The Willows Stone Ridge, NY / On the Boards

Design Architect | North River Architects

At The Willows, landscape is the host. An 1860s farmhouse and working landform sit within a broader Upstate New York composition of orchard, meadow field, and distant Catskillian horizon. Here, the day is shaped by weather, light, and season. The land sets the pace. Guests simply step into it.

Mornings unfold along orchard rows still holding mist, perennial gardens alive with bees, and long views of Mount Holding and Table Mountain that shift from soft blue to luminous green as the sun rises. Afternoons gather around water, lawn games, flower cutting, harvesting fresh vegetables for the evening's dinner, and slow conversations that stretch easily across paddock fences and stone walls. Evenings pull inward toward piano light and library warmth, or outward again, where the bonfire roars under stars that feel closer and the mountains dissolve into silhouette.

The Willows is designed as a sanctuary of Place rather than an escape from it. Contemporary comfort is layered into historic fabric with restraint and intention. Interiors borrow directly from the surrounding land: orchard blossom warmth, hayfield gold, sky blue, lichen green. The result is a quiet continuity between indoors and out, where rooms feel like extensions of the landscape rather than separations from it.

Each of the guest rooms and cabins opens to a working view: young vineyard rows, historic orchard geometries, mature maples, grazing pasture, and the wide, unmistakable presence of the Katterskill Wilderness. Inside, tactile comfort leads. Comfortable interior spaces filled with works by local makers live alongside agricultural artifacts that speak to the site’s ongoing story. 

Community is central to The Willows experience. Gatherings here feel grown rather than staged. Long-table dinners in the Willows Barn or any of the many exterior rooms, family celebrations inside the farmhouse, and full-property retreats that move fluidly between field, garden, hillside, and firelight all share a common foundation: time spent together on meaningful ground.

The pool landscape is conceived as a clearing within a larger ecological and visual field. Positioned between the historic farmhouse and the Checkin Barn, it offers expansive views of undulating landscape while remaining surrounded by perennial gardens and native plantings. It is restorative without performance. Quiet without feeling remote. A place to feel the day move across the land.

Above the vineyard, a Scandinavian cedar sauna and cold plunge sit along the hillside, pairing heat and cold in a ritual as old as settlement in mountain climates. It is a contemporary expression of something timeless: exposure, recovery, renewal. Steam lifts into open air. Cold water sharpens the senses. The land remains the constant backdrop.

The Willows is undeniably Upstate New York. Honest. Seasonal. Rooted in working land and big sky. A place where hospitality is measured not only in comfort, but in how deeply you feel connected to weather, landscape, and the people you share it with.