43 Augustine Road, Saugerties, NY 12477: The Chapel House -- West Saugerties, NY
On a quiet country road in the mountains of Saugerties -- fifteen minutes from Woodstock Village - a Craftsman homestead built for the way you actually want to live. The town has zoned the property for both residental and a legal Bed and Breakfast perfect for yoga retreats, company events and private celebrations.
Mornings on the large veranda under a mature kiwi arbor, coffee in hand, the fire pit still warm from the night before. A fenced kitchen garden producing potatoes, blueberries, peaches, peppers, and tomatoes by the season. A spring-fed pond with a stone fire pit at its edge and the Catskills Mountains rising directly behind. A chef's kitchen anchored by a professional Wolf range, double-wide built-in stainless refrigerator, and a deep farmhouse sink, opening onto a dining room that seats twelve. A billiard room for after dinner. An owned, net-metered solar array greatly offsetting the home's energy use.
At the heart of the home, a vaulted great room with cathedral ceilings, exposed beams, and a stained-glass altar window that still catches the morning light -- built for a crowd or a quiet evening, with equal grace.
The floor plan flexes for the way people actually live now. Four sleeping rooms ( 3 on the taxes) anchor the home, with six additional rooms ready to become whatever your life requires -- art studios, home offices, a library, a meditation room, music spaces, or additional guest bedrooms. A full second kitchen and bath on the third floor open up another tier entirely: a private in-law suite, an artist's residency, a writer's retreat, or income potential. A spa-style primary bath with a tiled walk-in shower and multiple heads, and a clawfoot soaking tub in a quieter corner of the house. A separate red barn with a covered porch -- currently a music studio on one side and a workshop on the other, with doors wide enough to drive through on either end -- adds yet another envelope: car barn, gallery, dance studio, future ADU. Whatever the property is asking to become next, there's room for it.
And then there's the history. Built in 1930 -- commissioned, as local legend has it, by a Prohibition-era bootlegger -- the home was later inherited by the owner's only daughter, a nun, who turned it into a retreat for fellow sisters and those in need. In 1954, she added the chapel that now serves as the great room. Jazz drummer Dan Brubeck -- son of jazz legend Dave Brubeck -- later owned the property and recorded music here. Timothy Leary and Ram Dass were known visitors through the years.
Close to skiing, swimming holes, hiking, and three of the Hudson Valley's most distinctive villages -- Woodstock, Saugerties, and Catskill. A homestead with a story, and room to write the next chapter.