MILLERTON — Kids Time, Millerton’s longtime indoor play space, has closed for good after more than two decades as a staple of childhood birthdays and family celebrations.
Owner Ken Thompson shut the doors Sunday, Feb. 8, after hosting the final birthday party at the once-bustling Route 44 attraction. The business, which Thompson built and ran largely on his own since opening in 2006, had slowed in recent years and was no longer financially sustainable, he said.
Thompson, who owns the commercial building that also houses Avocado Cafe, Millerton Athletic Club and a beer store, said he explored downsizing and other options before ultimately deciding to close.
“It was never about the money,” Thompson said. “It was about the kids and the joy on their faces — you can’t put a dollar amount on that.”
Families came to Kids Time for birthday parties and open play, drawn to the colorful maze of slides, mats and climbing features Thompson built and maintained himself. Children who visited him knew him simply as “Mr. Ken,” and he was rarely without small rituals — including a basket of lollipops offered to kids on their way out.
A view through a porthole on the custom-made jungle gym that Ken Thompson built for his business, Kids Time. Thompson shuttered the business after 20 years on Sunday, Feb. 8, after hosting one last party.Photo by Aly Morrissey
For some families, the final party marked a generational full-circle moment.
“I brought my kids here when it was in the bigger space, and now they are grown up and have been bringing their own kids,” said Tilly Strauss, who celebrated her grandchild’s first birthday at Kids Time on Sunday. “We’re really going to miss this place.”
For Thompson, those generational moments reflected the persistence and determination that defined both his business and his own life.
The fastest way to get Thompson to do something, he said, is to tell him he can’t — a stubborn streak that once pushed him to buy his own bicycle at age nine and later to hand-build and run Kids Time as a one-man operation for more than 20 years.
A mechanic by trade, Thompson said he never imagined the turn his life would take when he purchased the large commercial building on Route 44. At the time, he learned it was the only property in Millerton zoned for children’s recreation — a detail he overheard at a town meeting.
“I thought, ‘What kind of person would I be if I had a space for kids and didn’t give back to local families with children,’” Thompson recalled.
He waited more than a year for approvals before letting his imagination take over. Thompson spent months transforming the industrial space into an indoor world designed for children to jump, bounce, climb and slide.
Even in the earliest stages, he involved kids in the process. Thompson ran a logo design contest in his daughter’s fourth-grade classroom and said he was thrilled when one student incorporated a clock — an image that became the Kids Time logo for the next 20 years.
“It was brilliant,” Thompson said. “I had never thought of that before.”
Ken Thompson, center, emerges from a red slide at his kid's party and play business in Millerton. Thompson intends to donate the red slide to the Village of Millerton to use in the playground at Eddie Collins Memorial Park on North Elm Street.Photo by Aly Morrissey
After more than a year of sourcing play equipment, painting, repairing ceiling tiles and doing the physically demanding work himself, Thompson finally opened the doors to Kids Time in the spring of 2006.
“It was a complete dud,” he said, laughing.
His business partner at the time decided to leave and move back to Arizona, Thompson said, leaving him to buy out the business and run it alone. Then, almost unexpectedly, families began to show up.
At its peak, Thompson said he was booking as many as six birthday parties a day — all of which he ran himself.
“My pockets were stuffed with cash,” he recalled.
Kids Time operated for years as a weekend destination for local families until the COVID-19 pandemic upended normal operations. Thompson survived the shutdowns and later downsized to a smaller space — a move he handled on his own — but the business never fully returned to what it once was.
Still, Thompson said he will always look back on Kids Time — which he called “the best job in the world” — with pride and fondness.
“It was a life-changing experience,” he said. “I wish I could keep it going.”
Thompson’s daughter, KT, thanked her father publicly for the space he created.
“Thank you for building me the coolest place in the world, for being the best dad anyone could ask for and for leaving a lasting mark on all of us through your kindness, dedication and joy,” she said.
As the final birthday party wound down Sunday afternoon, Thompson invited guests to take pieces of Kids Time home — climbing mats of all shapes, colors and sizes — free of charge.
“I’m just happy they’ll have a new home,” Thompson said, visibly moved by the idea that pieces of Kids Time would continue to bring joy and play to children elsewhere.
Thompson has also offered Kids Time’s iconic red slide to the Village of Millerton and hopes it can be incorporated into the playground at Eddie Collins Memorial Park.
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Benjamin Reynaert
His career began at Martha Stewart Living. A contributor to Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, House Beautiful and Veranda, Reynaert has also served as style director at Domino. He has worked with Farrow & Ball, Chairish, Neiman Marcus, Sunbrella, Anthropologie, Gap, Bunny Williams Home and Stella Artois. He shares his work on Instagram via @aspoonfulofbenjamin.
“I’ve been fortunate to travel the country and abroad for Elle Decor, covering design fairs and trade shows like Deco Off in Paris, London Design Week in England, Cersaie Tile Show in Bologna, Italy, High Point in North Carolina and the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas,” he said. He is drawn to unique objects and textiles. “As a market editor, the pieces that stick with me are not the newest. They are the ones I stumble upon and imagine living with.”
Reynaert is also co-founder of Ticking Tent with Christina Juarez, president of Christina Juarez & Company. The biannual event has become a destination for collectors and designers seeking curated antiques and design objects.
