Village trustees appoint new police recruit, set date for ICE law discussion

The Village of Millerton office on N. Elm Avenue.
Photo by Aly Morrissey
The Village of Millerton office on N. Elm Avenue.
MILLERTON — The appointment of a new village police recruit and the approval of a communications platform were among the key items discussed at the Millerton Village Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, June 10.
The board also set a date for a follow-up to the recent special meeting regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That meeting will be held Tuesday, July 29, at 6 p.m., with the village’s legal counsel expected to attend.
Following a brief report from Police Chief Joseph Olenik, the board unanimously accepted the resignation of Officer Julia Phillips, who is stepping down to spend more time with her family.
“She was a great officer,” said Olenik, before introducing a candidate to fill the vacancy.
Heather Dworkin, 25, of Fishkill, addressed the board during the meeting.
“Law enforcement has always been huge in my family, and I’m ready to take that step myself and serve my community,” she said. Dworkin was joined by her parents, Mary and Keith Dworkin. Her father serves as police chief in the village of Millbrook.
“I’m interested in this village specifically because I like the fact that you can build a relationship with the people who live here,” she added. “That’s very important to me.”
After an executive session, the board unanimously voted to appoint Dworkin as a new police recruit for the village.
Trustees also approved a two-year contract with TextMyGov, a new software platform designed to improve communication with residents. The system will allow the village to send text alerts in emergencies or when timely mass communication is needed. While implementation details are still being finalized, the board voted to move forward following a review of competing options.
In other business, the board will plan to formally recognize a tree committee, which has been operating on a volunteer basis and hopes to explore funding opportunities through the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Webutuck students showed off dance moves from the Hispanic diaspora during the second annual Hispanic Heritage Night at Webutuck High School on Saturday, Sept. 27.
AMENIA — Students of the Webutuck School District celebrated their hispanic heritage with a demonstration of dances and home-cooked food on Saturday, Sept. 27.
The dancing kicked off just before 6 p.m. starting with a demonstration of classic Mexican moves, followed by dances of Ecuador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Dancers ranged in age from elementary students to seniors at Webutuck High School, all clad in changing costumes representing each country.
Following the dance presentation in the auditorium, members of the audience were directed to the cafeteria where a buffet of homemade dishes representing cuisines from across the Spanish-speaking world awaited them. Available for diners were fresh tamales, rice, beef, pork, churros, chicharrones, and hibiscus juice to wash it all down.
The buffet didn’t last long, as many people piled the home cooked food high on their plates and ate the traditional cuisines with gusto.
Then it was off to the gym, where a dance party was taking place for the now well-fed and energized group of parents and students.
Saturday’s celebration marks the second year of what district staff say they hope will become a regular annual tradition at the school.
Built in 1999 and updated in 2017 59 Bangall Road is a 5,086 square foot house with panoramic views which sold for $1.9 million on July 30.
MILLBROOK — Transfers of real estate recorded in July and August in the Town of Washington continued a pace with the median price of a single-family home rising to $700,000 at the end of August 2025, up from $492,500 last year.
At the end of September there were 24 single family homes listed for sale in the Village of Millbrook including the most expensive 45 Hitchcock Lane for $65 million and the least expensive at $629,000.
August Transfers
16 Shunpike — 3 bedroom/3 bath home on 6.9 acres sold to Stephen White for $745,000.
515-521 Woodstock Road — Single family home on 5.35 acres sold to Oliver Brown for $450,000.
3925 Route 82 — 5 bedroom/5.5 bath home built in 1850 on 13.49 acres sold to Butterfly Hill LLC for $1,817,500.
59 Bangall Road — 4 bedroom/3 bath/2 half bath on 6.18 acres sold to Michael Thompson Millbrook LLC for $1.9 million.
Hammond Hill Road (#595902) — 14.71 acres rural vacant land sold to Anthony Galente for $157,500.
