Lisa A. Phillips  •   Writing   •   Reporting   •   Radio

Lisa A. Phillips  •   Writing   •   Reporting   •   Radio

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Roosting in a Cozy Chicken Coop (but Eggs Come From the Store)

The New York Times

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

Published: January 14, 2010

KINGSTON, N.Y. — Tripp Hanson, a former Broadway actor, had a rough year in 2007. He and his longtime partner

broke up, a close friend died, and he was starting a second career as an acupuncturist.

In the spring of 2008 Mr. Hanson visited friends in Woodstock, N.Y. One of them was a real estate agent. On a whim they

took a drive to look at houses. Mr. Hanson didn’t think he was ready to buy anything, but the idea of a simple place in a

natural setting felt “healing,” he said.

read the entire article

Miniature Golf, Farming and a Cottage for Two

The New York Times

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

Published: October 9, 2009

BEFORE Maria Reidelbach could find a second home for herself, she had to find a home for her dream project: a

miniature golf course with a down-on-the-farm theme.

In 2004 Ms. Reidelbach, 53, a co-author of “Miniature Golf” (Abbeville Press, 1987), a history of the game (bound in

artificial turf), traveled around the fertile Rondout Valley in Ulster County, N.Y., trying to interest farmers in letting her build

a course on their land, planted with fruit trees, vegetables and herbs.

She said she was interested in a course that would show people how food grows. “I wanted to make my own roadside

attraction, and mini-golf was what I knew best.”

Ms. Reidelbach, the granddaughter of farmers in western Pennsylvania, found a kindred spirit in Chris Kelder, who runs

Kelder’s Farm, a popular pick-your-own spot in Kerhonkson, N.Y. Homegrown Mini-Golf opened at the farm in 2006.

read the entire article

A Jazz Voice Finds a Mellower Range

The New York Times

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

Published: July 2, 2009

WHEN the jazz singer Sheila Jordan is in Manhattan, she has ready access to the musicians, clubs and urban energy

she has cherished since she moved there nearly 60 years ago to immerse herself in the music she loved.

But when it’s time for Ms. Jordan to learn new music or work on arrangements, she is too conscious of the neighbors

around her one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea, her primary residence. So she heads for her farmhouse on the outskirts

of Middleburgh, N.Y., 43 miles west of Albany, where she can sing any time of the day or night without worry.

read the entire article

A Cape Cod ‘Vessel’ for the Whole Crew

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

New York Times

Published: May 7, 2009

DAVID E. A. CARSON knows how transformative innovative architecture

read the entire article here

In the Shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains

The New York Times

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

Published: January 29, 2009

WHEN Tim Reid drinks in the view from the deck of his second home in Amherst, Va., he often thinks of central Virginia’s

best-known resident, Thomas Jefferson.

“You get the sense that he saw pretty much the same thing we see today,” said Mr. Reid, who lives in Richmond, Va. “Hill

upon hill of undeveloped land.”

Indeed, Amherst, like Jefferson’s main residence in Monticello, an hour north in Charlottesville, lies in the eastern

shadow of a stretch of the Blue Ridge Mountains. That land today is protected from development as part of the George

Washington National Forest.

“We just fell in love with the view and the feel,” he said, “and everything that went with it.”

read the entire article

A Focus on Light and Thrift

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: November 20, 2008

THE design of Bill Armstrong’s cottage in Roxbury, Vt., is reminiscent of a child’s first rendering of a house: a rectangular

box with a triangle roof on top and a few windows.

Far more elaborate is the view from the inside of this second home. Sliding glass doors on two walls of the living room

look out over a sloping meadow, a pond, a forest and the dramatic peaks of the Northfield mountain range, about 25

miles southwest of Montpelier.

read the entire article

Our Place Just Above the Road

By Lisa A. Phillips

New York Times

Published: Friday, November 7, 2008

Byron Bell likes to describe himself as an architect who does his best work when there's a challenge.

read the entie article here

At the Edge of the Berkshires, a Lively Hill Town

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: October 30, 2008

OLAF THORP spent the indelible summers of his youth at Lost Farm, his parents’ country house in Ashfield, a small

farming town in western Massachusetts. So when his father and his brothers decided to sell the place in 1988, he knew

he had to keep it in the family, even though its understructure was rotting, and repairing it would mean literally lifting the

house off the ground.

