With the region facing single-digit temps last month, anyone could have been forgiven for choosing hibernation. But in Saugerties, it was time for the Snow Moon Festival—and, people layered up and came out in significant numbers. "They shifted the 5K and the parade over to Sunday, so it became this grand finale, and it was just so much fun," says town supervisor Fred Costello. "Every event I went to, I was uplifted. It wasn't any one person or group; it was the VFW and the American Legion and the churches and businesses, the artists and the library and the theater—so much goodness stepping up to get involved."
"It was classic Saugerties," says Yvonne Rojas-Cohen, chair of the arts commission. "We pulled it off—weather, schedule changes, and all. We have so many people who are like-minded and deeply passionate about the community."
Zoning Conversation
A January 17 session before the planning board drew in 200 residents. Citizens Against Terramor posted its 22 speeches to YouTube. On February 9, Terramor announced it was withdrawing its proposal. Activists are making plans to fundraise for the parcel's purchase and protection and packing up their yard signs to ship to a community in California that's also facing a Terramor proposal.
The 840-acre Winston Farm was purchased in 2020 by three locals who envision a 10,000-seat amphitheater, an adventure park, a technology park, campgrounds, hiking trails, multi-unit housing, and lots for single-family homes and estates. The proposal has drawn both opposition and support; the town board is serving as lead agency for the environmental review process, and there's a long list of impact studies to complete. (The site is best known for hosting the Woodstock '94 music festival.)
"Winston Farm is more complicated than most developments," says Costello. "Not just because of the scope, but because it calls for a zoning change. We've declared a full SEQRA process and we're waiting on the collection of all the data. Once we have it, we can re-engage with the developers, decipher it, and determine what is sustainable. The zoning conversation taking place right now is important—it's basically unanimous that the current zoning doesn't meet our goals in the comprehensive plan. We've done a lot of work to get to where we are—traffic studies, water studies—and the results are going to be tested right now, with major projects being presented. We're going to figure out if the work we've done can meet the challenge, and where it did not we'll have to make adjustments. It's exciting and challenging at the same time."
Another proposal drawing fire proposes converting a 29-acre retreat owned by the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill into 120 affordable units for seniors. Local residents opposing the change of use say the increased traffic would be out of scale and character with the neighborhood.
Creature Comforts
The town is also taking impactful steps on animal welfare. "We're going to develop a new shelter facility," says Costello. "We partner with a lot of advocacy groups, and our current facility is a regional shelter in a converted maintenance garage. The people operating it are very successful at what they do, but the building's just not up to standards. So we're well on our way to designing a new shelter, with over $2 million raised. The community support has been amazing."
A private individual has stepped up to create a dog park that will open this spring. "Once the grass has matured enough to withstand the use, we'll be having a ribbon cutting," Costello says. "It's walking distance for the majority of village residents, but isolated enough that we don't think it will disturb anyone."
Also on the drawing board are a water and sewer extension that will benefit residences, businesses, and the Mount Marion Fire Department, and a new energy-efficient air-cooled chiller for the community ice rink that will generate substantial savings. (Price tag: $1.25 million.) "It's the first grant the DEC ever wrote for an ice rink chiller, and the director actually came here to make the announcement—it was a neat moment to share."
Rojas-Cohen's Arts Commission is in regrouping mode. "There's a fascinating amount of talent here across all the arts," she says. "Many amazing artists had already been living here, but now we're getting many new, dynamic, younger people coming in from New York City, and it's just growing very quickly, which is fantastic. So we've been studying how we can be more effective, bringing the arts to the fore. We're kicking off a huge marketing campaign, revamping our branding and launching a new, user-friendly website—it should be ready by the end of March—that will be a place to find all the arts events, who's playing at all the live music venues, how to contact the artists and performers."
Rojas-Cohen has been a Saugerties resident for almost a decade. "I was living in New Jersey and working on Wall Street, swimming with the sharks if you will, and the arts community here is so warm and welcoming that it was almost alarming at first," she says." But it's genuine, it's sincere, and it's beautiful. I think artists have a shared value system that's big on inclusion, and that impacts the whole community. It's incredibly vibrant and you engage with that however you want, at your own pace—and there's a stillness here too, that just doesn't exist in the city. I feel like a completely different person. It's lovely."
Artist Joanne Pagano Weber and her husband Bruce first established a base in Saugerties in 2006 and became full-time residents in 2019. Now they curate the monthly "Dialogues for the Ear and Eye" at the 9W Diner, bringing together a visual artist, a writer, and a musician for each performance. "It feels like a cultural explosion here," says Joanne, "like Williamsburg a couple decades back, or the East Village before that. Anytime you meet someone in the arts here, they're just so thrilled with the environment, the climate of the community. People set foot on this soil and just fall in love." Bruce, an art historian, is reveling in his work with the Woodstock Artists Association after a career in high-powered museums and galleries, writing in-depth essays on individual artists of the Byrdcliffe Colony.
Lively Arts
Destinations not to miss include the Newberry Artisan Market, home to 30 vendors, and Jane Street Art Center, a multifaceted gallery and performance space. These adaptive repurposings of historic brick buildings in the village are the work of Jennifer Hicks, a multi-dimensional artist who describes 11 Jane as "dedicated to cross pollination between sculpture, multi-media, and performance, new works and works-in-progress, artist residencies, gallery exhibitions, classes, lectures and events."
Emerge Gallery is showing the second iteration of "Exit 20," a group exhibit from a long list of Saugerties locals, through March 19. Sculpture park Opus 40 has succeeded in acquiring its adjacent historic property, the home of its creator Harvey Fite, and is gearing up for renovation. "I look forward to that synergy," says Costello. "The properties complement each other in a unique way, and I think it's just going to add to the success of both."
This year's street art, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, will go equine with "Hors'n Around Saugerties," a nod to the HITS horse shows, whose show jumping competitions are free to the public most Sundays, May through October. Saugerties Stallions baseball, having found new sponsorship, is heading for another season at Cantine Field. Events that had paused for the pandemic—the 4th of July bash, the Sawyer Motors Car Show, the Garlic Festival, and more—have come roaring back to life.
There's always more going on here than you'd expect. "Not everyone knows it, but there's a thriving culture of striper fishing here in May," says village trustee Jeff Helmuth, a 44-year resident and retired engineer who's got pen-and-ink sketches in the "Exit 20" show. "You can charter a boat and spend the day on the river. In some ways, it's a step back in time here. The citizenry likes how it's going, and we manage to retain a bit of an old-school feel."
"Not that I don't see the challenges," says Costello. "But I see so many things that bode well for our future here. Barclay's Mill was one of the wonders of the world in its day—extraordinary, which is who we are. We've been successfully reinventing this place generation by generation for centuries now, and we've achieved critical mass when it comes to local talent."
