The Hudson Honey Bee

Streets are sweets.

The kitchen is a fun place to be.

I need Spring Photos! The yard is really GREEN right now...

Stand in dining room looking back towards kitchen, pivot while looking at the floor, look back through pocket doors into the living room, step in.

Upstairs Bath. Claw Foot tup. Shower. Tile.

Travel from the front door, down the hall, up stairs, look into the small bedroom, pivot under a skylight, look toward the master bedroom.

Smaller Bedroom. Faces South. Catskill and Hudson River Views.

Master bedroom

Some Details

Amtrak Station, only two blocks away.

New York Times article about Hudson! Wall Street Journal!

November 3, 2006
Havens | Hudson, N.Y.
Architectural Gems in an Antique Setting

By C. J. HUGHES
AN exquisite collection of well-polished architectural gems lures many people to Hudson, a small city in Columbia County in upstate New York that sits snug against its namesake river.

Trudy Walker is no exception. She visited Hudson, about 125 miles north of New York City, 15 years ago when she needed ideas on how to renovate her house in Greenfield, Mass. And there, amid the tidy grid of Georgian town houses and Second Empire mansions, sensible Craftsmans and whimsical Queen Annes, she found no end of inspiration. Though it came after a few more years and a divorce, Ms. Walker also found a weekend home: a 2,200-square-foot 1898 clapboard town house with three bedrooms, three baths and an original gas fireplace, for which she paid $275,000 last winter.

But the house’s best features are three rear decks that overlook a tableau of water, woods, clouds and mountains that at sunset, when the sky pulses with lilac and orange, seems to await a Hudson River School painter. “I can watch storms come in from miles away and roll across the valley,” said Ms. Walker, whose primary residences is now Brattleboro, Vt., where she invests portfolios in socially responsible companies.

Like Ms. Walker, a new breed of weekender is discovering Hudson, which for a decade has been best known for its antiques shops. Now, real estate agents and longtime residents say, single people and straight and gay couples have discovered it as not just an antiquing destination but as a place where a weekend home can be a short walk from the Amtrak station.

At the same time, Warren Street stores that once sold Napoleonic armoires and Sputnik lamps are giving way to places that feature vegetarian pizza and new books by local writers.

Though Hudson may be finally succumbing to gentrification, it still has less-expensive working-class neighborhoods that allow painters and upstart independent filmmakers to buy houses there.

“Home prices are still within reach, so Hudson keeps its creative edge,” said Ted Levenson, who works in the giftware business. During the week, he lives in Manhattan, with his partner, Vincent Cuticello, a lawyer.



They visited friends in Hudson for years before finally buying a Greek Revival semi-detached town house built in the late 1830s. A three-story, 3,200-square-foot house with three bedrooms, two full and two half-bathrooms and six fireplaces, it cost them $365,000 in spring 2004.

For Mr. Levenson, like other weekenders, buying in Hudson provides a chance to own an elegant style of home, of the sort found in prestigious addresses of Georgetown or on Beacon Hill, at a fraction of the price.

Or on a sought-after street in Greenwich Village: “If we could afford a house like this on Bank Street we would buy it in a second,” he said.

The Scene

The illustrations of whales on Hudson’s street signs are a nod to the city’s founders, quick-thinking Quakers from Nantucket who established the city after the American Revolution to hide their whale oil inland should the British strike again. Even today, lower Warren Street’s brick Federal houses, with their narrow, flush-to-the-facade outdoor stairs and the widow’s walks on some roofs, evoke maritime New England.

A century and a half later, however, it wasn’t British marauders that Hudson had to deal with, but rampant drinking, gambling and, especially, prostitution, clustered around Diamond Street. Today, subsidized housing stands in place of brothels , and the street has been renamed Columbia.

Much tamer and more legal night life these days centers on Warren Street. As it has for years, Red Dot, one of the first higher-end restaurants in Hudson, features a diverse menu and a lively bar scene.

Those partying late at night often amble to Stray Bar, which opened in February; D.J.’s spin till 4 a.m. in the sleek second-story space. The stripped-down Basilica Industria, a former glue factory near the river, has been host to art exhibits and concerts by musicians like Patti Smith.

There are state parks that provide good hiking all around. In Greenport, which surrounds Hudson like a horseshoe, is the Greenport Conservation Area, about two miles outside the city, where past the split-rail fence on a 714-acre riverside parcel, trails unfold to the Hudson River.

The river is popular with kayakers, who typically put in at North Bay, where the current is usually less fierce than elsewhere.

Pros

Cars rarely honk in Hudson, and pedestrians always seem to have the right of way.

In addition to its quality vintage buildings — Warren & Wetmore, the firm behind Grand Central Terminal, designed the county courthouse, and Alexander Jackson Davis is said to have built some cottages — the city also has many churches and firehouses, reinforcing its neighborhood charm. And seeing the occasional freight train rumble through Seventh Street Park burnishes Hudson’s working-class credentials.

It’s also a place where people stop on the street to make small talk, said Richard Volo, a computer consultant from the East Village who bought an 800-square-foot town house built in 1820 last summer for $85,000. “My social life is better now after three months in Hudson than after 20 years in Manhattan,” he said.