read the entire article

Stage North

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

New York Times

Published: August 1, 2008

SANDE SHURIN, an acting coach and director, has spent her life seeking out what she calls magic zones, places and

states of mind where creativity flows effortlessly. The first time she drove through the mountainous corridor between

Woodstock and Phoenicia, N.Y., in 1989, she realized she’d found another one.

read the entire article here

Rooms With a Viewfinder

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: June 6, 2008

WHEN Catherine Chalmers was preparing to film her video “Safari,” which documents the journey of a cockroach

through a mini-tropical landscape, she turned to animal breeders to buy her exotic cast of creatures, which included a

poison dart frog and a pygmy chameleon. Even the cockroach came from a lab. But there was something missing, she

felt — she wanted more bright color.

read the entire article here

A Mountain Town Where Mineral Waters Flow

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: February 15, 2008

WHEN Zoe Burger first started spending weekends in Berkeley Springs, she was curious about the legendary healing

powers of the warm mineral waters the region is named for. So she headed to Berkeley Springs State Park in the center

of town, where public bathhouses offer a good soak for $20.

read the entire article here

Where the Music Surrounds Him

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: November 23, 2007

IT had been a whirlwind couple of weeks for the trombonist Roswell Rudd: a performance in Berlin, a recording session

in Brussels and, just hours after he got off the plane in New York, a master class and concert in western Massachusetts.

At the end of it all last month, he retreated to his second home in Kerhonkson, N.Y., at the southern edge of the Catskills.

“This is where I feel sheltered, protected,” he said. “It was so good to come inside, have a hot bowl of soup, get in bed. I

can hear the birds, the wind in the trees. The stars are easily visible. It feels safe.”

read the entire article here

THE VIEW | FROM NEWTOWN

Once Thriving, Post Office Seeks New Life

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: October 28, 2007

THE wooden steps leading up to the Hawleyville Post Office are rickety and splintering. The pink paint is peeling. The

inside is not much bigger than your average A.T.M. lobby.

But the patrons, who hail from the western Connecticut towns of Newtown, Bethel and Brookfield, adore their old jalopy of

a post office, for the community spirit and warm customer service they find inside. And ever since the Postal Service

began reconsidering the post office’s future, they’ve been deeply worried.

read the entire article here

The Principle of 2nd Home, 2nd Vote

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: June 22, 2007

MOST people who buy a second home are seeking refuge, a place to recharge their psychic batteries, to leave the

worries and trivia of their jobs and hometowns behind. The last thing on their minds, generally, is to get sucked into the

whirlpool of local politics.

read the entire article here

HAVENS | KINGSTON, N.Y.

A Historic River City Is Losing Its Backwater Reputation

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: April 20, 2007

APHRODITE CLAMAR-COHEN used to spend weekends at a home on seven wooded acres in the Catskills in

Bearsville, N.Y. She loved to get away from Manhattan, but she didn’t like the isolation of country life. She was used to

walking places and seeing people, and she wanted the same lifestyle on the weekends.

read the entire article here

The Quest for the Perfect Birth

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: April 25, 2004

ON a recent Saturday morning at Yoga Haven in Tuckahoe, 15 pregnant women settled onto rubber mats and greeted

one another with questions about how they were feeling and when their babies were due. Then the instructor, Reyna

Gonzalez, guided them through a prenatal yoga routine.

''Breathe into the baby,'' Ms. Gonzalez coached. ''Note how the baby responds.''

read the entire article here

In Cramped and Illegal Quarters

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: December 21, 2003

FOR two years, Gilda Gentle and her five children lived in a basement apartment in Yonkers. At $690 a month, the

apartment was one of the few places she could afford, so she put up with an unusual situation: nearly every day, tenants

from the three floors above her knocked on her door, asking if they could get inside to flip a switch in the fuse box or to

pour water into the steam boiler, both accessible only from her apartment.

read the entire article here

Mom and Dad! I'm Back Home

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: February 8, 2004

WHEN Darsha Leslie, 44, left Fort Wayne, Ind., last year to move back to Westchester County, she had to give up her

$440-a-month two-bedroom apartment.

In White Plains, her hometown, she found that a one-bedroom apartment for herself and her two teenage children would

cost $1,200, almost three times as much, an unaffordable prospect on her $28,000-a-year salary. So she moved her

family into her mother's one-bedroom apartment on Harmon Street.

