Windham and Hunter have long been the Catskills’ premier ski-resort towns but they also enjoy a vibrant life outside the ski season. Nowadays there’s a four-season, thanks to the influx of new restaurants, shopping and arts activities. Magnificent homes abound to match the magnificent mountain vistas in the surrounding Greene County hamlets of Jewett and Maplecrest. Windham has been called, not surprisingly, “Land in the Sky.”
Most of Greene County is actually in Catskill Park which boasts 700,000 acres of forever-wild state land which includes hiking trails, zip lines, streams, water parks and waterfalls, the most famous being Kaaterskill Falls.
In the early twentieth century Tannersville, to the east of the Hunter ski slopes and whose main street is a designated historic district, became the playground for the rich and famous, such as the Macy family (of department-store fame) summer home called Hathaway. Not to mention also the exclusive Onteora Club, a private club in Onteora Park built in 1887 in the then new arts and crafts style.. Nowadays the Windham-Hunter area enjoys investment in new high-end residential homes, the latest addition being a new development in Maplecrest from the people who gave us Hudson Woods in Kerhonkson.
Buyers in Greene County now finds themselves drawn to the variety of hamlets — Lexington, Spruceton, Hnesonville, Elka Park as well as those already mentioned — where they can find both activity, peace and quiet and unspoiled nature alike. — Lawrence O’Toole