NBT, garden club volunteers landscape Habitat home

A volunteer crew from NBT Bank went right to work grading fresh topsoil for the future front lawn at the Habitat for Humanity home on Rudd Pond Road.

Photo by John Coston
volunteering

NBT, garden club volunteers landscape Habitat home

MILLERTON — Volunteers arrived on a sunny Tuesday morning on May 29 to pitch in to landscape the new Habitat for Humanity home on Rudd Pond Road.

The home, now occupied by the family that purchased the home last year, was transformed by gangs of help from NBT Bank and members of The Garden Club of Orange & Dutchess Counties.

North East Town Board member Meg Winkler stopped by to lend a hand and check in with Jessica Muccio, chief development officer of Hab itat for Humanity of Dutchess County.

Native Landscapes in Pawling provided and delivered perennial plants and shrubs for foundation planting, as well as mulch. McEnroe Organic Farm in Millerton donated and delivered premium garden soil for the planting beds.

Members of The Garden Club of Orange & Dutchess Counties, from left, Marcy Wagman, Sarah Peacock, Dorian Winslow, Linda Rohleder, Linda Tawse, Carrie O’Leary and Elinor Hart. Photo by John Coston

The Town of North East donated the land for the affordable housing project. The house is approximately 1,400 square feet with three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on a half-acre plot of land.

Under an affordable housing initiative, the program allowed families to apply for this ranch-style house at 30% of their household income.

Besides its homebuying program, Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County also provides a home repair programs that assists in installation and building of access ramps, porch and screen repair and landscaping.

volunteering

Latest News

Kevin Kelly’s After Hours

Kevin Kelly’s After Hours

Kevin Kelly

Photo by Christopher Delarosa
“I was exposed to that cutthroat, ‘Yes, chef’ culture. It’s not for me. I don’t want anyone apologizing for who they are or what they love.”— Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly doesn’t call himself a chef; he prefers “cook.” His business, After Hours, based in Great Barrington, operates as what Kelly calls “a restaurant without a home,” a pop-up dining concept that prioritizes collaboration over competition, flexibility over permanence, and accessibility over exclusivity.

Kelly grew up in Great Barrington and has roots in the Southern Berkshires that go back ten generations. He began working in restaurants at age 14. “I started at Allium and was hooked right off the bat,” he said. He worked across the region from Cantina 229 in New Marlborough to The Old Inn on the Green at Jacob’s Pillow before heading to Babson College in Boston to study business. After a few years in Boston kitchens, he returned home to open a restaurant. But the math didn’t work. “The traditional model just didn’t feel financially sustainable,” he said. “So, I took a step back and asked, ‘If that doesn’t work, then what does?’”

Keep ReadingShow less
restaurants

Books & Blooms’ tenth anniversary

Books & Blooms’ tenth anniversary

Dee Salomon on what makes a garden a garden.

hoto by Ngoc Minh Ngo for Architectural Digest

On June 20 and 21, the Cornwall Library will celebrate its 10th anniversary of Books & Blooms, the two-day celebration of gardens, art, and the rural beauty of Cornwall. This beloved annual benefit features a talk, reception, art exhibit, and self-guided tours of four extraordinary local gardens.

The first Library sponsored garden tour was in June 2010 and featured a talk by Page Dickey, an avid gardener and author. This year’s Books & Blooms will coincide with Ellen Moon’s exhibit “Thinking About Gardens,” a collection of watercolors capturing the quiet spirit of Cornwall’s private gardens. Moon, a weekly storyteller to the first grade at Cornwall Consolidated School and art curator for The Cornwall Library, paints en plein air. Her work investigates what constitutes a garden. In the description of the show, she writes: “there are many sorts...formal, botanical, cottage, vegetable, herb...even a path through the woods is a kind of garden. My current working definition of a garden is a human intervention in the landscape to enhance human appreciation of the landscape.” Also on display are two of her hand-embroidered jackets. One depicts spring’s flowering trees and pollinators. The other, a kimono, was inspired by Yeats’s “The Song of the Wandering Aengus.”

Keep ReadingShow less
cornwall library