July Transfers
620 Route 343 — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on .94 acres sold to Donald E Brandes for $700,000.
471 Butts Hollow Road — 1 bedroom/1 bath 1,259 square foot ranch sold to Fallerhof LLC for $537,500.
667 Shunpike — 4 bedroom/2 bath home on 9.3 acres sold to Porterfield, Hathaway Lynch Trustee for $1.9 million.
*Town of Washington recorded real estate transfers from July 1 to Aug. 31 not previously reported sourced from Dutchess County Real Property Office monthly reports. Details on each property from Dutchess Parcel Access. Market data from One Key MLS and Infosparks Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Advisor with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
Almost 20 years ago in a packed chapel at The Salisbury School a television journalist famous for his coverage of national politics led a discussion on the question: “Can Democracy Survive the Media?” His name was Sander Vanocur, a prominent reporter whose contemporaries were other big names at political conventions in the 1960s:John Chancellor, Frank McGee and Edwin Newman. Vanocur was one of the questioners at the first of the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960.
The Salisbury event back then in 2005 was brought to the Northwest Corner by a unique regional organization known as The Salisbury Forum, which now is celebrating 20 years sponsoring open discourse for a community hungry for thoughtful dialogue.
Last week, another prominent journalist, Judy Woodruff, former anchor and managing editor of the PBS Newshour, was on stage at The Forum’s sold-out event at The Salisbury School. (Read Patrick L. Sullivan’s coverage here.)
For two decades, the Forum, a nonprofit, has hosted speaker forums that “foster a deeper understanding of issues that affect our lives globally and locally,” to quote its mission statement.
As a community we are fortunate to be the beneficiary of such a committed and valuable local organization. The Forum is supported as well by other institutions in our community that provide venues for the Forum’s event. Those include The Hotchkiss School and Salisbury School, The Moviehouse in Millerton and Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village.
For twenty years, forums — free and open to the public — have explored a wide range of topics that span the rural health crisis in the Northwest Corner, to discussions on food access, the future of journalism, the future of democracy, climate change, citizenship, pandemics, the future of books in an age of AI, as well as subjects related to science, politics and international relations. There seems to be no end to the survey of topics explored by the forums. And no limit to the level of sophistication of its speakers. They include scholars from many disciplines, diplomats, housing experts, award-winning actors of theater, film and television, environmentalists, filmmakers, art critics, theater critics, and on and on with speakers who illuminate the challenges facing America today in civic, political, scientific and cultural life.
The Forum is an adult-ed course we receive for free, which connects us with ideas and draws conversation about the full gamut of Arts and Science of today’s complicated world.
We thank the Forum and its board for an indispensable service to the community. And encourage everyone to visit the Forum’s website to learn more about the people who make it happen and about the history of this nonprofit’s contribution to our community.
Great Elm, the childhood home of William F. Buckley, Jr., is on the market for $3.9 million. The atrium is the highlight and heart of the home, having hosted many elegant dinners and weddings.
SHARON — For more than a century, the Buckley family’s sprawling estate, known as “Great Elm,” has stood at the heart of Sharon life, a gathering place for neighbors, world leaders and artists alike. Now, the circa 1812 Georgian Colonial with its rare glass atrium is on the market for $3,999,000, drawing both serious buyers and viral attention on Zillow Gone Wild.
The sale, led by Cameron Smith, grandson of family patriarch and oil spectator William F. Buckley, Sr., and nephew to conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr., marks the end of the family’s stewardship of one of northwest Connecticut’s most storied homes.
“It’s such a unique property,” said listing agent Pels Matthews, broker/owner of William Raveis Lifestyles Realty in Washington Depot. “There is nothing like it in Litchfield County. It reminds me of New Orleans, Charleston or Savannah.”
The listing has already reached a national and international audience thanks to Zillow Gone Wild, a popular online feed that highlights unusual and distinctive homes.
Great Elm’s soaring glass atrium and Buckley legacy has attracted thousands of comments and shares, with readers marveling at both its historic pedigree and its dramatic architectural centerpiece.
The Zillow feed notes: “The only thing better than a house with an atrium is a house with an atrium with bedrooms that all have access to it so everyone can ‘retire to their quarters’ at the end of the night and guess what? This Sharon home has just that. Are we moving to Sharon now?? Hello??? Will Sharon be there??”
“That has taken it to a whole different level,” Matthews said of the viral Zillow exposure.“I’ve got people calling me from Europe, and all over the country.”
