. For example, in the phrase, “Everyone dreams of a story book romance”, let’s consider the singable consonants in dreams, of, and romance: Here is the original notation:
Here is the notation using subdivision to place the singable consonants:
1. Measure 2: Subdivide the dotted quarter for dreams into
one 4th note and one 8th note. Sing drea on the 4th, mz on the 8th, uh on the first 16th, and vuh on the second 16th. 2. Measure 3: Subdivide beats 2 and 3 on Book and Rom into one 4th, one 8th, and four 16ths, as shown. Sing Book on the 4th, R on the second 16th, and m on the fourth 16th. 3. Measure 4: Subdivide the half note on ance into one 4th and two 8ths as shown. Sing a on the 4th, sing n on the first 8th, and ce on the second 8th. Practice at a slow tempo, placing and singing each singable consonant accurately. Increase the tempo gradually, with attention to all the singable consonants, until artistry transcends technique, and the phrase is sung musically, effortlessly, and beautifully. Continued practice using this method and technique heightens your awareness of, and sensitivity to, singable consonants, and ensures their rightful place and presence in your music and singing. The clear assignment of each singable consonant to its own space within a note tends to glue all the syllables in a phrase together. The result? Your singing voice achieves a beautiful and seamless legato sound, a key component of beautiful singing. Every singable or voiced consonant in the lyrics of “My
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2021
Romance” is highlighted below in red. This highlighting dramatically points out that they appear 128 times in just twelve lines of lyrics. Put every single one of them to good use, and you (and your audiences) will surely be pleased with the result.
MY ROMANCE by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart New Verse by Lorraine Hubler Everyone dreams of a story book romance, With ringing bells the moment they fall. This kind of love leaves too much to chance. my romance is different from them all. My Romance doesn’t have to have a moon in the sky. My Romance doesn’t need a blue lagoon standing by. No month of May, no twinkling stars, no hide away, no soft guitars. My Romance doesn’t need a castle rising in Spain, nor dance to a constantly surprising refrain.
Compliments of a Friend
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Wide awake, I can make my most fantastic dreams come true. My Romance doesn’t need a thing but you, only you.
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IT’S WONDERFUL BEING A WESTCHESTER CHORDSMAN MARTY TAYLOR
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MARTY TAYLOR - It was a hot evening at the Briarcliff Congregational Church and Keith Harris, our fearless director, had been working us hard. After several hours of singing, we welcomed the longanticipated call by our resident circus barker, John Manning. This signified that the rehearsal had drawn to an end and that the 50-50 winner was about to be announced. Along came shoeless Joe Dempsey taking the stage as he spun the wheel and announced that Carlos Cruz was the winner. Carlos was stunned as he was paraded before the chorus. The Chordsmen joined arms as Carlos became the director of our closing number “Keep the Whole World Singing.” The light in his eyes, the animation of his body brought mist to my eyes. Carlos and I go back a long way. I first met him as he was pedaling a bike to Orchard Beach in the Bronx. He seemed enthusiastic about everything and willing to take a go at anything I suggested. Except, it took me approximately ten years to get him to our Chordsmen program, Ready, set, sing! Barbershop is now a large and gratifying part of his life. Mind you, Carlos is much more steeped in opera and classical music. However, he seems to find his passionate home with the camaraderie, friendship, and learning experience provided by our wonderful director Keith Harris and all the Chordsmen. In addition, when an outdoor art group was suggested, Carlos, I and several others strengthened our bond by painting landscapes in many locations. Our chorus is extremely unique, a cando group with many talented individuals in so many areas. Wonderful Bob Sideli and others too many to mention them all; but especially Simon Landless and
Mitch Stein who helped guide us and kept us together through this pandemic. Bob put together a professional format, not only for our virtual concert, but for our weekly meetings. The meetings were seamlessly orchestrated, always providing imaginative ways in which to rehearse. There were interesting, well-researched and entertaining clips such as a video (probably from the 1920s or 30s) of the “Red Hats Quartet,” a foursome of Black railroad porters. I cannot think of a time when I called Bob, Mitch or Simon when they did not
drop whatever they happened to be doing at home to help me with a tech problem. My wife says that I have no patience to sit down and figure things out on the internet. Who knows? It may have been during a dinner or an absorbing movie when I called. It is such a meaningful moment when we join arms at the end of a rehearsal and sing. It embodies who we are, what we represent and all the trials and joys that we share in friendship and music. Peace and love. It’s wonderful being a Chordsman.
chordsmen.org
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OVERTONES 2021
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2021
OVERTONES
READY SET AND I SING CARLOS CRUZ
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CARLOS CRUZ - That was the idea when Marty Taylor, a veteran of many years with the Westchester Chordsmen, invited me to sing with him in a live rehearsal. Marty’s request was plain and simple. I had no idea that he would ask me to stand on the risers with fifty or so other Chordsmen and sing along. It was a wonderful surprise and I was totally overwhelmed to say the least. Marty motivated me to sing a cappella in harmony blending my voice to the poetry of the lyrics without the assist of a musical instrument. I must admit that my musical experience was virtually nonexistent. As a ten-year old, I would join my elder sister to listen to the tunes of the time on a radio program called “It’s Make Believe Ballroom Time.” The melodies were inspiring and it was hosted by a wellknown broadcaster of his time, Martin Block. It left me with a clear and strong impression that accompanied me over the years to the present when Marty inspired me to join him in song. I was committed and happily sought to involve myself. I joined the Board of Directors and shared in the operations of our chapter. I was awarded the WES-
CO “Barbershopper of the Month.” For the last three-and one-half years I have always served the chapter and will continue to do so.
