by STEVE WINSTON
for Bob Malkin & Barbara Pokras
Owners, The Waterfall House
Woodstock, NY
When we think of the town of Woodstock, in New York’s Catskill Mountains, we generally think of Woodstock, the mother of all rock festivals.
I was one of those hungry, bedraggled, wet, muddy, longhaired “hippie” teenagers sitting in that meadow in August, 1969. The music, of course, was wonderful, even if the conditions were not. But I don’t think many of the half-million unshaven and unshowered people sitting there had the slightest realization that we were not the first to bring music to that beautiful little corner of the Hudson River Valley.
In fact, the picturesque village of Woodstock (actually seventy miles from the site of the concert) had already been the site of great music festivals for nearly seventy years before “My Generation” gathered in that meadow.
In 1902, a wealthy Englishman with the wonderful name of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead took a walk in the woods here. Entranced by the beauty and the serenity of the Catskills, Whitehead was looking for a spot on which to establish an arts and crafts colony. On a hillside overlooking Woodstock, he found it. He decided to call it the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony. Almost as soon as the first shovel went into the ground, a parade of artists, Bohemians, writers, poets, dancers, dreamers, craftspeople, and musicians began trickling into town. And it hasn’t stopped since.
The Byrdcliffe is actually America’s oldest arts colony. The people who have lived and worked here were not always painters or actors or musicians; they also included furniture-makers, metal-workers, ceramists, and weavers, among others. And the colony, today managed by the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, still offers residency programs for talented performing, visual, and crafts artists (www.woodstockguild.org/byrdcliffemain.htm).
Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead had envisioned a utopian enclave of the arts. However, his somewhat-aristocratic nature didn’t mesh well with that of the free-spirits his efforts attracted to the town. Some of them, in fact, began calling him “The Dictator.”
One of those people was Hervey White, who had actually helped Whitehead found Byrdcliffe. Disillusioned with his partner, White left to found a more laissez-faire arts colony on the other side of town, which he called The Maverick. In 1915, he needed to raise money for a well on the property, so he decided to stage a music-and-drama festival at the Maverick. In so doing, he started a summer music tradition that continues to this day. In fact, The Maverick hosts the oldest continuous chamber music festival in America. And every summer, internationally-known musicians play here, and renowned composers premiere their works here.
Hervey White was a “beatnik” before there were beatniks. He had long, unkempt hair and beard, and tended toward loose-fitting, colorful Russian shirts. He built cabins in which his visiting “creatives” could live…and charged them no rent if they had no money. He was a social radical who had been influenced by the left-wing writers of the day, some of whom came to live at The Maverick.
The annual festival attracted a bohemian stream of free-thinkers to the Catskills. But the activities of some of the festival participants became so “free” that the local police shut the festival down in 1931. However, the proceeds from the festival allowed White to build the outdoor concert hall that still holds Sunday afternoon chamber music concerts during the summer. And most locals believe that Woodstock 1969 would not have been possible without The Maverick summer festivals of forty years before (www.maverickconcerts.org).
Later on, in the early sixties, a record-producer named Albert Grossman moved to Woodstock, and built a recording studio in nearby Bearsville. Grossman was an iconoclast…another wild spirit attracted to the area because of its active arts scene and its magnificent natural beauty.
And he was perhaps the ultimate example of “If you build it, they will come.” After he built his studio, “they” did come…Bob Dylan; The Band; Peter, Paul and Mary; Richie Havens; Gordon Lightfoot; Janis Joplin; Todd Rundgren; and a host of others. Grossman, in fact, became Dylan’s manager.
Grossman died in 1986. In 1989, his widow opened the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock. And the roster of people who have appeared there includes Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, The Band, The Pretenders, Natalie Merchant, Astrud Gilberto (“The Girl from Ipanema”), Jimmy Cliff, Taj Majal, Richie Havens, and Warren Zevon. (www.bearsvilletheater.com). Acts scheduled for the coming weeks include well-known singer/writer/producer Steve Earle, and a range of talented musical acts ranging from country to rock to bluegrass to…karaoke. In addition, the Bearsville Theater serves as one of the sites for the widely-acclaimed Woodstock Film Festival, which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary (Sept. 30-Oct. 1, www.woodstockfilmfestival.com).
In fact, the music “vibe” here is probably more active today than ever. At the Alchemy (www.alchemyofwoodstock.com), you can nurse a coffee over a good book (which you can buy there), listen to talented singers and musicians, and enjoy the works of art. The Colony Café (www.colonycafe.com) offers original music in a variety of genres, in an historic old building in the center of town. The New World Home Cooking Café (www.ricorlando.com), run by legendary Catskills restaurateur Ric Orlando, has live music ranging from reggae to blues, and from Celtic to “fiddle jams.” Levon Helm, drummer from The Band, still holds “Midnight Rambles” with his band at his studio, called “The Barn,” as well as other venues in the area.
In Woodstock, the “performing arts” also feature local folks and even visitors. On Sundays, weather permitting, people gather in town for the Woodstock Drum Circle; you’re welcome to express your feelings on drums of all sorts, or to just let yourself move to the rhythms.
This area of the Catskills, with the beautiful Kaaterskill Clove (a mountain ravine with a waterfall higher than Niagara) has been attracting vacationers for a long time. And they stay in a unique collection of colorful inns and vacation rentals. And the village of Woodstock retains the ambience, of a somewhat-offbeat, funky village that still attracts talented people who want to pursue their chosen crafts while surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery on Earth.
So, you see, it wasn’t the bedraggled masses of 1969 who brought music to Woodstock. Woodstock started becoming a mecca for the arts long before we were born…in fact, just about the time our grandparents were born.
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The perfect base from which to explore Woodstock’s music and art offerings – as well as the Kaaterskill clove and the surrounding countryside – is a vacation-rental called The Waterfall House (www.waterfallrental.com) . It’s a Victorian country home, at the end of a picturesque road that becomes a canopy of brilliantly-colored leaves during fall-foliage time. It’s charming on the inside, and blessed with strikingly-beautiful views on the outside. The house has been furnished with authentic country antiques and crafts, along with eclectic items from the collection of Bob Malkin, founder of New York’s prestigious ThinkBig! gallery. And there’s a wraparound outdoor deck right over the river, where you can sit for hours while watching Niobe Falls, an arm of the highest waterfall in the state, Kaaterskill Falls. (845) 246-6666; .