THE PROPERTY
Perfect for lounging and reading and deep conversation and board games. Or stillness, with a glass of wine and bowl of quicos, watching whisps of flames dance in the fireplace and sunlight flicker across the room through the skylights.
Take a seat and take it all in.
THE LIVING ROOM
The Gardens started with a simple prompt - how can we use our plot of land to create a multi-use space that represents a microcosm of the Catskills? Or, more simply, how can we create an outdoor space that we'd absolutely fall in love with and never want to leave?
What we came up with is sprawling and intimate, organic and dynamic. There are two big lawns for holding weddings and events, and there are plants and flowers that keep blooming through spring and summer and fall, with visual interest in winter.
Clethra and Russian sage and calamint and queen of the prairie and echinacea and guara lindheimeri, various types of salvias and coreopsis, alliums, asters, eupatoriums, snowdrop anemone, and lavendulas. Edibles, too - sorrel and nasturtium and Giant of Italy and purslane and lovage and shiso and chervil, radish greens and Thai basil and French tarragon and common dill. And wild - knotweed and mustard, sweet woodruff and a patch of ramps and chanterelles by the creek.
The Gardens are meant for daydreams and idle strolls, but really, they’re meant for deep breaths of Mother Earth.
THE GARDENS
With overflowing views towards Windham Mountain and Black Dome Valley, out east at quiet sunrises, and out far west at hillside and mountain peak and streaks of orange and red and violet at the setting sun - when we say over and over again we exist among the undulating hills and breathtaking beauty of The Catskills, this is exactly what we mean.
THE ROOF DECK
THE PRIVATE DINING ROOM
The Private Dining Room is meant for lingering. For gatherings and celebrations and late nights spent around the table surrounded by new and old friends, laughing and drinking and eating and hoping that the night will never end. Serving as an extension of the restaurant, the PDR is meant to feel like you're having dinner in someone's home.
This is our version of the hospitality that we want to experience - being taken care of by wonderful hosts in a beautiful setting, and being served plate after plate and glass after glass of truly amazing food and wine.
But, the PDR was also created for so much more. It’s where we host guest-only breakfasts and it’s where we envision you’ll pull up a chair and check in with work or home or the real world, at least for a moment. Or where you’ll pull up a chair across from your partner and stand your ground that zorilla is a valid Scrabble word and that if you focus on the edges you’ll surely get the jigsaw puzzle done by dawn.
Looking to host a private event? Please email events@thehenson.com
for more information!
HISTORY
Hensonville, New York was officially established in 1818 as a hamlet of Windham, which itself was settled in 1798. The earliest record we have found of our building operating as a hotel dates back to a postcard from 1918 - The Hensonville Hotel. We’re told by a town surveyor the structure was built sometime during the latter half of the 19th century as a boarding house, just beyond the end of The Civil War. It has changed hands numerous times in the hundred and fifty or so years since then.
When we started renovations, one of the first orders of business was to remove the thousands of square feet of vinyl flooring plastered edge to edge in every room. We didn’t know what we’d find underneath and had in the plans to lay down new hardwood. What we found, under layers of paper and adhesive, was pristine, original flooring. But the more we peeled away the more a patterned oddity revealed itself. The wood was different throughout the building. Douglas fir and wide plank pine, wormy hemlock, hard maple, and red oak. Different varieties, different widths, even different orientations and fasteners and finishes.
A story began to unfold. The building had been pieced together - added to and subtracted from, modified and expanded - over it’s long life. It had evolved to meet the whims or needs or imagination of the current owner. We were there doing the same, no? And, almost as an act of providence, we discovered that some rooms had unsalvageable floors that needed replacing. We tried to match the adjacent boards but they were hand-milled and impossible to source. So we settled on the flooring of our time, new fir. Yet another variety to piece in. A footprint of our own. A contribution - an offering - to this wonderful place that will hopefully continue to stand long after our time with it has passed.
SOURCE GUIDE
thank you to our wonderful brand partners for helping to make this beautiful property a reality!