CHORDSMEN.ORG | 914-298-SING [7464]
chordsmen.org
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2021
Westchester magazine raises the bar for addressing your audience POSTED ON JUNE 20, 2017 BY BRIAN LYNCH* PROFESSIONAL LAYOUT AND DESIGN, “INSIDER” FEATURE CONTENT, AND LOADS OF ADVERTISING COMBINE TO MAKE THE WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN‘S OVERTONES MAGAZINE A MODEL TO EMULATE. The full-size magazine format allows plenty of space for a clean, airy presentation, and showcases the numerous advertisers to best advantage. Evergreen content covers the chapter’s active performance schedule, outreach activities, and even history stories. The magazine can be used as both a standalone publication and a show program. Hats off to John Fotia and Stephen Bartell and their team for a first-class channel for reaching their audience. Be sure to look at the chapter’s attractive web site, too. See more: The Westchester Chordsmen *The above endorsement was published by Brian Lynch, the publication and brand manager of the Barbershop Harmony Society on his internet blog.
0 — ver — tone (noun). A musical tone that is a part of the harmonic series above a fundamental note and may be heard with it (e.g., when the bass, baritone and lead sing their pitches, the tenor pitch — the overtone — c an be heard without the help of the tenor). When achieved, the result is a perfectly pitched combination of voices.
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SHAFER GOOTKIND AWARDED 2021 WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN SCHOLARSHIP
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SHAFER GOOTKIND is a huge fan of music and musical theatre who loves to sing, act, and perform. Last June, he graduated from Mamaroneck High School where he thrived in the fouryear PACE program (Performing Arts Curriculum Experience), Mixed Choir and MAC (Men’s A Cappella group) and many high school musicals and plays. Outside of school, Shafer studies voice, and is an active member of neurodiverse theatre troupes ActionPlay and EPIC Players. In early 2020, he played the lead role of Gerard in Planet Alice at Dramatists Guild’s Friday Night Footlights, his first professional acting role. Last spring, he sang and filmed duets with Broadway’s Stephanie Hsu and award-winning composer/lyricist Scott Evan Davis, and his original song, “Be Kind,” was chosen to underscore the closing credits at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Reverb Arts Festival. A proud winner of the 2021 Westchester Chordsmen Scholarship, Shafer is thrilled to be a freshman in the musical theatre performance program at The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts (NYCDA) in Manhattan.
CHORDSMEN.ORG | 914-298-SING [7464]
“Thank you so much for awarding me the Westchester Chordsmen Scholarship! I’m very grateful to receive your recognition and support. The financial reward is tremendously helpful, and I’m so happy to be honored for this special acknowledgement for doing what I love to do most – sing~ I can’t thank you enough for this encouraging and special honor. Please extend my gratitude to the entire committee. With my greatest appreciation Shafer Gootkind”
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2021
KEITH HARRIS INDUCTED INTO THE WESCO HALL OF HONOR We’re proud to announce the induction of our wonderful Musical Director Keith Harris into the Chordsmen Hall of Honor! Keith has now served as director longer than any previous holder of that title. Honorees must “be an outstanding barbershopper in every way and must embody the character, ideals, and principles of leadership, good musicianship, gentlemanly behavior, courtesy, kindness, sincerity, integrity, and a sense of humor.” Keith checks all these boxes, and many more! Congratulations! (Keith is pictured accepting his award from Chapter President Stephen Banker)
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CHORDSMEN PERFORM AT 9/11 MEMORIAL STEPHEN BANKER
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STEPHEN BANKER. The Chordsmen were privileged to sing “The National Anthem,” together with members of The New Rochelle Opera, to open the 9/11 memorial event on the steps of City Hall in New Rochelle. Our performance was part of a larger event, including speeches from first responders and civic and religious leaders. Later in the event, we sang “Amazing Grace,” again with the NRO singers. We were invited to participate by Camille Coppola, co-founder and director of NRO, through Vic Marino, who is a member of both NRO and the Chordsmen. Thanks to Camille and Vic for making this possible. Prior to the event, we had a few run-throughs with the NRO members, singing on the front porch of Ms. Coppola’s home, to the delight of her neighbors. The experience of singing in a mixed gender group was new for many of us, and we had a good blend and a totally positive experience. We hope to repeat this in the future and/or at other venues.
CHORDSMEN.ORG | 914-298-SING [7464]
Are you man enough to sing with us? The Westchester Chordsmen Chorus invites men who like to sing to audition for us! We meet every Monday evening from 7-10 PM. You may bring a prepared audition song, but it is not required. Music will be provided. Prior vocal experience or music reading ability may be helpful but not essential for chorus membership. An experienced mentor will be assigned to each new member. Visit <chordsmen.org/audition> to complete an application to arrange for an audition time. A Cappella Broadway | Barbershop | Doo-Wop | Gospel | Pop | Rock
2022 The Westchester Chordsmen Chorus will be proud to publish its Seventh Annual Edition of OVERTONES Magazine to be published in November, 2022. We are accepting advertising for your business—or post a personal message for your student (or spouse) singer!
OVERTONES READ ABOUT OUR 2019 A CAPPELLA YOUTH FESTIVAL WITH SPECIAL GUESTS 2019 INTERNATIONAL BRONZE MEDALISTS MIDTOWN A PUBLICATION OF THE WESTCHESTER CHORDSMEN
Distributed via the Westchester County Business Journal on-line, given out at Chordsmen performance venues and other locations all over Westchester County.
For ad rates and sizes, please contact: Stephen Bartell, VP Marketing at 914-833-8683, or email sjbartell3@gmail.com
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