MILLERTON — Musical harmony was restored in the village of Millerton this summer as Jonathan Grusauskas (best known as Jonny G, the creator and visionary behind The Music Cellar, located right off the Harlem Valley Rail Trail) succeeded in raising the funds needed to purchase The Music Cellar building this past August.
Located at 14 Main St., the raspberry-colored building along the trail has been a hub for musical instruction and exploration in the community for the last five years.
Before moving into that space, The Music Cellar was previously located in the space where the T-Shirt Farm used to be located at 64 South Center St.; it’s since moved around the corner to 14 Main St., along the Harlem Valley Rail Trail.
From Toddler Jam and Story Hour to Mom’s Morning Out and private music lessons, The Music Cellar offers residents of all ages from around the Tri-state region the chance to explore their passion for music and unlock endless musical possibilities.
Though The Music Cellar managed to weather the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact by switching from in-person to virtual programming, Jonny G acknowledged last spring how the pandemic has cut into their business.
Another impact of COVID-19 was the increase in value in the local real estate market, especially in the Harlem Valley and areas like Millerton, Pine Plains and across the border in neighboring Salisbury and Kent, Conn., which led to the building being placed on the market. Responding quickly to his landlord’s announcement that she wanted to sell the building, Jonny G decided he wanted to buy the hot piece of property. He set up a GoFundMe page this past March to raise the necessary funds with the community’s help as he didn’t have the money for a down payment all by himself.
Thanks to an overwhelming amount of support and generosity, The Music Cellar was able to raise the funds needed to put down the down payment on the building. Jonny G said the studio met its goal by August, raising $18,000.
When The Millerton News previously reported on The Music Cellar’s fundraising campaign this past spring, the total fundraising goal was $25,000. With $18,000 raised through the GoFundMe page, Jonny G attributed the remaining $17,000 to generous support from his family and donors, with the rest coming from his personal savings.
Extending his gratitude to all those who contributed to the fundraiser and allowed The Music Cellar to secure its home base of 10 years, Jonny G said, “In a world where school budgets so often suffer, and the arts are considered extracurricular luxuries rather than the integral piece of humanity that they are, it gives me hope to see so many coming together to show their support and valuation of music education. It makes me proud to live in a community that sees the importance of music and creativity.”
Elsewhere in the community, local residents and long-time supporters of the studio were equally delighted to see The Music Cellar reach its goal.
“[My husband] Greg and I were thrilled to see the outpouring of support from the community,” said Brooke Lehman, co-director of The Watershed Center in Millerton, who rallied the community to contribute to the GoFundMe page, “and we weren’t surprised because Jonny and the rest of the crew at The Music Cellar have been such a gift to the community for so many years. It’s really heartwarming to see so many people showing up and giving back.”
If things had gone differently and The Music Cellar had disappeared from the village, Lehman said the community would have lost the heart of its cultural programming.
“My hope is that The Music Cellar serves as a nucleus for other forms of creative endeavors to anchor themselves in Millerton in the future,” she said. “For Millerton, really having a building or a cultural institution devoted to music right in the heart of town — right on the Rail Trail — serves us as a community well into the future.”
“They are an important part of what makes this community so vibrant and fun,” said NorthEast-Millerton Library Director Rhiannon Leo-Jameson. “It really shows you how much they mean to Millerton and to our local creative community, that they were able to rally behind them like this.”
Jonny G often volunteers to sing and perform at the library, and is a regular part of its programming for children of all ages there.
“The Music Cellar has provided some of our youngest library patrons — infants, toddlers and preschoolers — with the ability to connect with music during their early childhood years, which are some of the most pivotal years in socio-emotional learning and development,” said NorthEast-Millerton Library Youth Services Coordinator Kristin McClune. “The impact of that is not insignificant, and knowing that they will continue to be a resource in our community brings me a lot of joy for their organization and for Millerton as a whole.”
Jonny G and those who work at The Music Cellar have also volunteered with the North East Community Center (NECC) in Millerton frequently over the years. They've also made it a point to participate in other community events, always contributing to the vibe of the village and promoting Millerton in the most musical of ways.
This article has been corrected to note The Music Cellar's address as 14 Main St., along the Harlem Valley Rail Trail.
Helping to foster a love of music at an early age, Jonny G, center, led a group of local toddlers in drumming to their own beat at the Toddler Jam session on Wednesday morning, Oct. 27. Photo by Kaitlin Lyle
Jim Archer of Elk Ravine Farm takes a seat on Billy the water buffalo on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
Archer bought the farm 30 years ago. He was living in Katonah, New York — where he grew up — and finding success as a contractor when he decided he wanted plenty of land in the country.
He bought the 90-acre property and spent 10 years prepping and building before he could move onto the farm. Then the real work could begin.
Archer has a passion for environmentalism and conservation that runs deep. His farm is under conservation easement with the Dutchess Land Conservancy, and the main goal of his operation is to raise livestock to aid in maintaining endangered habitats.
Archer raises Scottish Highlands cattle and Southeast Asian water buffalo because of their affinity for rugged terrain and dense, unappetizing foliage. They serve as all-natural weed-eaters, Archer said, going into habitats and eating plants that more typical livestock would avoid.
