Tim Allred: Spotlight Ulster County Chamber

Project Manager Tim Allred of the Williams Lake Project was interviewed on the radio by Ward Todd and Fran DePetrillo-Savoca of the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce in March of 2014. Tim discusses the history of the Williams Lake Hotel and the development of the current project. Listen to the audio clip and read along with the transcription below.

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Ward: Our good friend Tim Allred is our guest on the radio today. Tim thanks for taking time out of what I know is a very busy schedule for you.

Tim: My pleasure Ward. It’s good to be here.

Ward: So there is a lot going on with the Williams Lake project but I need to back up for those folks who aren’t familiar from outside the immediate area maybe. Can you talk a little bit about the Williams Lake and what it used to be back in the day?

Tim: Well, sure, the Williams Lake hotel –as folks listening to this show will know much better than even I– after all this time is a cornerstone of the Rosendale community. It started in the late 1920s when Anita Williams Peck’s grandfather Gus Williams came up looking to create a speakeasy during prohibition. And soon realized that it was more situated for a hotel and built a sauna building and started Nordic skiing and polar bears swims.

That first incarnation of Williams Lake hotel then grew into a very popular lodge and continued up until it began to lose its clientele a bit in the end of the century. But it’s been a fantastic part of the community for all this time. We got involved in 2006 when Anita Williams put it on the market and then there’s our history from there on.

Ward: Wow, so it has a wonderful history and Ulster county was just replete with tourist destinations back in those eras, the 30s, 40s, 50s. And that’s one of the things that so many local people can remember because a lot people worked there. Great high school and college jobs for young people.

Tim: We had a reunion event last Labor Day for staff, former…anybody who has every worked at the Williams Lake hotel. So we put it on with Anita and put a big tent up by the lake and had great food and really a trip down memory lane. We had cameras there to capture some testimonials from folks who had worked there and grown up there. And we had six decades of employees represented. So the oldest or the earliest employee went back into the, I believe into the 40s. 40s-50s we had somebody get up and speak and these are just fabulous.

I’ve told you this Ward a few years ago. It’s been awhile but it took me managing this project at least three years before I met the first person on site that had not been there before for a wedding or as a bartender or as an employee of some sorts. I couldn’t…I rang a bell. I had a bell and I rang it for this person because they were the first. “No I’ve never been here before.” I said that’s a first.

Fran: Three years later.

[laughter]

Tim: The hotel back in its heyday, which I think was probably 40s and 50s before the fire. There was a fire in 1953. Had the longest bar in Ulster county and I always say that but I don’t picture it. Now anyone who’s gone to a bar, it had six bartender’s stations. So that’s how long…that’s how you can measure a long bar. Is how many stations. So you know, it was a big deal. And it’s cemented, if I may, in Rosendale’s, in that community. The family all kidding aside just did a lot for the community.

Ward: So clientele came mostly from the New York City area?

Tim: Yes, especially in its heyday. So Gus Williams was the grandfather and then Walter Williams kind of managed the –Gus’ son and Anita’s father– managed it during the heyday. He was a very smart man. I have a map on my wall which is a map showing proximity to New York City and how to get there. From 1929, actually from the grandfather.

Walter was savvy, he would send a bus to Sixth avenue in Manhattan every Friday afternoon at 5:30 and load the bus with essentially young women in particular who might not have easy transport and get them to Rosendale for the weekend. And that helped create sort of a swinging singles scene as I understand it. More recently with Anita in the couple decades of the hotel I think it’s been a very loyal clientele of folks from the city, Long Island, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Ward: Beautiful location, gorgeous lake. Just beautiful trails for biking and for cross-country skiing over the years.

Tim: Yeah the property is amazing. I mean I think what attracts us to it and many, many other folks is, it is like being in the Adirondacks but several hours closer. There is 800 acres, mostly forested. Beautiful rolling topography, fantastic trail network, which we’ll improve on and there’s actually three lakes on the property. The Williams Lake which everyone knows is a fantastic swimming, fishing spot but there’s two other lakes on the property as well. It’s a one of a kind asset as land around here because you can’t find 800 acres that are protected this close to the city. It’s a big deal.

Ward: So 2006, what was the company name at the time that looked at purchasing Williams Lake?

Tim: Well, we started as Canopy Development. A progressive land development company based in Northampton, Massachusetts. I had left the city to join a friend of mine, Tom Horton and we began the project as Canopy out of Northampton. Originally we had additional partners. The vision, which is the same as back then, was a destination resort spa and we had a spa operator in the mix and that’s how the project started was planning the spa back in ’06. Working with Anita to complete the transaction, the purchase and the sale of the property.

