EMBRACE THE CONCEPT

The Inn at Kirkside Project will interweave experiential education with long term sustainable economic development and adaptive reuse of an iconic Main Street historic structure.

The Goal

To renovate the historic Kirkside Estate into The Inn at Kirkside, a fully operational hotel/restaurant with an integrated training program for aspiring professionals in the hospitality and tourism industries. Graduates from hospitality programs will complete two-year paid residential fellowships that provide hands-on guided experience in every aspect of operation of the Inn, along with ongoing education that emphasizes not only skill development but also collaboration, innovation, place-making, and green technologies. The program capstone is career development, with emphasis on entrepreneurship opportunities, including knowledge of available resources and locations in the region. The Fellowship is designed to produce highly skilled innovative industry leaders who are committed to:

1. Becoming the experts in their fields who will mentor next generations

2. Connecting local farms with regional hospitality services via a virtual food hub

3. Capitalizing on local resources to advance the local and regional community’s economic and social development

4. Utilizing and promoting green technologies in all aspects of construction and operation

Rationale

As the Southern Tier and the Catskills recover from the COVID 19 pandemic and aim to revive and grow the tourism economy, high-quality college-level hospitality programs will be essential to recruiting and maintaining a skilled, innovative work force. This project is built around a framework that outlines four prominent factors for building resilience in the tourism and hospitality industry:

1. Sustainable local food systems

2. Employee and consumer confidence

3. Strong sense of place

4. Innovation

To this end the ideal hospitality education must include sustained, comprehensive, structured,and well-supervised internship and fellowship opportunities. Finding and supervising such placements for students is often challenging. In addition, typical lodging and dining facilities understandably cannot place the mentoring of interns at the center of their enterprise.

What if a post-graduate program could fully integrate learning and doing? The program described here offers post graduate students from SUNY, Regional Trade Schools, and other institutions of higher learning the opportunity to be on the ground floor of creating an experiential curriculum that will provide internship and fellowship opportunities in a purpose built, fully operational hotel/restaurant for effective integration of experiential learning at every level of operation.

The Present Proposal

After a rigorous, two-and- a half-year, regenerative planning process which included SUNY and BOCES faculty, culinary and hospitality students, community stakeholders, funding agencies, elected officials, and economic development agencies, the goal is to secure funding for the construction phase of the project described in the following pages.

The Property

The Kirkside Estate comprises two houses, owned by the MARK Project, a 501(c)3community development organization.

In 1896, Helen Gould Shepard, daughter of railroad magnate and Roxbury native son Jay Gould,transformed a modest farmhouse into a magnificent Georgian style mansion, adjacent to the historic and handsome Jay Gould Memorial Church, also known as the “Stone Church.” TheMansion as it stands today has twenty-one bedrooms and seventeen full bathrooms on the second floor; on the ground floor are two bathrooms, an elevator, a living room, two dining rooms, a large sunlit library, and a large kitchen space. All original moldings and architectural details remain intact. The Mansion will be renovated into “The Inn at Kirkside,” with updated second floor guest rooms and suites. The ground floor will be redecorated and the kitchen will be fitted with state-of-the art equipment and a demonstration kitchen, where guest chefs can teach culinary Fellows and both can share their expertise with guests to capitalize on the rising trend for “culinary-vacations.”

The Guest Cottage

In the early part of the 20th century, Miss Gould also relocated another prominent Roxbury building to the grounds to serve as her summer Guest Cottage. This spacious and lovely building, nestled in the pines at the edge of Kirkside Park, is structurally sound but in need of restoration, and the restored Cottage will provide lodging for Fellows. The Guest Cottage will also house a fully equipped smart classroom, allowing for team meetings and formal instruction, and provide distance learning/mentoring, presentations by experts around the region and the world, and collaborative problem-solving with faculty in the home institutions.The Mansion and Guest House are also adjacent to two significant public properties, municipally owned and operated, that enhance the houses’ location immensely.

The houses will be renovated to bring them to current LEED certified hospitality standards, as well as to integrate the education program and to become an exemplar of Green Technology, including eco-friendly heating, energy-efficient technologies, induction cooking equipment, solar, and best practices in composting and waste reduction.