“I met Ben about 15 years ago when he was a young design editor and I was early into my career as a design communications strategist having switched gears from the fashion world," Juarez said. “We immediately clicked. I was impressed by his multidisciplinary creative talents — styling, writing, vision and impeccable eye — and his passion for the thrill of the hunt. I could not ask for a better partner and friend — my brother from another mother — and a yin to my yang. Two creatively minded people with a love of old and new beautiful things, and the ability to curate what the luxury shopper doesn’t know they need and most definitely wants.”
Reynaert described the most recent Ticking Tent as the largest yet. “We hosted over 2,000 guests and transacted our most sales to date with 75 vendors,” he said. “The most exciting part is seeing friends and watching new connections being made. I’m excited for the next event, Nov. 13–14, in Bedford, N.Y.”
Butter Wakefield’s kitchen from“The Layered Home” by Benjamin Reynaert.Manuel Rodriguez
For Reynaert, objects are defined as much by narrative as by design. “An object is about the story — whether it’s passed down in your family, something you worked hard for, bought on a trip, or a friend gave you,” he said. “With that added narrative, it doesn’t need to be the most aesthetically pleasing thing. The memory attached makes it beautiful. I like the idea of simple, seemingly insignificant items having a ton of meaning. Treat a thrift store painting as you would a Picasso.”
Greg Domres and Peter Nichols’ residence in Litchfield, which they share with their miniature schnauzer, Bunny, is one of 15 homes featured in Reynaert’s book, “The Layered Home.” The couple hosted a book signing at George Home in Washington Depot. “I first met Ben at press events during my time at John Derian,” Domres said. “We became friends and stayed connected professionally over the years.”
The book spans interiors from Eric Goujou’s shop The Wolf Tile in Paris’ 5th arrondissement to textile designer Schuyler Samperton’s Litchfield farmhouse. “Sharing the stories of talented, stylish people I’ve met during my tenure in magazines has been a privilege,” Reynaert said. “The most inspiring interiors are layered — with personality, patina and the poetry of a life lived. This book is my love letter to that idea.”
Reynaert said he would like to travel to Japan and Australia and hopes to develop his own product line in the future. “Balancing work and life is a challenge,” he said. He spends downtime with his husband, Luis Illades, in Delaware, where they are renovating a Victorian home.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to blend my work and my life in the home I share,” he said. “Creating a home is, at its core, an act of love.”
Mickalene Thomas and Delano Dunn at Wassaic Project.
Thomas, an artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, collage and installation, first met Dunn when she was his graduate adviser at the School of Visual Arts. “I think your work needs to be out there more,” she said, noting the urgency of this collection in the current socio-political moment.
Dunn’s layered collages often begin with an image unearthed from flea markets, used bookstores and forgotten archives.
“I go to secondhand shops, old bookstores, any place that looks like it has history in it,” he said.
Sometimes, he explained, an image becomes the centerpiece of a work. Other times it simply sparks an idea.
“There’ll be an idea that pops into my head. I’ll read something or hear music or a lyric, and then I’ll think, ‘I’ve got to find an image that matches that.’”
His color palette also carries its own history.
“I grew up in L.A. during the L.A. riots,” Dunn said. “I would sit on my porch as a kid. I was watching the neighborhood burn, but the sky was beautiful.”
He still paints with those saturated blues, reds and oranges.
“Color can transport you. Color can make you feel safe, or happy or scared,” he said. “Those colors made me feel safe.”
For Dunn, Troutbeck’s own layered history became an active part of the work. Learning that the estate had hosted W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Ida B. Wells and generations of civil rights leaders informed his direction.
Dunn was given access to Troutbeck’s archives and found handwritten notes by Langston Hughes, and writings by Du Bois and Wells that found their way into the exhibition.
“There was a letter between Amy Spingarn and Martin Luther King Jr.,” Dunn recalled. “To be in its presence and hold it... you don’t see communication like that every day.”
Delano Dunn’s “Echoes in the Margin” at Troutbeck.Natalia Zukerman
Much of Dunn’s work invites viewers to dig deeper into history rather than accept simplified narratives.
“I want them to look at it and go, ‘Wow, this is really amazing and interesting and colorful and beautiful,’” he said. “And then I want them to be terrified shortly after that.” He accomplishes this through bold, colorful, and often playful compositions that draw the viewer in before revealing their more complex historical underpinnings. As Thomas wrote, “Dunn’s compositions invite viewers to sit within that tension and take it in.” That impulse toward deeper investigation extends to Dunn’s own children, who are often his first audience.
“They’ll ask, ‘What is this? Why does this person look the way they look? Why are you using that color? Why are you using glitter?’”
Those conversations, he said, become lessons in looking beyond appearances.
Thomas framed collage itself as a kind of storytelling practice —“the gathering of information… piecing things together”—and praised Dunn’s ability to translate research, memory and visual pleasure into a unified language. She also underscored the importance of creative joy in the process. “If you’re going to your studio and you’re not having fun,” she said, “you shouldn’t be doing it.”
Dunn said one of the biggest misconceptions he hopes to challenge is the idea that there is a monolithic Black experience.
“There are so many different perspectives out there. This is just one of them,” he said. In the same breath, Dunn said he adopts the label “Black artist” because “it would make my Grandpa proud.”
The nearly two-hour conversation shifted seamlessly between humor and history, studio practice and social commentary, ultimately returning to what both artists believe art can accomplish: encouraging curiosity, complicating familiar stories and inviting viewers to question what they see.
As Dunn put it, “History is so much more nuanced than what we’re taught. There’s so much more going on below the surface.”
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