Feature Photo by Steven Pisano Journey to the Catskills: I will admit that I did not find the Catskills. The Catskills found me after my husband the stone sculptor Ken Hiratsuka found the Catskills and the reservoir and the trout streams and the bluestone and then the amazing barn and old farmhouse that has become our own little bit of heaven in Andes. Then, right … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Gloria McLean
Journey to the Catskills: I’ve actually been here for generations! My grandparents owned Boris Bungalow Colony in Glen Wild in the 1940s -1960s. My parents met while they were both working for a hotel in Loch Sheldrake over their summer break in 1950. After a few years in the City, they settled in the Hudson Valley, and even though I was away for a while, … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Laurie Boris
Journey to the Catskills: I was an Idaho girl living in Manhattan for a decade. I was very happy there. Love brought me to the Catskills. I met a man named Michael in NYC. He owned a historical country house in Walton situated on 100 acres that we visited most weekends, and it was the best of both worlds. He promised we would never completely leave … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Jessica Reed
Journey to the Catskills: I came to the Catskills on an artist’s residency at the Prattsville Art Center in 2019. I decided it was fated to be when I found out that the director of the Prattsville Art Center is the amazing Nancy Barton, with whom I studied at NYU twenty years ago. Vocation: In my “day job” I am the director of an academic … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Clover Archer
Journey to the Catskills: What brought me to the Catskills? Fate, love, destiny? Our dream of opening an art and cultural center waited thirty years as my husband and I raised our family in suburban New Jersey. We’ve known and loved the Catskills and have family roots dating back to the 1940s when Fleischmanns, New York provided refuge to émigrés fleeing World War II. When our lives reached … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Heidi Stonier
Journey to the Catskills: I grew up a Jewish boy in the suburbs of Baltimore. However, from a very early age, I daydreamed about carrying a Winchester into the Rocky Mountains and living as a mountain man. Don’t ask me where that notion came from, but there it was (and is). The Jewish ‘burbs of B’more were a far piece from the Rockies, so I … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Stephen H. Foreman
Journey to the Catskills: My wife bought a fixer upper in Andes without telling me. My accountant at the time “mentioned“ she was buying the house. When I asked her about it, she said “don’t worry, it won’t cost you a dime.” Anyway, we would end up moving up here as an experiment about seventeen years ago. For the first ten years or so I … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Joe Damone
Journey to the Catskills: Hiking and Todd Rundgren brought me here in 1982. Vocation: My graduate degree is a Master’s of Social Work. I worked in both clinical and school settings for most of my career. In addition, I have worked as a ghost writer for years, writing for mental health and addiction-oriented publications and websites. My avocation and vocation blur somewhat when it comes … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Heather Rolland
Journey to the Catskills: After vacationing in the Hampton Bays for a number of years, I decided to come back to the place that I loved as a kid – my family used to spend summer vacations in the Catskills near Greenville. In 1972 I rented a house in Pine Hill for the summer along with some friends. While there, I fell in love again with … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Artie Martello
Journey to the Catskills: I love motorcycling and many years ago I would ride up here, so twelve years ago, when I was looking for a place to get away from the city, this became a natural place to look upstate. It’s the greenest place on earth in the summer and being Danish I can even embrace the winters here. Vocation: I’m a keynote speaker … Continue reading Humans of the Catskills: Jeanette Bronee
Art in the Catskills 