The Inn and Restaurant

Guests of the Inn will find a welcoming, relaxing and favorable atmosphere in a world class lodging facility situated in an iconic historic mansion on a Rockwellian Main Street in the Catskills. Access to neighboring historic Kirkside Park and the East Branch of the Delaware River are literally right outside the door. The culinary experience will be that of a Michelin-starred restaurant with international cuisine developed specifically using seasonal ingredients from area farmers and the on-site greenhouse. Outdoor recreation opportunities are boundless with hiking trails, golf, fishing,skiing, kayaking and canoeing. Shopping is a short walk away or a 10-minute drive down a scenic byway to Margaretville.

The Program

Select students will be afforded on-site accommodations while they complete a rigorous, immersive, paid Fellowship that provides real-world experience in all phases of the hospitality industry with particular attention to green technologies.

A virtual Food Hub will also be woven into the program to build a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship between farmers and producers and the regional hospitality industry as a whole. Currently, despite a robust farm to table movement, there is still a disconnect between area chefs and local farms. This program aims to bridge that gap through the creation of two to three jobs that solely focus on the provision of ongoing communication and coordination between hospitality venues and the local agricultural community. The Food Hub coordinators will ensure that area restaurants develop appropriate seasonal menus and local farmers grow products that meet the needs of the industry. The program will also offer pick-up and delivery of goods to ensure the middle-man large city distributor is not the only means in which farmers can sell and area restaurants can buy.

Post Program Assistance

Upon completion of their fellowship, participants will be guided through the development of plans for their own business including an understanding of available resources and locations throughout the Southern Tier. If entrepreneurship is not of interest, there will be a robust placement program aligned with the Inn at Kirkside to ensure these fellows are offered every opportunity to continue their career in the Catskills and Southern Tier.

Kirkside Park

Helen Gould Shepard hired renowned landscape architect Ferdinand Mangold to develop the grounds now known as Kirkside Park, which was deeded to the Town of Roxbury with the stipulation that it remain a public park in perpetuity. The park has been completely restored to its turn of the century splendor. It is lined with winding paths, beautiful gardens and rustic Adirondack bridges, as well as hand-laid stone stream bank walls on the East Branch of the Delaware River.

The two large barns that were part of the original Estate and are now part of the municipally owned Kirkside Park have undergone substantial restoration. One portion of the South Barn has been converted into a beautiful pavilion style gathering space with public restrooms, and available by reservation for community and private events.

The North Barn has a brand-new fully operational and health-certified shared community kitchen to allow local growers and artisan bakers to create value-added products for resale. Fellows will thus have access to these products and will interact on a regular basis with the agricultural community.

Ultimately, Kirkside Park is intertwined with the Mansion and Guest Cottage in ways that enhance the connections among local culture, production culture, and consumer culture, and fully integrating them into the educational experience.

Project Outcomes

The grandness of the Kirkside mansion, coupled with its exquisite and thoughtfully developed surrounding properties, make this Main Street Campus a destination not only for those seeking culinary tourism-based vacations, but for world renowned chefs who are abandoning larger cities for a closer connection to their food source and a better work-life experience.

The planning process is complete through schematic design and construction cost estimates. The site plan is complete and before the Roxbury Planning Board, and at the NYS Historic Preservation Office for review. It will serve as a road map to a successful and sustainable project that will transform the region through creative and innovative opportunities for economic growth and capitalize on the history, culture, and agriculture of the region.

Notes: Planning for the project included a feasibility study, a laser scan of both buildings, structural and mechanical engineering, 4 community workshops, schematic drawings, and construction cost estimates. Additional consultants included a regenerative design specialist, commercial kitchen and sustainable food system specialists, a second architectural firm who specializes in sustainability, Dean of Students from SUNY Delhi Hospitality Program, and the Director of Culinary Programs at ONC BOCES.

Job projections

Construction: 50 FTE

Professional: 22 FTE

Executive Director (1)

Housekeeping Management (2)

Kitchen Management (2)

Virtual Food Hub Development and Management (3)

Chefs/Instructors (8)

Business Managers (3)

Marketing and Promotion (3)

Workforce: 30 FTE

Outside consultants: 05 FTE