Of course, the musical legacy of West Saugerties doesn’t stop there. The Band — the group of legendary musicians who played with Bob Dylan in the 1960s — lived in a house (with pink siding) called Big Pink, after which they named their debut studio album in 1968. (Local resident Jo Galante Cicale points out that the residence is in the hamlet of Pine Grove, not West Saugerties, but the house has been tagged as being located in West Saugerties for so long that it’s included here.) Dylan and members of The Band retreated to the house’s basement to compose music, some of which was released in 1975 as “The Basement Tapes.”
Since 1998 the house has been owned by musicians Don and Susan LaSala, who write on their website bigpinkbasement.com, “We consider ourselves conscious stewards of this special place, preserving the house and trying to keep the surrounding land pristine as when its peacefulness was inspirational to certain road-weary musicians.” At the same time, they note, “The Basement still resounds in music, creativity, and celebration of the now… we do not view Big Pink and the Basement as a museum or a tribute to the past.”
Cicale, who has lived near the celebrated site for 38 years, says that for a long time now, “People have come to our door — from Australia, Germany, Canada — and asked where Big Pink is. It’s such an icon of the ’60s. But in the last year or two, someone has posted ‘No Trespassing’ signs. I have been very assertive in telling people to ignore the signs and just go down there.” (The LaSalas say on their website that the “No Trespassing” signs belong to another dweller on the private road; the Big Pink owners, however, say they “appreciate” respectful visitors.)
Other musical talents were less widely known but equally appreciated. Albert “Bobby” Miller, 75, recalls a local band that would play wherever they could: on West Saugerties Rd. at the local community center, at the Pinewood House; “everywhere from here to Palenville.” The band consisted of Charlie Ferrara, Bruce Ackerman, Red Praetorius and Arnold Russell. “They would go to different places and we would follow them,” Miller says. “Whenever they met, we’d make a party out of it. It would go from Saturday into Sunday morning. When you’re having a good time you don’t put a time limit on it.” The Pinewood House, owned by George Wood, was where folks drank and played shuffleboard and euchre, Miller says. Though now vacant, the Pinewood, a rollicking bar, restaurant, and boarding house, opened in 1936. It became a general store in the 1980s before closing down.
The community center just north of the one-room schoolhouse, still standing but empty, holds a stage and a large, once-welcoming room that was the site of Halloween parties, bingo games, and other festive gatherings.“They had a president and a ladies’ auxiliary, just like the rod-and-gun club,” Miller says, referring to the Ridge Runners Rod and Gun Club, founded in 1962 on the “ridge road” (a colloquial name for West Saugerties-Woodstock Rd.), which hosted turkey and trap shoots as well as spaghetti dinners and parties. Other social venues (and places to hang out), Miller says, were Kirk’s store, a few doors down West Saugerties Rd. from the old Roman Catholic chapel (now the home and studio of artist Wendy Brown), and Fitch’s Pond, down Blue Mountain Church Rd., for ice skating.
Instrument makers as well as music makers populated the area. Robert Meadow, who built lutes and violins, and his then-wife Bonnie, a musician, moved to West Saugerties because it was close to Woodstock, yet affordable. “We fell in love with the stream and the waterfalls and mountain views,” Bonnie Meadow recalls. She also notes the special “blend” of several cultures in the neighborhood: the folks who, like the Ferraras, have been here for generations and those relative newcomers who, like the Meadows, are drawn to the area’s natural beauty and inspirational setting.
They brought in a friend, Japanese master carpenter Makoto Imai, to build a teahouse on the site of an old ice house in 1985. During its construction, he conducted a workshop for some 30 woodworkers who assisted him and learned the traditional arts of Japanese joinery, hand-planed boards, and other skills. Other artistic projects for the Meadows included making high-tech light boxes to cure violin varnish and making prototypes for Franklin Mint miniature scenes. Through the latter venture, they paired up with another local artist, William Greenwood, who now lives in that Japanese teahouse and continues to create sculptures.
Greenwood lived in Woodstock for 25 years before moving to West Saugerties. “I finally have my house on the creek, which I couldn’t afford in Woodstock, and I’m in the Catskills,” he marvels. “Thomas Cole painted this waterfall right here.” For years, he has attended a life-drawing class down the road at Wendy Brown’s house. “It’s great to have that in the neighborhood.”
Brown, too, came to West Saugerties seeking a reasonably priced home where she could create her art, moving to the former Catholic chapel — which has 18-foot-high ceilings — “because of the amount of space.” In 1980 she began sandblasting glass; now she creates sculptures through a process called pâte de verre (“glass paste”: glass particles applied to the surface of a mold, then fired in a kiln). Brown, whose sculptures appear in galleries in Florida, Hawaii, and elsewhere, simply loves the area for its beauty: “I love living here. I’m always happy to come home.”
Ron Marz, a former hamlet denizen, is an artist from a different end of the spectrum: comic books. A writer for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and others, who also does some video-game writing, the Kingston native moved to West Saugerties with his Sawyer wife in 1993. They discovered the neighborhood by attending the “legendary Halloween parties” at the home of Bernie Wrightson, a comic book artist. “We ended up renting a house perched right on the edge of a cliff, deep in the woods, overlooking the whole Hudson Valley,” he says. That led the family to buy a house at the base of Overlook Mountain, says Marz: “We loved the house and we loved the setting. I wrote a lot of comics in that house, including the stuff I’m probably best known for, like Marvel vs. DC and my run on ‘Green Lantern.’”
The artistic draw, he agrees with Meadow and others, was “being close to Woodstock, but far enough out of town that we had privacy.” Several other comic creators nearby, in addition to Marz and Wrightson, meant West Saugerties was “a great community to be a part of.” An example: “I remember the idea for the Batman vs. Aliens project that Bernie and I did first came up while the two of us were driving up Plochmann Lane heading back to West Saugerties.” He left West Saugerties for a job opportunity in Florida, and the family now lives in Duanesburg, near Albany. Departing, Marz says, was “bittersweet; a big part of me wishes we were still there.» One reason is the vibrancy of the culture. “The town and whole area have such a sense of creativity,» he says. «It’s a great place to pursue an artistic career.”