Cons

Though its Diamond Street days are long past, crime still troubles Hudson. There were 44 reported burglaries in 2003, with the figure rising to 55 in 2005, according Lt. Richard Paolino, a police spokesman. Drug violations also climbed in the same period, from 31 to 39 in a city where about 26 percent of the population lived below the poverty line in 2000, the most recent year for which census figures are available.

And Hudson still has an occasional arrest for prostitution, said Lieutenant Paolino. “We’re a city, so you will have city problems,” he said. “But we’re small, so it’s much easier to track people down.”

The Real Estate Market

Because the buildings along Warren Street typically allow businesses on their ground floors, they are among the more expensive in the city, brokers said, though they rarely sell for more than $800,000.

A town house on a street parallel to Warren that has been fully renovated will probably cost about $400,000, they say, though prices can vary widely depending on the condition and quality of the houses.

Once a mainstay for Hudson weekenders, decent fixer-uppers have become harder to find. Some, however, still exist in the burgeoning Armory District, near Washington, Prospect and Clinton Streets. They usually cost $175,000 to $250,000, agents say, but could require new floors, roofs and siding.

Prices in Hudson peaked last fall, according to Marcy Heintz, an agent with Chatham Properties who has sold houses in in Columbia County for 21 years. By then, some had tripled in value over the preceding three years, she said.

Now, in step with many national markers, the market has cooled, and some buyers have had to reduce prices two or three times before selling, she said. It’s also not unheard of for a house to sit on the market for a year. Still, the 13 houses priced above $300,000 sold since January 2005 were on the market for an average of about five months, according to Ms. Heintz.

“The interest in Hudson has held better than weekend homes for the rest of the county,” which includes more rural towns like Chatham and Claverack, Ms. Heintz said. “But nobody can predict what will happen.”

Lay of the Land

POPULATION 7,524, according to the census, but swelling significantly when weekenders are in town, which is year round.

SIZE About two square miles.

WHO’S BUYING New York City design buffs, Los Angeles transplants and people who can work out of home offices a few days a week.

LOCATION Hudson is about a two-hour drive north of New York City, 50 minutes south of Albany and three hours west of Boston.

GETTING THERE From the New York area, take the Saw Mill River Parkway north to the Taconic State Parkway and continue north. Exit onto Route 82 north, which will become Route 23 west, and turn right onto Route 9 north into Hudson.



WALL STREET JOURNAL PRESS

Hudson, N.Y.
Freelance writer Debra Bruno on what to do and where to eat and stay in Hudson, N.Y., once a sleepy river village and now a bustling weekend getaway destination in the Hudson Valley, two hours north of New York City.
By DEBRA BRUNO

June 3, 2008; Page D2

What to do: Stroll Warren Street, the main avenue for the dozens of antiques shops, boutiques, art galleries, and secondhand stores. Check out an 1840 antique bronze, the "dancing faun of Pompeii" for $5,900 in Ad Lib Antiques (522 Warren Street, 518-822-6522, www.adlibantiques.com), or colorful midcentury furniture at Mark McDonald Ltd. (555 Warren Street, 518-828-6320, www.markmcdonald.biz/index.html). White Rice sells Asian furniture, clothing and jewelry (531 Warren Street, 518-697-3500, www.white-rice.com/index.htm). The Hudson Opera House offers a range of cultural activities, from music performances to literary lectures and art workshops (327 Warren Street, 518-822-1438, www.hudsonoperahouse.org). For evening entertainment, Stageworks/Hudson (41-A Cross Street, 518-828-7843, www.stageworkshudson.org) presents theater productions (the most recent: "Gutenberg! The Musical" from June 11-29). A few minutes drive from downtown Hudson is Olana, the home of the Hudson River School painter Frederic Church. The Persian-style mansion sits on a hill overlooking the valley and Catskill Mountains. Visitors can tour the home, view Mr. Church's paintings and picnic on the grounds. Olana is a mile south of Rip Van Winkle Bridge on Route 9G. (518-828-0135, www.olana.org/index.html).

Where to eat: Ca'Mea is an upscale northern Italian restaurant (333 Warren Street, 518-822-0005, www.camearestaurant.com). For more-casual dining, try Mexican Radio with Mexican spring rolls and great guacamole (537 Warren Street, 518-828-7770, www.mexrad.com/Hudson.htm). Swoon Kitchenbar offers organic and locally produced cuisine and a "health margarita," a concoction of tequila blanca, fresh pink grapefruit, Cointreau and lime (340 Warren Street, 518-822-8938, www.swoonkitchenbar.com).

Where to stay: Mount Merino Manor is the former home of Gustavus Sabine, private physician to Frederic Church and is nearly next door to Olana. Rooms run from $175 to $295. (4317 Route 23, 518-828-5583, www.mountmerinomanor.com). In town, the Inn at Hudson is a 1903 brick mansion with rooms starting at $200 and dropping for subsequent nights (317 Allen Street, 518-822-9322, www.theinnathudson.com). The Country Squire Bed & Breakfast is a 21-room Victorian that was at one time a convent (251 Allen Street, 518-822-9229, www.countrysquireny.com/index.html).

Corrections & Amplifications
The Nolita Bakery and Cafe in Hudson, N.Y., was pictured in a photograph in this column, not the Ca'Mea Italian restaurant as was erroneously noted in the caption.