Our initial efforts working with Anita and doing that work we formed a company called Hudson River Valley Resorts, LLC (HRVR). That’s the operating company since then and we continue to lead the charge and it’s still the same vision. We’re still working on destination spa with housing. With a residential component.

Ward: And so in ’07-’08 we got deeply involved in the DEC SEQR process right?

Tim: Yes and I think Ward I am now just about far enough from climbing the mountain and coming back the other side that I can speak about that without too much anxiety. We are from the beginning strong believers in doing it right. A thorough environmental review is important. Where the project is going to be a model for responsible environmental development and community development. So we are big believers in all of this. That said, our SEQR review began in 2007 and completed last year. We did everything we could to do it the right way. Six years is too long.

So we’re finished with the SEQR review and we’re happy about that and we have an approved project for our vision which is a destination resort spa, LEED certified –which is an environmental standard– with a wellness center, fitness center, trails, a focus on outdoors and wellness, retreat to nature and 154 residences.

So what I’ve learned in this period of time is that resorts today are built with housing from an economic perspective. It makes the resort viable. So we will have two types of housing. Townhouses and single family homes. They’ll be integrated as part of the resort experience.

Ward: Tim Allred is our guest, Vice President of Hudson River Valley Resorts and Project Manager for the Williams Lake Project and new member of the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors by the way. So congratulations on that. Thanks for volunteering and your service to us.

Tim: It’s a pleasure Ward. It’s funny how these things work but we got through the SEQR review and maybe I’ve been here long enough now or people realized my time would… I don’t know I got a lot of requests suddenly to join boards and I was very happy to join the Ulster Chamber Board. One of the very first people I met before I lived here was Ward Todd and the chamber has been fantastically supportive of our efforts. There have been moments where we needed the support, so thank you to Ward and to the chamber for everything to help us get to where we are today.

Ward: You’re welcome and we share your vision and we are so thrilled at the prospect. We had a small ribbon cutting a few months ago opening up a bike trail and waiting for the big time ribbon cutting.

Tim: Well it’s fun. 4,5,6 years of doing studies is not the plan. Our plan is to create things and last August, I believe it was, we were able to –in partnership with the Open Space Institute and Wallkill Valley Land Trust– open up the section of rail trail that runs through the Williams Lake property which had been closed for I think, if not forever, certainly for a long time. And create a continuous 24 mile rail trail corridor from the town of Gardiner to Kingston.

As anyone in Ulster County knows the vision is bigger than that. It’s to connect from the walkway over the Hudson all the way up to the Alcaucin Reservoir and that comes through our property and we’re excited about that. We have a bunch of events, there’s an event that’s really not ours, the Kiwanis, the Kingston Classic that they have expanded this year to include the Williams Lake rail trail as part of their marathon or half-marathon or both.

So, it’s good stuff. Ribbon cuttings, this year we want to, I don’t know if we cut a ribbon for this but the big thing Ward is that we will finally be able to take the old hotel buildings down so that we can make room for modern, sustainable, energy efficient buildings that aren’t right on top of the lake. I mean, this is the year where we get to get started.

Ward: And so in phases, what’s the first part of construction? What will we see first?

Tim: Well, we’re working on all of it still. First phase is certainly demolition and we’re planning that right now. Anybody listening to this show should go to williamslakeproject.com if you are interested in being part of the demolition process. If you want to bid on that. That is this spring-summer and then we will begin the detailed site plan work for phase one of construction probably later this year and that is really the infrastructure phase and we hope to get that started at the end of the year and the heavy construction for that probably rolls into next spring.

Ward: Talk to us for a second if you would about some of the challenges you faced from an environmental point of view. So lots of things growing in this kind of ecology, right? What did you and what did the SEQR find? Who’s living around Williams Lake and in Williams Lake?

Tim: Well it’s funny you should ask that. What we found is different from what I’m about to answer. One of our trails guys just the other day was out and saw a maybe semi-documented mountain lion. Which I had not heard of. Everybody who looks at the property and the land around Williams Lake comments on its diversity. From a both flora and fauna so there are…because of the geology of the area which is limestone which is why Rosendale was a cement town. The limestone generates a lot of different plant species and creates opportunities for different kinds of trees and different kinds of animals.

