6 days ago
Hutton Brickyards: A Hudson River Cabin Retreat Is A Dog Paradise
The 1870s Edgewood Mansion in Kingston, NY is now the Hutton Brickyards main hotel to go along with their riverside cabins.
It's a good bet that few New Yorkers have any idea where the bricks all around them in the five boroughs ever came from. Simple answer: A short way up the Hudson River. Today, one of the biggest brick making operations that goes back a century and a half is now the Hutton Brickyards, a retreat made up of comfortable cabins on the river banks. An extra plus is that the 100-acre wooded setting outside of Kingston, New York is a wonderful playland for your dog whom the resort welcomes with their own bed, treats, pet stations and lots of love.
The Hudson brick factories were so vast that they employed thousands at any given time, which surely helps account for the city of Kingston's handsome collection of late 19th-century housing stock—largely in brick, of course. The original Hutton Brick Works Company operated from 1865 all the way up, surprisingly, until 1980. Fenced off from the main resort property, three of the work's massive kiln structures still stand, rusty, roofless and covered in vegetation. Hutton's great soaring crane still hangs over the river bank as well, a testament to the mighty machinery that made the Second Industrial Revolution happen (the resort website has great historic photos of it and more).
The Hutton Brickyards is large enough that electric carts will take you from the gravel parking areas to your cabin. But you're here for your dog's delight, so just follow the nicely compact black stone dust pathways, along which directional sign post arrows add a rural village-like feel. No surprise that there are broken chunks of brick everywhere, from those that fill gabions as part of the landscaping and building design to those sticking out from the unmanicured natural terrain outside of your back terrace.
Along with the ruins of kiln factories, the Hutton Brickyards crane remains from the site's long-ago brick making days.
As you sit on your terrace with your dog at your side listening to the wind rustle through enormous Eastern cottonwoods, you'll also hear bullfrogs croaking in the riparian reeds. While birdwatching is among the property's activities to book, you might also download the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Merlin app that will identify dozens of bird species all about (the property Wi-Fi works everywhere).
To go with Hutton's original repurposed trailers, larger cabins that were built onsite over the pandemic, rather than being brought in as prefab, have full picture windows and a porch. The tiny homes have Edison bed lamps and there are nicely no TVs in the rooms. Behind sliding barn doors, bathrooms carry Malin + Goetz bath products and sustainable slippers. A turntable has half a dozen vintage records to choose from—anyone for falling asleep to Fleetwood Mac?
The property's River Pavilion restaurant and bar, laced with string lights, has an open air barn-like feel and is another great place to while away time, especially once you plop down in an Adirondack chair on the lawn overlooking the river. The property's very cool old crane that was used to transport bricks downriver is a photographer's dream.
The menu is as robust as you'd expect from a former industrial site, with a half chicken, skirt steak, wood-fired pizzas and even a melon salad huge enough to satisfy a brick foreman. In homage to the brick making history, cocktails have names that let you know just what prominent city sites were made with Hutton bricks: Empire State Building, Columbia University, Brooklyn Bridge and Yankee Stadium.
The modern Hutton Brickyards riverside cabins were built onsite, rather than prefab delivered.
Your dog won't join you on all activities, such as in season kayaking, or trying your hand (shoulders?) at archery, both which you'll follow up with a session in the cedar barrel sauna. But hitting a section of the paved Empire State Trail to the new Sojourner Truth State Park river overlook is ideal for a long walk with your hound. Or you can cycle it on one of the property's trail bikes.
In a big 2021 property development, Hutton Brickyards turned a local architectural jewel into a major component of their lodging. A few minutes away from the cabins, the 1873 Edgewood Mansion built in Second Empire style sits on a bluff above the river, complete with with a columned porch and crow's nest atop its mansard roof. The house serves as reception for the whole property, and has a dozen rooms, a bar and seasonal restaurant.
The Edgewood home, which stayed in the hands of the Cordts family who co-founded Hutton Brickyards until the 1980s, is filled with old paintings, maps and engravings, as well as historic furnishings, chandeliers and grandfather clocks. The whimsical bunny motifs you see are from the hand of the last owner, artist Hunt Slonem.
The Hutton Brickyards open-air River Pavilion restaurant and bar, here, is complemented by the main house's Edgewood Restaurant.
Edgewood's parlors, its ample lawn, and a fine carriage house with original stables that is under renovation are desirable venues for weddings and corporate retreats. The same is true for down below by the river at the Hutton Brickyards main campus, which has even more space for fairs and festivals they put on. Live music events, such as the upcoming July 31 Damian Marley and Stephen Marley concert, draw thousands.
Historic Kingston is minutes away with streets made for walking your pooch even further, whether you head to the Stockade District or the Roundout area with their shops and cafés galore.
When you get back to the Hutton Brickyards, Fido will be more than ready for a snooze on your cabin terrace while you enjoy the Hudson River view before you.
The Hutton Brickyards cabin pet fee is $75, with a portion donated to a local no-kill pet shelter. Edgewood Mansion is not open to pets.
