To Dine, To Laugh, To Enjoy: Summer Entertaining In The Hudson Valley

  |  August 21, 2015
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I designed our former St. James Street courtyard for seasonal entertaining. Initially this space was an unused service entrance.

“Throw in good food, wine and good conversation, and a dinner party at home is pretty much my idea of bliss,” Cassandra LaValle, Cocokelley

Having been raised in the South, garden parties, porch suppers and cocktails on the lawn created lasting memories. I remember our family friend Sarah Hammett, who was known for her Sunday suppers on her porch. The menu never changed: creamed chicken on cornmeal muffins, apple salad, bundle beans and lemon chess pie. A fourth generation resident of her home, Sally was the epitome of southern hospitality. Well, not exactly; after the release of the 1989 Film Steel Magnolias, many felt Sally was the model for Shirley MacLane’s character Ouiser Boudreaux. Lively conversation, overflowing glasses of wine and blunt opinions symbolized an evening at Sally’s. No one ever missed or declined an invitation to Sally’s.

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A pen and ink sketch of Sally’s home.

In my mid-twenties my marvelous friend James P Elder had an entrancing weekend home in Purceyville, Va named Grace and Favor. Grace and Favor was simply country house, perfection, an early 1900s farmhouse brimming with French and English Antiques. Not a prissy stuffy house but a home reminiscent of houses of France’s Loire Valley. Jim’s menus were tantalizing concoctions, labeled Country Crunchy Goodness: stone ground grits, tomato salads, roasted chicken, Martinis and Driving Drinks were menu staples. A Saturday evening supper on the porch of Grace and favor was a coveted invitation of socialites, designers and museum directors alike. Oh! the conversations, and the never ending supply of drinks, accompanied by jazz and classical arias. Sometimes on a cool summer evening if I close my eyes I can almost be transported back to those memorable outside evenings with Sally or Jim. Unfortunately, precocious from birth, it has taken me awhile to fully grasp the uniqueness of those evenings. However, these evenings at Sally and Jim’s created a benchmark for entertaining, a mark I still regard as the bar for a successful evening.

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In the Hudson Valley, mid-August to early September are pinnacles for entertaining. Dual residents quickly re-arrange their schedules so they may enjoy the gentle breezes and abundant harvests of the Valley. Entertaining here is often mindful of the parties of my youth, where interesting people, capable of intelligent conversation, converged to dine, to drink, to laugh and sometimes to dance. On a recent Friday evening Gary and I found ourselves at just such a perfect evening. The setting for this event was the Ulster County home of Brigid Walsh and Ed Gerard Himberger. Brigid and Ed are of one those couples you instantly love: fun, casual and charming. As we were dressing for dinner, Gary, exclaimed, “I am so looking forward to this evening!” Brigid and Ed’s weekend home is a charmingly delightful series of houses tucked away along the banks of the Esopous. Naturally, as the Senior Director for Events, Partnerships and Communications at Vogue, Brigid knows a thing or two about successful parties. Given Ed’s career in musical talent management, there was no doubt the evening would be filled with music. A skilled hostess, Brigid’s guest list included interior designers, fashion photographers, Vogue Executives, fashion designers, a group who laughed, dined and conversed with ever flowing glasses of wine and champagne. Following a delightful cocktail hour, guests were ushered onto the Summer porch for a feast of seafood, roasted chicken, salad, pasta, chocolates, lemon pie and a cheese course highlighted with figs (I love figs, another fall back to my Southern heritage). After dinner a spontaneous dance party ensued. One guest – the stunning Lena, and I do mean stunning – said to me “I don’t dance I just shimmy!” I quickly responded, “when you are that gorgeous all you need to do is shimmy.”

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Stepping onto Brigid and Ed’s porch, each guest was blown away by the impending feast.

On the following day, as Gary and I basked in the warmth of an evening well enjoyed I began to reflect upon similar evenings Gary and I have enjoyed since our arrival in the Hudson Valley. To be honest, our life in the Hudson Valley began with a party. Somewhat shy by nature (hard to believe I know,) I have always failed miserably at introducing myself to strangers. Initiating conversations with a complete stranger for me is the equivalent of having a root canal, without sedatives. However, as Gary and I arrived in the Valley eight years ago (to the month) knowing no one, something had to be done. Thus in early December 2007, I delivered printed invitations to every house in Kingston I admired. My deduction was if that I like their house, I will certainly like the owners. Ironically, that evening over 75 complete strangers arrived on my doorstep. I may be shy, but I was raised to believe if someone is in your home you have to be gracious. I will say out of those in attendance that evening, almost 85 percent of those that came have remained either social or personal friends.

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Elizabeth and Taylor Thompson’s bluestone porch is entertaining perfection.

In the ensuing years we have been invited to numerous memorably exquisite evenings. My friend the editor, author and interior design lecturer Linda Okeeffe hosts summer evenings on her porch which would rival the culinary expertise of America’s best chefs. A vegan, Linda’s menus are constantly a delectable marvel. Pairings of grains, fruits and vegetables are always accompanied by a mouthwatering dessert, or better yet a fruit cobbler (I have an addiction to fruit cobblers). Our friends the dynamically elegant Elizabeth and Taylor Thompson entertain with an ease that would provide any Eastside hostess with a run for her money. A fellow interior designer and accomplished cook, Elizabeth’s menus are a simplistically sophisticated perfection. As Taylor, one of the Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs commented, “once we became successful, I told Elizabeth, no more inexpensive wine.” Again, evenings on the summer porch of Elizabeth and Taylor’s home are filled with laughter, warmth and interesting conversation.

