Top Chef

Guess who the gentleman on the left is, staying with us last weekend with his lovely partner? If you're in LA visit his new restaurant The Gorbals , which sounds amazing. Don't know what he thought of our breakfast, but he finished everything and asked us how we made our green tomato chutney, which has to be a good sign.......

For those of you who've told us you follow our blog, apologies for the recent lack of entries. We've been busy. The Art of Painting has a new bathroom, the garden has a new herbaceous border and fruit trees, The Girl with the Pearl Earring room has a TV/DVD (which you can discretely hide in a 19th century trunk if that's too modern for you), and the second kitchen (the one with the cauldron and the beehive oven) is being limewashed. As well as that, a first floor room is getting its original 17th century jambless fireplace restored. We'll share photos soon.......just as soon as we get a moment.....

A Special Day

We're beginning to realise that we are part of a very small and select group of 18th Century Dutch barns and houses dotted up and down the Hudson Valley that people crave as wedding venues or as places for their families to stay. It was charming to see these two at Marisa and Jon's wedding last Fall walking through our herb garden. The house and grounds seem to be a natural venue for wedding photography.

Conserving The Fireback

This is the fireback in our front room fireplace - recently restored using a special wax. It is probably mid-eighteenth century. It could be from the Netherlands, but could also have been made in America. Firebacks were very common in Colonial fireplaces, increasing the efficiency of the fire by reflecting the heat back into the room.

Ours seems to depict the king of the gods, Zeus, in an angry mood, gathering clouds and throwing thunderbolts. In Greek mythology, Zeus didn't want humans to have fire, so Prometheus stole it and gave it to them so that they could keep warm and cook, and defend themselves from animals.

On the left you can see two eagles. Eagles are associated with Zeus but might also refer to the way that, in his fury, he tied Prometheus up and had eagles peck his liver out, because Prometheus seemed to value friendship with humans more than reverence for the king of the gods. Being immortal himself, Prometheus' liver continually grew back only to be pecked out again and again........but he was eventually rescued.......In Aeschylus's play 'Prometheus Bound', this myth is used to portray how friendship is morally superior to tyranny.

We think it's an interesting connection, fire and friendship - after all, an open hearth fire evokes feelings of companionship and warmth.....and better to muse on that than worry about being struck by thunderbolts!

The Walkway Over The Hudson

Here is the view yesterday of the Mid-Hudson Bridge, with freshly forming ice in the Hudson River, as seen from the new Walkway Over The Hudson State Park. Even on a gray winter's day the view is spectacular. The Walkway, once the Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge, is well worth a visit....... As the New York Times reported on Oct 6, 2009:

"the latest example of the new kinds of infrastructure for tourism and recreation that are reshaping the Hudson Valley."

Adrien Grenier and The Honey Brothers

Adrien Grenier, star of the hit comedy HBO series Entourage , and The Honey Brothers stayed at The Stone House for 10 days recently while working on their new record with Grammy award winning producer Malcolm Burn in his Kingston, NY, studio. Adrien is the drummer for the band. Andrew Vladeck and D.S. Posner are standing next to the beehive oven outside the house. Check out their music!

Opening the Beehive Oven

Our friend Jim came round to dinner last night and persuaded us to open up the beehive oven.....it was exciting, and didn't take too long. First the bricks blocking the front of the oven came out, and then we swept out about 3 bucket-fulls of old ash and mortar. The oven is about 4 feet deep! The flue is just above the opening, and peering up we could see how it joined the chimney.

There was more, though - just infront of the oven there's supposed to be a chute into which you sweep the ashes (after the fire has burnt itself out and made the oven warm, before you place the bread etc. inside for baking).....This chute slopes down to the right, so that when you sweep the ashes into it, they are deposited into the main firebox, at ground level. Bricks had to be removed at the top and bottom of this chute, but inbetween them was just loose dirt, river stones and rubbish, including some silk stockings and bits of newspaper dated 1934! Now all we need to do is repair the chimney, repair the inside of the oven, and find an oven door. This requires someone small enough and willing enough to crawl inside.........any volunteers?

The Stone House In The Fall

Some of the trees here have now lost their leaves. But this just opens up the views.

Farmer John Gill on his tractor

Until the end of October you can go for beautiful hay rides in a wagon pulled by this tractor along the far side of the Esopus Creek behind our house. The rides start from Gill's Farm Stand at the end of our road. Watch out for ghosts, monsters and witches......and just lift your feet up when he fords the creek!

Hurley Fun

Mr Levon Helm walks to the stage at The Levon Helm Band's free concert at Gill's Farm, Hurley NY this afternoon.

Farmer John Gill prepares to fire his pumpkin cannon with a 97-foot-long barrel that shoots pumpkins nearly 1 mile at a speed of 600 miles per hour.

The audience for the gig stretches into the Pumpkin Patch.

