Caigan revamps the Colony Café’s musical approach

That history started back in 1924, when Overlook Mountain House owner Morris Newgold lost his recently-bought mountain hotel to fire and promised he’d rebuild with concrete and steel. Time started passing and in 1927, he announced and then started work on the Colony, built to fit its small Rock City Road lot. The town’s top engineers were employed to ensure its safety — after all, it was the tallest structure in town, and built of brick and stucco versus the wood that characterized most everything else around. Local blacksmiths and woodworkers gave every inch of the place a special vibe.

The place opened for business as both a hotel and restaurant/musical venue, to eventually be a stopover for guests headed to the hoped for Mountain House revival, in 1929. Big bands played there; a huge oven in the kitchen was the source for much of the community’s bread. Things thrived throughout the 1930s, despite the fact of a Great Depression and the quickly forgotten element of a further destination hotel that wasn’t getting built. Newgold passed away and his son ran things. But when the war broke out in the 1940s all got shuttered. Grandkids came in to run things, but only sporadically…and basically, the Colony remained a mysterious curiosity through the latter part of the 20th century. It was only opened intermittently until it’s the Harrigfelds stepped up in 2000.

Pete Caigan is quick to name shows he saw or heard about at the place in the past decade or so. His favorite, by far, was a night some eight years ago when the Felice Brothers suddenly hit it big and rocked a house filled to the literal rafters with fans and, by evening’s close, converts.

“Now that I’m in there, the magic of the place keeps growing on me. As I clean I uncover treasures and a sense of all the great stories existing in the place,” he said. “It’s got a great vibe.”

The engineer spoke of a full basement, nowhere near being usable yet, with amazing tie work and another full fireplace; it was originally Ulster County’s first cafeteria. He said the hotel rooms upstairs, as well as an apartment, might someday be usable…but not in the foreseeable future. For now, he’s got recordings lined up, as well as a growing list of concerts. And several more weeks of intense cleaning to do.

For recording gigs, he works from word-of-mouth…and a lifetime of connections he follows up with regularly by phone. He knows the area’s top producers; moreover, alongside Bearsville Theater and the town’s other studios, from Nevessa to Dreamland and many others, he believes more is always better. The trick is to help all boats rise now that the industry’s down to ten percent what it once was.

As for concerts, things will kick off April 4 with a singer/songwriter evening and follow-up dance party. From there on in it’s all local bookings, and deejay dance follow-throughs, as a means of helping local bands on the scene. Later, at the end of April and in early May, people like Arc Iris come in for record release parties, and Jeffrey Gaines is set for a May 10 concert. Things pick up even more come the summer, by which time an exchange and confluence between Caigan’s recording and booking sides starts to fully gel.

“I recently went over to what was Allaire Studios and bought their sound baffles for here,” he says. “The place will be magic…It’s time.”

For more on the Colony Café and all it is now offering, including weekend bookings, visit its updated website at www.colonycafewoodstock.com or email [email protected].