The Catskill Mountain Foundation (map) and the Guide Magazine
What We Are About


The Catskill Mountain Foundation (map) was started in 1998, but our story really begins many years earlier during another golden age when the Catskills were synonymous with grand resorts and legions of visitors. The passage of time, economic factors and the age of international jet travel have conspired to rob the Catskills of its former glory. But the essentials remain. The magnificent landscape has been a muse to artists and travelers since the 19th century.

Since 1998 the Catskill Mountain Foundation (map) has been committed to an ambitious goal: to connect our future to our past, to transform our community and our region into an internationally known arts destination. Time and again, the arts have proven to be a powerful engine for economic growth, as well as a source of community pride and identity. Since 1998 we have worked to assemble the components of that engine for our Catskill Mountain community, transforming empty or abandoned buildings into spaces where creativity can flourish:

• In the Town of Windham, the Sugar Maples (map) Center for Creative Arts, which consists of 10 renovated buildings and includes art studios, rehearsal spaces and artists housing, including a 14 room retreat center, and three guest houses with a total of 12 bedrooms.

• Six buildings in the Village of Hunter: The Doctorow Center for the Arts (map), which includes the Evelyn Weisberg Performance space, the Pleshakov Piano Museum and our two-screen cinema; Hunter Village Square (map), which includes our gallery, craft shop, bookstore and Fresh Harvest Café and Market; and our Red Barn rehearsal/event space, and three guest houses for artists and arts groups with a total of 15 bedrooms.

• In the Village of Tannersville, the 12,000-square-foot Orpheum Performing Arts Center, designed by the renowned theater architect Hugh Hardy.

• Over the next few years we plan to offer an additional 40 bedrooms for artist housing in our multiple locations.

With these facilities we will be more and more active in hosting theater companies, dance companies, music groups, and a wide variety of arts education programs.

Renowned artists and arts organizations across the United States have noticed our progress and are eager to partner with us.

Recently, a 100 page report was published, called “Arts as an Industry, Their Economic Impact on New York City and New York State.” This report demonstrates the dramatic impact that the arts have on creating jobs, creating substantial tax revenues and stimulating economic development. In this report, about three dozen major arts organizations are identified in the mid-Hudson and Capital District regions. Among them is the Catskill Mountain Foundation (map). We are in very good company, along with Dia:Beacon, Storm King Arts Center, Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard, Olana Partnership, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the Capital Repertory Theater, and others.

We are proud to have achieved such recognition. Each year we serve over 10,000 patrons who see our films, attend our performances, take courses at our Sugar Maples (map) studio arts campus, and shop at our bookstore, gallery or Fresh Harvest market and café, or participate in retreats that artists and arts groups from outside of the region run in our facilities. With the Guide magazine we have served many thousands of people who live in or pass through our region by providing them with a beautiful four-color publication with up to date information on our own programming, on the overall arts offerings of our region, places to visit and events in our region.

The Guide magazine, which we have published since August 2000, has now shifted primarily to the Web. You can find the full Guide magazine on line by visiting www.catskillregionguide.com. We will continue to publish and distribute a small monthly version of the Guide which will include short summaries of articles about different aspects of Catskill Region which can be read in full on the Web. The printed Guide will also continue to feature photographs of the Catskill Region, and it will also include detailed information on the many offerings of the Catskill Mountain Foundation (map). For more information on the Catskill Mountain Foundation (map), please visit www.catskillmtn.org.