It was a beautiful Fall afternoon here on the banks of the Esopus, just a few hundred yards from our house. We were told "Levon doesn't have his voice today, but it will be back!", and it was a great show anyway. Everyone loved it, it was a privilege to be there. Thank you Levon!

Levon Helm Band at Gill's Farm this Sunday

It's that time of year again. The Fall Farm Festival at Gill's Farm Stand on Route 209 - walking distance from our house! The Levon Helm Band is playing a Free Concert on Sunday, October 11th, from 2-4 pm. http://www.levonhelm.com/john_gill_farm.htm

Last years concert: http://stonehousebandb.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-levon-helm-concert.html

The Making of Electric Dirt, his latest album: http://www.levonhelm.com/electric_dirt.htm

High Falls

These photographs are from the "Country Seats Tour" (see last post). They were all taken yesterday in High Falls, NY - about 5 miles from here.

The bottom picture is The Jacob Hasbrouck House. Jacobus B. Hasbrouck, a descendant of one of the 12 French Huguenot patentees of New Paltz, built this house some time before 1797. Hasbrouck, who was from a wealthy family with large landholdings, owned and operated a grist mill on nearby Rondout Creek. Beginning as a two-room house, with a kitchen wing added later, the house has Georgian characteristics such as a center hall and plastered ceilings. Georgian features in Huguenot houses outside of New Paltz are not uncommon. Signs of a granary door still exist on the west gable end.

The middle picture is of The Elmendorf Barn. This traditional Dutch timber-framed barn was built in 1851 by James Henry Elmendorf on land owned and lived on by the Elmendorf family since at least the late 18th century. The barn’s framework of massive posts and beams leads the eye to the soaring rafters above, echoing the vaulted nave and side aisles of Gothic cathedrals. The anchor beam of the middle bent was recycled from an earlier Dutch American barn. Late Dutch timber-framed barns are rare and this example testifies to the persistence of the Dutch tradition well into the 19th century.

The top most photograph is of the proud owner inside the Van Wagenen House. The Van Wagenen House was built in the late 18th century, replacing a house that may have dated to 1682. It was likely built as one unit except for the kitchen addition on the south end gable wall. The enclosed staircase is original. With its symmetrical façade–a door in the center leading to a spacious central hall, it is a classic example of a Dutch house with a strong Georgian influence. The house has been meticulously restored.

What's Dutch

Hudson River Heritage and Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture combined forces this weekend to present the "21st Annual Country Seats Tour. Dutch-American Rural Architecture– from Hurley to High Falls –Ulster County, NY." We were honored to be part of this tour today and met many interesting people visiting our house. The tour continues tomorrow and you can learn more about it here: Whats Dutch .

Woodstock Film Festival

10 miles up the mountain from here - The 10th annual Woodstock Film Festival will take place September 30th-October 4th, 2009. The “fiercely independent” festival includes more than 150 films, panels, concerts and special events in Woodstock and the neighboring towns of Kingston, Rhinebeck and Rosendale. For more information visit: http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com/ .

The 10th Annual Woodstock Fillm Festival will present the World Premiere of Guy Jacobson and Adi Ezroni's REDLIGHT, Sunday October 4, 7:00pm at the Bearsville Theater. Narrator and producer Lucy Liu will be in attendance for Q&A. Ms. Liu will also partake in the ACTOR'S PANEL with Vera Farmiga, Sunday, October 4, 12:00pm at Utopia Studios at the Bearsville Complex.

Grant and Tamara

Staying at The Stone House last weekend: Grant and Tamara. Grant is a painter and apparel designer for GAP. Tamara makes sculptures, you can see them here: http://www.tamarazahaykevich.com/ .

The Milkmaid visits Manhattan

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632–1675) painted The Milkmaid about 1657/8. To mark the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage from Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum has lent the painting to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York. Find out more about the exhibition here: http://www.metmuseum.org/ .

While you're at the Met visit the New York Dutch Room, 1751 (Bethlehem, New York), the top image above, which is in The New American Wing: http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/american_decorative_arts/period_rooms.aspx#03

High Point - Catskills

The Catskill Mountains look beautiful at this time of year.

Meet your local farmers!

Joanne Michaels with her new book Hudson River Valley Farms at the Woodstock and New Paltz Arts and Craft Fair today. Meet your local farmers! The book details 44 varied farms in the valley, including many that are open to the public.

http://www.joannemichaels.com/

Blueberries turning red

The nearby Shawangunk Ridge is an extraordinary environment. In this picture taken at sunset yesterday we can see wild blueberries in the foreground growing in a crevice in the hard conglomerate rock that makes up the ridge, surrounded by a "dwarf pine barren" - a very rare environment. In the fall the Blueberry plants turn bright red. You can get great views from here across to the Catskill Mountains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawangunk_Ridge

http://www.shawangunkridge.org/

http://shawangunks.org/

http://www.mohonkpreserve.org/

Our Backyard

Nadia Kayaking on the Esopus Creek at the bottom of our backyard this afternoon.

Esopus Bend

http://esopuscreekconservancy.org/