Main Street is open for businesses

Manor is Sullivan’s latest boom town

By Manor Ink Staff

Livingston Manor, NY – Just days before opening, Tim Tedesco was working to put finishing touches on the interior of 75 Main Street. A new work-and-retreat space officially opened its doors on Saturday, June 12, with an open house for the entire community.

A stone’s throw from the hamlet’s library and the new eateries Walk In and Neon Croissant, the new facility features a coffee-and-water bar and lounge areas, private conference rooms, a community space, and nooks and crannies for private work and meetings. There are also two isolation booths with soundproofing to hold Zoom meetings or private phone calls.

Barnfox is the brainchild of a partnership between friends Tim Tedesco and Frederick Pikovsky, who are easy-going and hard-working former New York City dwellers. As entrepreneurs, they have established two other Barnfox locations as well – the larger in Kingston and a smaller one in Hudson.

“It’s not a typical work space. It’s more of a community atmosphere with spacious open areas, as well as three fully equipped conference rooms,” said Tedesco.

The vision is to create a sense of community among the facility’s members. Barnfox offers workshops and events, many of which are open to the general public. Tedesco enjoys teaching woodworking and plans an early workshop on building bat houses. He now lives in Parksville, and will serve as the ongoing manager of Barnfox in Livingston Manor.

Around the clock access

The facility is open seven days a week, both day and night, for members who will have unique passkeys to enter. Unlimited access is great for people who want to get work done before going to the gym or a morning meeting.

Membership pricing will depend on the package selected. Options include dedicated desk space, resident membership, weekender and monthly.

The partners hope to appeal to people living here, whether full-time or part-time. Pikovsky, CEO, is author of Back to the Land and passionate about rural life. Tedesco applies his design skills and love of woodworking and the natural world.

Barnfox brings to Livingston Manor a local, more intimate version of the increasingly popular model for shared work spaces started by We Work and copied by Industrious. With its coffee shop vibes and Kombucha-on-tap, Barn Fox is extending Main Street up toward Shandelee.

Other new Manor retailers

Around the corner at 8 Pearl Street, a shop called Concrete + Water recently opened. Located in the former home of Mountain Bear Crafts, the new boutique shop offers stylish women’s and men’s clothing as well as home and gift products.

Owners Hannah Gluckstern and J.D. Dilworth have had a weekend home in the area for a number of years, and they decided to relocate the business – and their family – from Brooklyn after observing the “vibrancy” of the community. Hannah reported that the business during their opening day weekend was “outstanding” and said they were delighted to both welcome the community and be welcomed in return. The shop is currently open Thursday through Sunday.

Three other shops are also planning to open very soon. As reported in the June issue of Manor Ink, the Neon Croissant will open in the former Brandenburg Bakery building. Miriam Rayefsky and Brad Mann are opening Jitterbug, next to the Walk In on Pleasant Street, a new shop devoted to toys, crafts and vintage items such as vinyl records. And Ba’ & Me, the popular Vietnamese take-out restaurant in Callicoon, is opening a take-out counter on Pleasant Street next to Jitterbug.

Farm market planning to grow

Meanwhile, Main Street Farm, the hamlet’s fresh foods market and cafe, is expanding its footprint into the space formerly occupied by Willow & Brown. Owner Jon Westergreen said the plan is to expand the indoor seating to include a lounge area, as well as space for an expansion of fresh market offerings, including international deli meats, fish and staffed kiosks. The deck overlooking the Willowemoc behind the building will also have a counter and seating. After completion, the size of Main Street Farm will have more than doubled.

With the arrival in the past fifteen months of many new residents in Sullivan County, and especially in the Town of Rockland, business activity in Livingston Manor is experiencing surprising growth. Visitors to the hamlet crowd its sidewalks each weekend, browsing in Main Street’s many unique shops, looking over fresh produce in the Manor’s Farmers Market, sampling fine wines and spirits, or grabbing a quick lunch in one of downtown’s eateries.

While Livingston Manor has seen business surges before – particularly in the early 2000s, when a Wall Street financier purchased many of the hamlet’s storefronts in an effort to revitalize Main Street – the current boom appears to have real and lasting local support.