“They’re replacing an herbivore that has become extinct through millennia,” Archer said.
This strategy centers natural habitat management strategies rather than herbicides that could leach into water tables, potentially causing more harm to critters than the good that would come from removing invasive plants.
The water buffalo are especially fond of an invasive called phragmites — also known as common reed. These non-native plants form dense clods that choke out native species, according to the New York Invasive Species Information website, eventually killing all diversity in a wetland.
“Scottish highlanders don’t want to go where the footing is bad,” Archer said. “So I asked if we could proceed with Southeast Asian water buffalo and we’ve been working with them for about two years now.”
The operation is under expansion with 13 water buffalo and between 35 and 40 highlands cattle.
Archer’s environmental work is expensive, though, and he refuses to accept donations or even volunteer labor to help him with his operation. Instead, he sells educational tours of his Amenia farm to fund the conservation efforts. “I have to earn what I get,” Archer said.
Jim Archer keeps sheep, goats, pigs, emus, horses and a variety of fowl on his farm on Smithfield Valley Road in Amenia.
Archer has amassed a menagerie of animals at his 90-acre farm — all raised from adolescence by him and his fiancee — including pigs, sheep, highlands cattle, water buffalo, emus, goats, pheasants, horses, pigeons, ducks and peafowl.
Tourists start by meeting the highlands cattle, the animal that generally draws a group to the farm, Archer said. “Everybody wants to pet a fluffy cow.”
Archer’s tours put visitors in direct contact with nearly every animal on his farm, except for the horses. Those are just for pulling Archer’s restored stage coaches, including a re-creation horse-drawn ambulance — a hobby for him and his fiancée.
The experience can be overwhelming for some. “I get a lot of people that cry,” Archer said, because many of his visitors are urban or suburbanites with limited experience with animals, and the interactions can be moving.
“Somebody was suffering a loss of their partner,” Archer said. “They came here to see the animals to help through their grieving process. Billy, the water buffalo, was laying down so she sat down and he put his head in her lap. The whole time we were there — 30, 45 minutes — she was just there bonding with him.”
“Emus are dinosaurs,” Jim Archer said as he exposed the claw located on his emu’s wing.Nathan Miller
Nathan Miller
The most divisive animals on the property are the emus. Archer has five of them that live in an enclosure with some goats. The emus are curious and friendly, but they have a funny way of showing it. The birds have to explore things using beaks, leading to a lot of nibbling and pecking as visitors stand in the pen with them. Some people, understandably, find that a little annoying, Archer said.
Interested visitors can book tours through Archer’s website, www.elkravinefarm.com, or by texting 914-262-4737. A two-hour tour of the farm for a group of four people costs $250. An appointment is required to visit the farm.
The Haystack Book Festival, a program of the Norfolk Hub, brings renowned writers and thinkers to Norfolk for conversation. Celebrating its fifth season this fall, the festival will gather 18 writers for discussions at the Norfolk Library on Sept. 20 and Oct. 3 through 5.
Jerome A. Cohen, author of the memoir “Eastward, Westward: A Lifein Law.”Haystack Book Festival
For example, “Never Take the Rule of Law for Granted: China and the Dissident,” will be held Saturday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m. at the Norfolk Library. It brings together Jerome A. Cohen, author of “Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law,” and Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong King’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic” in dialogue with journalist Richard Hornik to discuss the rule of law and China.
The Council on Foreign Relations stated, “Few Americans have done more than Jerome A. Cohen to advance the rule of law in East Asia. He established the study of Chinese law in the United States. An advocate for human rights, Cohen has been a scholar, teacher, lawyer, and activist for sixty years.”
Cohen, a professor at New York University School of Law and director of its U.S.-Asia Law Institute, revealed his long view on China: “We are now witnessing another extreme in the pendulum’s swing toward repression. Xi Jinping is likely to outlive me but ‘no life lives forever.’ There will eventually be another profound reaction to the current totalitarian era.”
Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.”Haystack Book Festival
In “The Troublemaker,” Clifford chronicles Lai’s life from child refugee to pro-democracy billionaire to his current imprisonment by the Chinese Communist Party. Clifford is president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, a Walter Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and holds a PhD in history from the University of Hong Kong. He was the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post and The Standard (Hong Kong and Seoul).
Journalist Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu.Haystack Book Festival
Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center, will moderate the discussion. Hornik is the former executive editor of AsiaWeek, news service director of Time magazine, and former Time bureau chief in Warsaw, Boston, Beijing and Hong Kong.
Betsy Lerner, author of “Shred Sisters,” is giving the 2025 Brendan Gill lecture at the Haystack Book Festival.Haystack Book Festival
The Brendan Gill Lecture is a highlight of the festival honoring longtime Norfolk resident Brendan Gill, who died in1997. Gill wrote for The New Yorker magazine for fifty years. Betsy Lerner, New York Times-recognized author of “Shred Sisters,” will deliver this year’s lecture on Friday, Oct. 3, at 6 p.m. at the Norfolk Library.
Visit haystackbookfestival.org to register. Admission is free.
Pine Plains Planning Board holds first cannabis public hearing