Big plans for former Country Road site

MILLBROOK — The Thorndale Farm/Miller Time Acquisitions site plan application and subdivision was the only business presented to the Planning Board at its meeting on Thursday, Jan. 26.The Thorndale Farm is an estate that used to be the location of Country Road Associates, a business that made furniture using antique lumber. It was located at 63 Front St., near the post office. The building burned down two years ago. Oakleigh Thorne purchased the property under Miller Time Acquisitions LLC. Thorne has been working with the Planning Board recently to get approval to begin new construction on the site of the former Country Road property.A public hearing for the application was opened at a December Planning Board meeting. During that meeting, Thorne presented a scale model of the proposed new building, along with charts, graphs and photos showing the specifications of his proposal.The building is planned as an administrative business office for a company that will relocate from Chicago. Thorne said there are six people who are currently working there and he hopes to hire more employees from the Millbrook area, anticipating that 21 people will work in the new office space.The office building is designed to match the architecture and landscape found throughout the village of Millbrook. Thorne has been working with Joseph Zarecki from Zarecki & Associates LLC as the engineers, architects and surveyors for his project. At the December meeting, a large number of residents and village business owners submitted letters voicing their support for the project. Community members said they believe it will impact the town in a positive manner.At the Jan. 26 meeting, Zarecki appeared before the Planning Board after finalizing some requests from the board at the previous meeting. The applicant was waiting for the approval of an easement from the Village Board. There is a sewer main that goes through the property, and the village needs to access it for repairs it may need to address in the future.Thorne is responsible for the lateral running of the line from the property to the main sewer. However, the main sewer is the responsibility of the village. The village was granting an easement to access the main sewer on Thorne’s property. The easement was approved at the Village Board meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 24. The Planning Board approved the project with the understanding that some of the logistical details of the project have yet to be finalized.If all goes according to plan, construction for site will begin in the spring.

Latest News

Finding ‘The Right Stuff’ for a documentary

Tom Wolfe

Film still from “Radical Wolfe” courtesy of Kino Lorber

If you’ve ever wondered how retrospective documentaries are made, with their dazzling compilation of still images and rare footage spliced between contemporary interviews, The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York, offered a behind-the-scenes peek into how “the sausage is made” with a screening of director Richard Dewey’s biographical film “Radical Wolfe” on Saturday, March 2.

Coinciding with the late Tom Wolfe’s birthday, “Radical Wolfe,” now available to view on Netflix, is the first feature-length documentary to explore the life and career of the enigmatic Southern satirist, city-dwelling sartorial icon and pioneer of New Journalism — a subjective, lyrical style of long-form nonfiction that made Wolfe a celebrity in the pages of Esquire and vaulted him to the top of the best-seller lists with his drug-culture chronicle “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and his first novel, “The Bonfire of The Vanities.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Art on view this March

“Untitled” by Maureen Dougherty

New Risen

While there are area galleries that have closed for the season, waiting to emerge with programming when the spring truly springs up, there are still plenty of art exhibitions worth seeking out this March.

At Geary Contemporary in Millerton, founded by Jack Geary and Dolly Bross Geary, Will Hutnick’s “Satellite” is a collection of medium- and large-scale acrylic on canvas abstracts that introduce mixtures of wax pastel, sand and colored pencil to create topographical-like changes in texture. Silhouettes of leaves float across seismic vibration lines in the sand while a craterous moon emerges on the horizon, all like a desert planet seen through a glitching kaleidoscope. Hutnick, a resident of Sharon and director of artistic programming at The Wassaic Project in Amenia, New York, will discuss his work at Geary with New York Times art writer Laura van Straaten Saturday, March 9, at 5 p.m.

Keep ReadingShow less
Caught on Camera: Our wildlife neighbors

Clockwise from upper left: Wildlife more rarely caught by trail cameras at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies: great blue heron, river otters, a bull moose, presenter and wildlife biologist Michael Fargione, a moose cow, and a barred owl.

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

‘You don’t need to go to Africa or Yellowstone to see the real-life world of nature. There are life and death struggles in your wood lot and backyard,” said Michael Fargione, wildlife biologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, during his lecture “Caught on Camera: Our Wildlife Neighbors.”

He showed a video of two bucks recorded them displaying their antlers, then challenging each other with a clash of antlers, which ended with one buck running off. The victor stood and pawed the ground in victory.

Keep ReadingShow less