Upstate New York is finally back in the spotlight – here’s why

When I close my eyes and think of my favourite place in the world, I am on my porch in the mid-Hudson Valley, watching a fat groundhog peering out of his hole, wondering if he can nip on the roots of my Christmas trees before I chase him away. Or I am dipping my bread into the thick, soupy kale sauce of the gnudi di cavolo nero at GioBatta Alimentari, my favourite local restaurant, in nearby Tivoli. Or I am in my car high above the Hudson River, purple mountains ahead, the curving river banks behind me.

I spent the happiest days of my childhood at a Russian bungalow colony near the town of Ellenville in the Catskills. Surrounded by kids who spoke my language, I found I felt more at home in the country than in the city. I learned to love nature and farm-fresh eggs (which my father would drink raw), and to recognise the mad glint in a hungry groundhog’s eye. A dozen years ago I bought my house, not far from where I spent those summers growing up, and since then I have split my time equally between this rural part of the state and New York City. While the deep winters can be grey and a walk to the nearest dry cleaner is impossible, living upstate brings me more joy than the city has in decades. With each year, the amenities, especially the burgeoning selection of food and drink, continue to grow, especially since the pandemic brought legions of fleeing city dwellers north (along with property prices I can only describe as satirical).

Mansion at Hutton BrickyardsJulien Capmeil

Unlike the eastern tip of Long Island and the tiny sliver of Manhattan, this vast scenic playground still has enough room for artists and writers to form strange colonies of the like-minded, which is how I found myself drawn to the place I now consider home (my last novel, Our Country Friends, was essentially set at my house. A groundhog and a Russian bungalow colony make cameos). To my friends, I am now Mr Upstate. Not a week passes without someone demanding a quick cheat sheet on Hudson or Kingston or Rhinebeck, with allowances for children, dogs or vegans. And so I write this article partly to move on with my life and also because, as much as I love having friends stay in my guest cabin, there’s been a renaissance of new hotels sprouting on both sides of the Hudson to satisfy the upstate-curious; to feed and entertain the Brooklyn cognoscenti as they get their weekend fill of gnudi and art.

Hudson was the first town I discovered in the mid-Hudson Valley as an adult. Most people know it for the antique wares of Warren Street, which have helped make it, in the last decade, a prime destination for status-obsessed weekenders (it was even mentioned on the show Billions, which is about how much some of these antiques cost). But Hudson also contains swathes of public housing and burgeoning Bangladeshi and Caribbean communities. There are several good hotels, but The Maker is the most exquisitely perfumed and evocative, fusing notes of belle époque, art deco and mid-century. Founders Lev Glazman and Alina Roytberg have turned three historical Warren Street buildings into a fantasia of twin fireplaces, murals made out of burlap and lamps with nicknames such as The Falcon. My room, modelled on a Parisian atelier, features the prow of an early-20th-century boat jutting from one wall.