There are I believe five or six endangered species on the property but the prominent one are the Indiana bats. In a great story of adaptive reuse, the site when Gus Williams arrived back in the late 20s was a post-industrial site from the cement miners. So there was just piles of rubble. The ridge next to the lake was carved up for Rosendale cement. So they took tons and tons and tons of cement out. Those old abandoned mines are now probably the single most important overwintering habitat area for the Indiana bats. When we first learned about the property it was the number one location for this federally endangered bat.

Bad news is that in 2008 they discovered this white-nosed syndrome of fungus that has been killing bats. Now west of the Mississippi. It continues to spread into Canada all the way south to I don’t even know anymore, Arkansas and west. The mortality rates of this thing, 90%+. So the bats are getting disseminated and the Williams Lake site continues to be very important because they’re holding on a little bit better in a couple of the spots on the property.

So that’s really the number one environmental factor among many others. We’re very excited we’ve been working hard with the DEC and the Fish and Wildlife and our biologists to protect those bats. No ribbon cutting but we did just a month ago add another 105 acres into conservation easement. Putting over two-thirds of the entire property into forever-wild. The 105 acres is critical because it is the bat hibernacula.

Ward: How great. That’s a wonderful testament. So now how much of the total land? How many acres?

Tim: It’s something around 515 of the almost 800 is. About two-thirds of the site is protected forever, will not be developed, will be used for passive recreation, hiking and biking, bird watching, bat viewing. We have made a concerted effort to keep the majority of the new hotel and amenities on the old footprint and then some of the single family homes break ground and that allows the project to happen. Without that I don’t think we have a project. So that’s the tradeoff.

Ward: Right. Well it is a very, very exciting time in our local region. Perhaps some of the other projects may have gotten more headlines. The Nevele may well happen next year or the year after. The Belleayre Resort has been in the news for a number of years as you’re well aware. So this all wonderful news for Ulster County and becoming a genuine bona fide tourist destination right?

Tim: It is great to see things come to pass that you thought would and should happen. When we began and when we first spoke Ward what we did was we learned about the Hudson Valley from Northampton, Massachusetts and we saw from Emerson and Belleayre down past Mohawk and down to the resort south of Mohawk the opportunity to really rebrand the region and develop tourism as a focus. It’s always been here but to refocus on that and I think that’s coming to pass. All of these projects come online. You have sort of crescent moon of beautiful destinations with a diversity of price points and experiences from the south to the north. I think Ulster County is absolutely on the move in that direction.

Ward: The majority with a huge concentration on health and wellness.

Tim: Yes.

Ward: Which that is just wonderful for our region. This is the place where people have been coming for a long time. In many respects some of the older resorts, people just came and relaxed and de-stressed. But now with spas and so many more amenities it’s taking it to a whole new level right?

Tim: I put this map from 1929 from Gus Williams on my wall and it shows where Rosendale is and Williams Lake and it shows distances from New York City and ways to get up to Rosendale and in 1929 at the top of this thing it says Nature’s Paradise. And it talks about wellness and outdoor recreation and relaxation and it’s really the same, it’s the same story.

We’re going to do a modern version of that as are so many other folks. When you look at Ulster County that’s what Ulster County’s strengths are and you want to play to that and we’re really excited. The number of spa and wellness practitioners living locally here is phenomenal. We don’t have to go find that. It’s all here.

Ward: Great. Give folks the website information if you would so they can find out more information and if there’s contact information if folks have direction specific questions for you.

Tim: Well, great. The website is williamslakeproject.com please check it out. We have a place there to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Which is a good idea if you want to keep track we’ll let you know on a regular basis. We have a Facebook page which is also terrific to look at Williams Lake Project.

I also want to make sure that I say that there are two specific populations where we want to, three really, to be focused on us right now. One is folks who may be in the construction business, demolition business. We have a bidders page which is on our website to get your information and we will be managing a process when we have scopes of work to go out to bid. We’ve been contacted by lots of folks but we want to…we are committed to local sourcing and we are signing an agreement with the town of Rosendale soon about that.

Also folks who are interested in buying a house, there’s a place to register interest there. I just got a call this morning. Again, we’re getting lots of interest. And finally if you’re a wellness professional we have a spot for you to leave some information for us on our website williamslakeproject.com

Ward: Great. Tim Allred thank you for being on the radio. Continued success.

Tim: Thank you for the time.

Ward: All right. Fran what a wonderful project.

Fran: I know. An exciting history and an exciting future. It’s really fabulous.

Ward: It is wonderful for our region. Did we thank yet Always There for a great mixture the other night? We must do that. What a great time we had.