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Rhinebeck By Nancy and Richard Woodworth Among New York State towns, few are
so old – and noticeably so – as Rhinebeck. Located in the northern Hudson Valley
a couple of miles inland from the river, the village was settled in 1686
by the Dutch as Kipsbergen. German immigrants who moved there around
1713 named it for their native Rhine river and “beck” meaning
cliffs. The Livingstons, the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Roosevelts and
others of America’s landed gentry followed. Rhinebeck claims eight miles of the
Hudson Valley’s Sixteen Mile Historic District, whose great riverfront
estates from the Gilded Age are well known. Less known is the fact that
Rhinebeck – with 437 sites listed on the National Register, most out
of the public eye on side streets – embraces one of the nation’s
largest historic districts. The Beekman Arms, America’s oldest
continuously operated inn, occupies a prime corner at the village’s
main intersection. Across the street is an old-fashioned cigar store and
newsstand, which still advertises cigars on its façade and displays
pipes and tobacco inside and, sign of the times, a walk-in cigar
humidor. On another corner, the old-line Rhinebeck Department Store with
updated apparel claims to “continue tradition.” Fanning out from the main
intersection are a variety of stores, some with a New Age bent, and
restaurants old and new. Locally owned and one of a kind, most reflect a
simpler past or pace rather than a gentrified, hectic present. Farther from the center are other
attractions. The Dutchess County Fairgrounds is home of New York
State’s second largest agricultural fair, plus periodic crafts and
antiques shows of considerable renown. Antique airplanes perform stunts
at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. The heritage of the grand estates lives
on at the Wilderstein Restoration, the Mills Mansion, Montgomery Place
and Clermont. The Omega Institute links people with self fulfillment and
the New Age. Tiny Rhinecliff, where the train
still stops, slumbers alongside the Hudson. Away from the villages, the
rural landscape that attracted the Hudson River School painters remains
pastoral – remarkably so, given its proximity to the nation’s
largest metropolitan area. What the New York Daily News
headlined “the renaissance of Rhinebeck” has vaulted the village
lately into a destination for tourists. “When people think of Rhinebeck,
they think of the Beekman Arms,” notes Nikola Rebraca, a New York
restaurateur who restored the Belvedere Mansion into an inn and
restaurant. “It’s like the anchor store. They have history behind
them. Everybody else plays second fiddle.” That may be changing. At least four
restaurants give the Beekman dining operation a run for its money among
knowing diners. Other inns and B&Bs have emerged, most in the last
few years. “Rhinebeck is rapidly becoming the
focal point of everything in the Hudson Valley,” declared
architectural historian Ward Stanley, who moved with his wife from
Philadelphia to open the Veranda House B&B in a mansion listed on
the National Register. Yet this is no slick, cutesy,
movie-set town. Rhinebeck goes its own way. Visitors so inclined may
come along. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2003. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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