By CB Wismar
Like the mythical village of “Brigadoon” emerging from the Scottish mist for one day every 100 years in Lerner & Lowe’s epic musical, the Village of Chatham, New York has reappeared. The reassuring news is that, unlike the legendary Scottish village, Chatham is not likely to disappear any time soon.
“I suppose it really started about five years ago,” says Village of Chatham Mayor Tom Curran, who is sitting on a newly painted picnic table perched outside the historic Village Hall. He looks up and down Main Street, waving to people as they drive past. “We took a real hit during the 2008 recession,” he recalls. “Stores closed, unemployment went up and the village really suffered.’
Curran has studied his history. Chatham Village has, over two centuries, gone from a market town to a mill town, a railroad center with crossing lines and its own roundhouse to a quiet ex-urban residential community. “Things bounced back slowly, but about five years ago you could see a difference,” he says.
And, bounce back, it has. All along Main Street, there’s not a storefront empty. The shops are busy, and during the recent Chatham Summerfest, an annual adventure that closes the streets and brings craft and food and face painting and fine jewelry together for a day, so many folks poured into town that restaurants ran out of some items created just for the festival.
“It was mobbed!” reports James Knight, owner of SomethinsGottaGive, who found one of the last available spaces on Chatham Village’s Main Street. “Best thing I ever did was to move here,” he says. “I had no idea how accepting people would be.” Knight’s artisan gallery and shop joins several other galleries in Chatham, making it an emerging center of local and regional artists.
If shopping is your thing, then the Chatham Village re-birth will have magnetic force. From Boxwood Linen where Franca Fusco presents her handmade, elegant linens to Willow & Oak, Debbye Byrum’s newly opened housewares and ephemera shop to Pookstyle Thoughtful Gifts, The Jeweler’s Roost and Victoria Dinardo Millinery, the offerings are imaginative and refreshing, not mega-mall wannabes.
“It just felt right,” says Debbye Byrum. “I honestly looked at other towns, but the combination of prices and people made this an easy pick.”
Further down the block, where it appears that Arlo Guthrie may have met Don Mclean in a world of retail delight — something on the order of “You can get anything you want … at American Pie” — Tom Hope just figured out how to convert a hallway and a store room into one more space. “I had sold my bar and was going to work on my art and fly fishing,” he says. That was until he saw a complete marble ice cream soda fountain and simply had to have it shipped in so he could open … wait for it … American Pie a la Mode. August 1 is the target date to open — just in time for the dog days of summer, when an ice cream cone will be a real treat.
For foodies, the village has blossomed into a destination that requires more than one visit. Landmark eateries that have survived the ebb and flow of commerce have been joined by The Taste Box on Main Street and the newest food and beverage addition to the Chatham Village mix, The People’s Pub. Angus Van Beusichem, whose Dutch-heritage name fits right into the land of Rip Van Winkle, has burst on the scene with a farm-to-table, craft beer, gourmet bar food emporium that collects a crowd most every night. “Grey Ballinger and his cousin Tom and I grew up together here in town. We each went our separate ways, then the chance came for us to come back home.”
Angus clearly enjoys the homecoming concept. “Here we are, not in the high-rent towns around us, but in Chatham, where we can refine our ideas as we build our market.”
A stone (or scone’s) throw away from the people’s pub is Chatham Brewing. Mayor Tom Curran sees the brewery and food truck supplied restaurant as a great draw. “Folks tend to tour the breweries up and down the Hudson Valley,” he says. “Finding Chatham Brewing both delights patrons and introduces them to our village.”
(Worthy of note is that Mr. Curran is also the Police Commissioner, so when savoring the brewery’s finest, a designated driver is always a good idea.)
Art, food, shopping, entertainment in a gentle setting. It’s not Brigadoon. It’s Chatham Village, and it’s come back to stay.