Squeezed out by New York City’s real estate prices, the arts have moved into places that industry left vacant, joining the Hudson Valley’s natural, culinary and historic drawcards.
Sophisticated
culture has long followed the waters of the Hudson River north from New York
City.
The Hudson
River Valley – full of dense forests, picturesque rolling farmland and cool
spring-fed lakes set against a backdrop of the Catskill Mountains about 100
miles north of New York City – has been a posh country getaway since the Gilded
Age in the late 19th Century, when the nation’s most powerful
families spent their autumns in the region. (Summers, after all, were spent in Europe.)
These families included the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts, whose most famous
son, former US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), pined for the area during
World War II. “All that is within me
cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River,” he once wrote in a 1944
letter to Robert Hennegan, the then Democratic Party chairman.
No doubt he
would have pined less during the late 20th Century, when many parts
of the region became something of a hardscrabble industrial centre — but as local
manufacturing faded in the 1970s, rural charm re-emerged. And today, squeezed
out by New York City’s exorbitant real estate prices, artists have moved into
the places that industry left vacant, joining the Hudson Valley’s already abundant
natural, culinary and historic draw cards. While many of these attractions are
far flung, a rough triangle that encompasses parts of Dutchess and Ulster
Counties contains some of the best diversions, all of which are easily
accessible in a weekend getaway from New York City with minimum driving time.
Start with Springwood, FDR’s former
home and a National Historic
Site in the town of Hyde Park, New York.
While the onsite museum and visitor’s centre focuses on Roosevelt’s pivotal
role in world history, a guided tour of his house is a touching and intimate
look at the physical challenges the four-term president faced due to his
partial paralysis from polio. There are grab bars on the front steps that he
used to hoist himself into his home, an elevator with a rope pulley that he
operated himself, and he fashioned his own form of physical therapy in the long
driveway, challenging himself to crutch down to the road and back.
There are
two other homes to visit on Roosevelt’s Hyde Park property – Top Cottage, FDR’s mental retreat from Springwood (which
was run with an iron fist by his mother until her death) and Val-Kill, a
modest stone cottage that was Eleanor Roosevelt’s escape — now the only historic
site dedicated to a first lady in the United States. Adults can purchase a $22
combination ticket that grants access to all the Roosevelt houses plus the
nearby Vanderbilt Mansion;
children under 15 are free. Although it is possible to speed tour the
properties in a long morning, tickets are valid for two days of access. Make reservations ahead of time.
After a day
spent immersed in history, spend the evening sampling the creations of
tomorrow’s culinary stars. The Culinary Institute of America, less than two miles from Springwood and the
rest of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site, is the premier
culinary school in the United States, with a long list of celebrity chef
alumni, including Grant Achatz of Chicago’s most celebrated restaurant Alinea; New Orleans’s
chef John Besh, best known for his restaurant August; Anthony
Bourdain, host of the Travel Channel’s popular series No Reservations; Cat Cora, a competitor on the Food Network’s TV
show Iron Chef America; and Susan Feniger, of the Border Grill
empire in Los Angeles. Tours of the historic campus take in the main building, a
gracious former Jesuit monastery, and even casual wanderers on the campus are
likely to be plied with samples of student-made culinary creations.
But the
main event is the five student-run restaurants that are open to the public. The
most formal of these is American Bounty, a classic white tablecloth restaurant,
with appetizers of Hudson Valley foie gras and entrees of house-smoked duck. St
Andrew’s is a more casual farm-to-table restaurant that also serves French
cuisine at dinner while the school renovates its French restaurant. And Ristorante
Caterina de’ Medici offers new twists on classic Italian fare such as ravioli stuffed with almond and
ricotta cheese served with butter thyme, and roasted rabbit with black olives
and pine nuts. The French
restaurant, Escoffier, will re-open as Bocuse in winter 2013. Advanced reservations for all of the
venues are a must.
Heading
west across the river and about 20 miles from Hyde Park is the college town of
New Paltz, where you will find a wide variety of locally-owned, non-chain
restaurants that cater to the tastes of students and professors. Stop by the Gilded Otter
for a taste of the area’s microbrew scene, or if your tastes head towards the
harder stuff, do not miss Tuthilltown Spirits in the neighbouring town of
Gardiner. The historic gristmill
distillery makes bourbon out of New York State corn and vodka out of local
apples. Tastings and tours are available.
There is
also a range of accommodations in New Paltz, including budget chain motels such
as Rodeway Inn and Suites and bed and breakfasts such
as Moondance Ridge. But the sprawling Victorian mountaintop
resort of Mohonk Mountain House is a destination on its own, with a
huge network of nearby hiking trails ranging from easy carriage paths to
challenging rock scrambles. Even if you are not staying at the resort, trails
in the more than 7,500-acre Mohonk preserve are accessible to day
hikers. The Minnewaska State Park Preserve, less than 10 miles from New Paltz,
also has an extensive network of hiking trails and rock scrambles.
From New Paltz,
drive southeast over the Hudson about 25 miles to spend a late morning at Dia: Beacon,
a 240,000sqft contemporary art museum that was once a riverside Nabisco printing
factory in the town of Beacon. Dia’s collection includes a carefully curated
selection of works by the likes of Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt and Louise Bourgeois, but it avoids stuffy seriousness thanks to
its unusual spaciousness and the ample natural light that streams in from skylights
and large, practically floor-to-ceiling windows. A particular crowd favourite are John
Chamberlain’s large whimsical sculptures made from crushed automobiles, on
permanent display.
Once you
have had your fill of art, head to Main Street in the small town of Beacon. Bank Square Coffee House, located a short walk from the museum, is a eclectically designed cafe,
featuring small batch roasted coffees, a menu of local microbrewed beers and a
selection of organic and gluten-free pastries. For a more substantial breakfast
or lunch, visit Homespun Foods, a few blocks further up Main
Street. It has an internationally inspired menu — think egg burritos, Vietnamese
bahn mi sandwiches and smoked trout
salad over greens – but local farms provide many of the ingredients. It is yet
another sophisticated taste of the Hudson Valley’s bounty, served just up the
river from New York City.