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Elizabeth and Taylor’s spacious porch with Hudson River views has several sitting nooks for entertaining.

Then there are the garden evenings. Obviously as the back garden of our new home is more like a barren wasteland than an intoxicating garden, Gary and I have refrained from garden entertaining this season. During the early years of our residency in Kingston, Gary and I regularly found ourselves on the garden terrace of our friends Suzanne Zissu and Wilson (Bill) Meaders. As two of Manhattan’s more prominent psychoanalysts, Suzanne and Bill’s Summer weekend retreat was their 1 1/2 acre garden. Beyond the garden gate of their eighteenth century home was a garden oasis, which encompassed a bluestone lap pool, boxwood maze, cutting garden and orchard. A self taught cook, dinners at Suzanne’s encompassed a menu designed around local items foraged from the Saturday Farmer’s Market. Such delicate healthy meals seemed like glutinous repast.

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Suzanne regularly foraged the Uptown Kingston Farmer’s Market for the freshest ingredients for her menus

For these evenings Suzanne would transform her large bluestone terrace into an alluring heaven punctuated with long tables accommodating eight to twelve guests. After a lively evening, Suzanne and I would often call one another the next morning inquiring in unison, “what time did the evening end?” Our friends Rosemary Maresca and Don McCormick throughout the Summer season convert their magnificent garden into a summer entertaining space. When I was desperately attempting to re-landscape our former St James street home, Don and Rosemary’s garden was like a thistle. It was beautiful like a thistle’s bloom but prickly because its finished magnificence further underscored the disastrous condition of my own developing garden.

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Don and Rosemarie convert their extensive garden into an entertaining space in the summer months.

Drinks in the garden provided Gary and I with perhaps some of the most hilarious memories of our life in the Hudson Valley. Cocktails with steamed shrimp, cheeses, cheese dainties and assorted fruits lasted for hours. Into my twenties cheese dainties (or cheese straws as they are referred to in the South), were a mainstay of my diet. As a child it seemed my Grandmother always had a freezer packed with cheese straws on the ready for unexpected guests. A pond, a terrace, fresh honey pairings, perfectly grilled meats and abundance of numerous culinary delights probably best describe evenings on the terrace with our friends Susan Hereth and Tom Pfeffer. Collectors by day and grill masters by night, dinner with Tom and Susan never fails to be an experience. Laughter, local delicacies, wine and farm fresh produce are constants of their entertaining panache. Casual fun evenings with terrific people.

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John Zerbo’s authentically restored 18th century porch is a sight to behold.

As I reminisce over pleasurable evenings of my past, I recall them with a pang of regret, because at the time of those early evenings of my adulthood I assumed life would always be filled with evenings like those. Yes, Gary and I have been fortunate to have lived a life filled with the presence of terrific people, but life has certainly had its tumbles. Recently, while Gary and I sat drinking a champagne toast to our pending wedding on our friend John Zerbo’s meticulously restored 18th century porch, I thought “wow, the last eight years in the Hudson Valley have been my most important years of self realization.” Through many decades my life had previously been a battle over the constant search for the next best thing. The next best restaurant, the newest clothing, the coveted antique (well that one I am working on), the best hotels and the search for perfect evenings. Ironically, by reluctantly relocating to an unfamiliar region I managed to find myself realizing what I valued most. As Brigid stated in a toast during our evening together, “a year ago you each were complete strangers. How fun it is to have each of you in our lives.” In fact that’s how we roll in the Hudson Valley, meeting as complete strangers and developing lasting relationships.

The housing stock, the open spaces, the bounty of the harvest in almost every season, mixed with the people who inhibit the region do make for a pretty irresistible temptation. As I have said previously you might arrive in the Valley, as a stranger but that will not last far long. Summer porch suppers, garden drinks and lawn parties are not idealized dreams of my past. Instead they are relatively the norm of our existence in Ulster County. Strangers of eight years ago are friends we enjoy and cherish daily. As Eric Bean recently stated, “Ted and I live in our vacation home year around,” truer words have never been spoken.

About Haynes Llewellyn

Haynes Llewellyn, an interior designer, preservationist and accomplished party planner, relocated to the Hudson Valley city of Kingston from Manhattan’s Central Park West neighborhood in 2007. During Haynes’s almost nine years in the Hudson Valley, he has been featured in numerous television, radio, magazine and newspaper interviews. Haynes’s first Kingston restoration project was of a Historic 1840’s Greek Revival home, featured in the recently released Rizzoli Interior Design book Heart and Home: Rooms that Tell Stories by Linda Okeeffe. Haynes has served on a number of boards of directors, event committees and commissions since arriving in the Hudson Valley. Haynes, along with his two Scottish Terrier Rescues and partner Gary Swenson, is currently in the process of renovating his second Kingston home, a 1939 Colonial.

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