The Catskills are roaring to life and high-end hotels are proliferating in this down-home vacation spot upstate. There’s the Chatwal Lodge, the Auberge-operated Wildflower Farms and the Hudson Valley outpost of Malibu’s wellness hub, the Ranch.
The only problem with these new spots is the price tag: A summer season room at Wildflower Farms, for example, hovers around $1,200 per night.
To find a better deal, all you need is a little Leeway — and that’s the name of the new affordable boutique motel that’s just opened in the heart of the region. Score a room on an October weekend there for as little as $325 a night.
The property, a 6-acre plot right on Esopus Creek, was formerly Kate’s Lazy Meadow, a Day-Glo rehab of a 1950s motel overseen by beehive-sporting B-52s singer Kate Pierson and her wife that opened in ’04.
Seventeen years later, it was still technically open, but was being run more like a boarding house for friends than a commercial crash pad.
Eventually, they put it up for sale for $2.2 million. Within hours of spotting the listing, Josh Reznick had decided to make an offer; he partnered with his friend Noah Nierenberg, whose wife had hosted her bachelorette party there.
The pair had scored a major payday after founding a digital advertising firm together and wanted to start dabbling in real estate. They figured that the motel was a great starter option. It wasn’t a minor project, though.
“A number of the rooms hadn’t been used in a while, and there was mildew in some of them,” said Reznick of the nine-room property.
It sits on Route 28 in Mount Tremper, NY, which is tucked behind an easily missed sign and high hedgerow on the south side of the street.
They gut renovated the cabins, ditching the kitsch for a more subtle style that Reznick called “modern rustic,” but might be thought of as Brooklyn-gone-country, with a who’s who of hipster brands (Apotheke toiletries, Brooklinen bedding).
A few details linger from Pierson’s era and before, though: the honey-colored wood paneling on the walls, for example, or small details like a heart-shaped cutout in the bathroom door in room No. 1.
That’s one of Reznick’s own favorites, with its own kitchenette and TV room-like den. His other pick is the most private room, No. 9, which is a duplex that sits on the farthest edge of the property with an open-plan layout including a spiral staircase and sleeping loft.
The entire operation is overseen by GM and part-owner Tena Hasanefendic — with her flares, oversized sunglasses and charmingly laid-back vibe, she could be the singer with a B-52s tribute band. Roaming the property, she proudly shows off the hammocks, picnic tables and barbecue set up to use overlooking the creek, plus the well-stocked kitchens.
Reznick said that he hopes the hotel can be a hybrid between motel and an Airbnb, expressly aimed at the new influx of folks like Hasanefendic who crave extended respite from New York City and rediscovered the Catskills during the pandemic.
“A lot of the rooms can function more like apartments, so when you’re working from home, you could come for the week and work a few days, then go down to the river after,” he said, “We’re halfway point between somewhere completely disconnected from the world and staying in contact.”