''She gets the bedroom,'' Ms. Leslie said. ''We are all in the living room. It's rough.''

read the entire article here

Chronicling a Village's Past, Brickyard by Brickyard

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: February 15, 2004

HAVERSTRAW, overlooking Westchester from the Rockland County side of the Hudson, was once known as the brick-

making capital of the world. By the turn of the 20th century, as many as 42 brickyards operated in the area, churning out

millions of bricks a year from the abundant local supply of Hudson River clay.

read the entire article here

Despite Aid, Home Buying Proves Elusive

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: February 15, 2004

NATHANIEL GOLDBERG, 63, and his wife, Adrianna Goldberg, 36, began their search to buy a home with what they

thought would be a big financial boost: a $25,000 down payment, an assistance grant from Community Housing

Innovations, a nonprofit housing services agency based in White Plains and Patchogue.

Three months later, the Goldbergs, who rent a two-bedroom apartment in Cortlandt Manor for $1,100 a month, still

couldn't find a place they could afford.

read the entire article here

When You Need a Rental Car, Fast

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: November 23, 2003

ZIPCAR, the rental car club that provides funky cars like Volkswagen Golfs and Mini Coopers by the hour, has arrived in

Westchester County.

read the entire article here

More are Grabbing a Piece of Real Estate Pie

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: November 30, 2003

LIKE any number of people in the corporate world, Peter Olsen of Cortlandt Manor had a soaring career that hit a patch

of turbulence two years ago. He was forced into early retirement from his job as a vice president at Deutsche Bank in

Manhattan after the company bought Bankers Trust. He tried consulting, but work dried up after the terrorist attack on the

World Trade Center. So Mr. Olsen decided to turn his gaze from the misfortunes of the city he had worked in for more

than 20 years to the booming housing market in his own backyard.

read the entire article here

After Abuse, a New Crisis

By LISA A. PHILLIPS

The New York Times

Published: November 2, 2003

WHEN Maria Melendez decided to leave her abusive husband, she thought of nothing but getting herself and her two

children to safety at a domestic violence shelter. But then, months later, she faced a prospect that was nearly as

frightening: finding a place to live in a county where housing prices have skyrocketed.

''It was awful,'' she said. ''I felt like I'd made the biggest mistake. I felt like I should have just stayed and tolerated the

abuse.''

read the entire article here

Time Out New York Kids

First Resorts

By Lisa A. Phillips

Time Out New York Kids

Issue 26: Nov 19–Dec 31, 2007

Plan for activities both on and off the mountain so your winter getaway doesn’t go downhill.

Ski vacations can be tricky when you have children who may not be ready to spend long days—or any time at all, for that

matter—on the slopes. To stave off a meltdown (which would, after all, be bad for the snow), choose a mountain like

Belleayre in the Catskills or the Berkshires’ Jiminy Peak. They both offer not only great skiing but also child care, kids’

lessons and enticing side adventures.

read the entire article here

Orange Crush

By Lisa A. Phillips

Time Out New York Kids

Issue 24 : Oct 1–31, 2007

Boost your trick-or-treater’s seasonal spirit—as well as your own—at one of these nearby gourd

gardens.

As Linus knows only too well, pumpkin patches don’t always yield something Great. On October weekends, suburban

pick-your-own farms tend to be crowded and noisy, with diesel fumes from tour buses ruining any hope of fresh country

air. But you needn’t, er, squash your child’s dreams just yet: We found three appealing alternatives to the typical harvest

hell, all within two hours of the city.

read the entire article here

The Manny Myth

By Lisa A. Phillips

Time Out New York Kids

Issue 24 : Oct 1–31, 2007

They may have a newly sexed-up image and media ubiquity, but male caregivers are still pretty

rare.

Tibetan nannies are so last year. So what’s the latest caregiving craze? Recent media accounts contend that everyone in

NYC and its surrounding areas wants a “manny” (that’s a male caregiver, if you’ve been under a rock since the

publication of Holly Peterson’s best-selling novel The Manny). But is this really a movement? And if so, why didn’t it start,

say, during the heyday of Scott Baio’s Charles in Charge?

read the entire article here

 

photo credits from top: 

Chris Ramirez for The New York Times

Casey Templeton for The New York Times

Caleb Kenna for The New York Times

Shana Sureck for The New York Times

Phil Mansfield for The New York Times

Andrew Councill for The New York Times

Michael Falco for The New York Times

Phil Mansfield for The New York Times