At Josh Kroner and Betty Contreras’s 1720 Dutch farmhouse, the connection between garden, kitchen, and table runs deep. The front door opens straight into the kitchen, where picture windows capture views of the surrounding 38-acre farm. “The original farmhouse was built by Dutch settlers before the English took over,” explains Kroner, the founder and head chef at Terrapin Restaurant. It’s been a farm so long the wood planks in the barn have been ground down by centuries of use. ”
Between kitchen and farmscape, an ancient, restored butcher block is a natural gathering space, set with a seasonal offering of flowers that Contreras is slowly learning to coax from the garden. For Contreras, that spot and the surrounding flow of activity whirling from chef’s kitchen to patio to fields form the heart of the home. “I love that the first thing I see when I enter is the butcher block and then the gardens where our goat and chicken wander,” she explains. “It’s the instant blend of home, food, and nature—all the things we love in one view.”
The Reluctant Locavore
The seeds for Kroner’s culinary calling were planted early. “My grandfather left Manhattan to start a restaurant in Brewster,” he explains. “My first cooking job was at my Uncle Vinny’s restaurant in Pleasantville, where I learned my grandfather’s recipes.” Kroner briefly detoured into tech, studying engineering before he realized he shared the family passion for food.
He attended the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan and began apprenticing with chefs in the city. But real inspiration came from his commute. “I lived in the East Village and worked in Union Square at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill,” Kroner explains. “When I got out of the train I’d walk through the farmers’ market and think, ‘Wow this is great! This is where the food comes from.’”
Drawn by fruit and vegetables, Kroner returned to the Hudson Valley in 1997, in search of a cornucopia of fresh ingredients and a thriving local food culture. The reality was quite different. “I expected fresh produce to be everywhere, and it just wasn’t,” he remembers. “There were no farmers’ markets, no farm stands, and absolutely no farm-to-table. No one seemed to care where their produce came from.”
So Kroner started small, opening the first iteration of Terrapin in the woods of West Hurley. He was intent on providing fresh, local ingredients to diners and began reaching out to local farms. “It seemed natural to connect with local farmers when I started the restaurant,” he says. “I started going to farms and asking farmers, ‘What can I get?’”
He built recipes around what he sourced and began identifying local farms on the menu. Kroner was onto something. “The whole thing just mushroomed. Other chefs started doing the same thing and customers started asking to see more local ingredients,” he remembers. “I didn’t want to start a movement, I just wanted better ingredients for the restaurant.” In 2003, Kroner relocated Terrapin to Rhinebeck, taking over an 1825 former Baptist church on Montgomery Street, transforming one half into a formal restaurant, and the other into a bistro.
Straight from the Donkey’s Back
For Contreras, childhood meals weren’t farm-to-table, more farm-to-donkey-to-table. She grew up in the Dominican Republic on a family farm abundant with light, color—and plenty of mangos right outside her front door. Farmers skipped the middle men; instead marchantas hawked fresh produce straight from the farms. “They piled vegetables and fruit high on donkeys and then rode around town yelling out that day’s harvest,” she remembers. “I’d run out and pick what I wanted straight from the donkey’s back.”
Contreras moved to New York for college, studying physical therapy, and settling in Brooklyn. She was entranced by the city’s vibrancy and, even though she’d always planned to return to the family farm, she started to think she’d never leave her block in Fort Greene. “I loved that little world, with its array of cultures expressing beauty through flowers and landscaping,” she says. “Almost through osmosis the mix seeped into how I see light and create spaces.”
Farm-to-Island Cooking
In 2017, Kroner bought the four-bedroom farmstead near Rhinebeck. The home’s previous owner had doubled its square footage by adding a first-floor primary bedroom suite with an open concept office above. Kroner hoped the antique home, with its original wide plank floors, 18-inch-wide ceiling beams, and split Dutch doors would charm his kids into appreciating farm life. “But they didn’t really enjoy the farm at all,” he says. “It became a bachelor pad.”
Still, they visited. To create a space for both meal prep and guests, Kroner redesigned the kitchen around an island topped with a custom range hood. Ample counters stretch along the edges of the room with extra storage and island seating. “It was function over form,” he explains of the redesign. “I wanted the people I love in front of me, so I can cook and face them. Everything else I need is right within reach.”
Unlikely Animal Friendships
Contreras and Kroner met when she was visiting for the weekend. “We actually met at the restaurant,” Contreras says. Initially, she wasn’t necessarily sold on the chef, or his life in the country. Kroner’s gloomy 300-year-old bachelor pad didn’t help. “It was dark and claustrophobic and a little austere,” Contreras says of the low ceilings and warren of small rooms spread over 3,500 square feet. Kroner admits she might have had a point. “The home was beautiful but soulless,” he says. “I’m a chef. Design was not my thing.”
Kroner, however, did have a dog. “I fell in love with his dog Woolfie first,” Contreras explains. “Then I started to like Josh too.” She began to see potential—in the man and his kitchen. The two eventually got married and in 2022 Contreras embarked on a master renovation determined to bring light into the historic spaces. “I wanted the design to bring all the influences and threads of our lives together,” she explains. “Vibrancy and pops of color from the tropics, the textures and rhythms of the city, and the calm minimalist restraint of the Dutch architecture—all grounded in the Hudson Valley landscape.”
Farmhouse Light
Contreras began by knocking down a wall that separated two disjointed kitchen spaces. The newly expanded room inspired another idea. “I thought, ‘What if, when someone walks through the door, they immediately see outside?’” To capture that vision, she installed a glass slider along the back wall and surrounded it with windows. She also updated an adjacent bathroom, adding textured wallpaper and an oversized bucket sink.
Contreras took the same design approach with the remaining first floor rooms. “I wanted light,” she explains. “And I wanted to accentuate the farm setting.” She transformed her tranquil home office by enlarging the windows and adding bucolic mural wallpaper. In the primary bedroom, Contreras added a picture window between two existing casement windows, creating a wall of light. A back deck ties the three renovated spaces together and offers al fresco dining. “Betty wanted to bring the farm into the house,” says Kroner. “Now the deck has become a space we use constantly for meals and hosting.”
From Farm to Table to Home
Contreras still wasn’t quite satisfied. She loved the kitchen and she loved the view. “But we needed something in-between,” she explains. Her design solution emerged from an unexpected source—her Danish mentors in Brooklyn. “They invited me to see things differently—to appreciate simplicity, light, and the quiet beauty of well-considered spaces,” she says. “They had this amazing butcher block in their kitchen, and I remember thinking I’d have one of my own someday.”
She mentioned the idea to Kroner, suggesting they search for a similar piece. Then Kroner remembered a relic he’d saved from the early days of Terrapin. “I had a butcher block in the barn.” Salvaged from the original West Hurley location, he’d been holding onto the 80-year-old butcher block for two decades. Now, the restored piece is the natural gathering spot tying the kitchen to the deck and the landscape beyond.
What Contreras experienced as a child in the Dominican Republic, and what Kroner dreamed of while walking through Union Square, has been reimagined in their renovated home: a direct connection between land and table, between farmer and eater, between home and community. “The farm-to-table movement isn’t just about food anymore,” Contreras says. “It’s about creating a sense of place, community, and giving back. The more time we spend here, the more the boundaries between home, land, and community blur—in the best way.” Contreras has come around to Kroner’s farm-to-table way of life. She explains, “That connection—from soil to kitchen to table—feels like home.”
This article appears in November 2025.