Matthews noted that the estate is not just dramatic but is also incredibly livable. “The home can easily support multi-generational living or be shared by two families if desired, with the common atrium.”
The viral attention reflects how the estate, once known primarily within Litchfield County and political circles, now resonates with a wider public fascinated by unique homes with deep stories to tell.
Buckley family’s summer retreat
Built in 1812, purchased by William F. Buckley Sr. in 1923 and expanded in 1929, the house became the Buckley family’s summer retreat. It later shaped the early life of Buckley Jr., who founded the National Review and emerged as a leading conservative voice. To accommodate the growing Buckley family, the home was converted to five condominiums in the 1980s, three of which were occupied by Buckley siblings until their death.
Buckley Sr. died in 1958, Patricia Buckley in 2007, Buckley Jr. in 2008 and James Buckley in 2023.
According to the listing by Willaim Raveis Lifestyles Realty, the home encompasses the majority of the original mansion and was renovated in 2013.
The house, on 8.072 acres, offers eight bedrooms, seven full and two half baths, period pine paneling, historic wallpaper, Art Deco details, multiple fireplaces and private terraces surrounded by specimen trees.
The atrium is the highlight and heart of the home, having hosted many elegant dinners and weddings over the decades. The mature plants can be included in the sale.
The home sits within a larger association that maintains shared amenities including a 70-foot heated pool and tennis and paddle/pickleball courts.
The estate is being sold by Smith, as his family’s presence in Sharon has gradually passed into history, he told Mansion Global in May 2024, when the house originally hit the market for $5.5 million under another brokerage.
“Our generation, except for me, is no longer in Sharon,” Smith said at the time. “The home no longer provides the congregating place it used to. It’s no longer needed for it.”
William Raveis Lifestyles Realty
Where world leaders, neighbors congregated
Though a national figure, William F. Buckley Jr. was deeply tied to local life. He supported the Hotchkiss Library, appeared at the Sharon Green fair, hosted organ recitals and opened Great Elm for musical evenings and fundraisers.
His wife, Patricia, was celebrated as one of New York’s great hostesses, famed for her flittering parties that drew leaders in politics, the arts and business. At Great Elm, she carried that same spirit north, entertaining both Manhattan guests and Sharon neighbors under the soaring glass atrium.
Over the years the estate welcomed figures such as Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher, Tom Wolfe and Malcolm Muggeridge, as well as musicians and artists including harpsichordist Albert Fuller and pianist Samuel Barber, who performed in the house and nearby venues.
The mix of statesmen, writers, performers and townspeople gave Great Elm a unique social rhythm, where international debates might follow a neighborhood concert.
Together the Buckleys gave the estate a dual role, a setting for cosmopolitan society and a lively hub of small-town life, until Paricia’s death in 2007 and William’s in 2008.
Gretchen Hachmeister, executive director of the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon, said the Buckleys’ generosity to the library extends to the grandchildren of William F. Buckley, Sr.
“Several of them, organized by Cameron Smith, made generous gifts to our recent capital campaign and named our new conference room in William F. Buckley, Jr.’s, memory,” she explained. “His son, Christopher, recently gifted us a complete set of his humorous political novels, which have joined the collection of works of both Williams, Christopher and Priscilla.”
Hachmeister noted that several years before she joined Hotchkiss, the library held a fundraiser called “A Bevy of Buckleys” and supporters dined under a tent at Great Elm. She also recalled that “Senator James Buckley was a frequent library patron.”
The Sharon Statement
Matthews noted that Great Elm is more than just a piece of real estate. “It is part of the local fabric of Sharon along with national political history.”
A document known as the Sharon Statement was adopted on Sept. 11, 1960 by a group of 100 young conservatives who convened at the Buckley home for the purpose of creating Young Americans for Freedom, which has been widely regarded by historians as one of the most important declarations in the history of American conservatism.
“The Sharon Statement,” said Matthews, “is an important credo in the conservative movement, and there is a large stone with a plaque on the property with the full statement.”
For Sharon, the listing closes one chapter of local history and opens another. For buyers, said Matthews, it offers a chance to own one of the region’s most distinctive homes, anchored by its glass atrium and its place in American and cultural life.
Whoever buys Great Elm, said Matthews, “will be inheriting that legacy.”