So much to do the valley can hardly hold it all!
Poughkeepsie’s two historic theaters offer twice the excitement. Asia: The Reunion Tour, comedian Ralphie May, and The Sound of Music fill seats this fall at the Ulster Performing Arts Performing Arts Center. Slated for fall at the 1869 Bardavon Opera House are Bela Fleck, Keb’Mo’, and the region’s premiere orchestra, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. It’s a packed calendar—times two.
Do some fall barnstorming at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, a living museum of antique aviation with one of the largest collections of early aeroplanes in the world, many of which take to the air in weekend air shows through October 14. See the earliest aircraft, World War I planes and Lindbergh-era barnstormers, plus early cars and motorcycles. Then take a ride in an open-cockpit 1929 biplane. Come for the Antique Biplane Fly-In, September 22.
As landmarks go, few can top Kykuit: The Rockefeller Estate in Sleepy Hollow. Open until November 4, this amazing estate tour takes you through the six-story stone mansion, terraced gardens with priceless sculptures, underground art galleries and a cavernous Coach Barn filled with classic automobiles and horse-drawn carriages.
Down the road you can wander a woodland path back to the year 1750 at Philipsburg Manor, where guides in period costume show you an 18th-century farm with hands-on activities, the rushing water and creaking wooden gears of a working mill, and the recreated living spaces of a 300-year-old manor house with period artifacts and touchable reproductions. In the activity center you’ll shell beans, thresh wheat and work flax into linen. Through October.
Walk the same earth as George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Douglas MacArthur and even Benedict Arnold, on a guided tour of America’s top soldier school, West Point Military Academy. Hear the history and stories of America’s heroes while you enjoy breathtaking vistas of the Hudson highlands.
A kaleidoscope of color awaits you at Gillinder Glass in Port Jervis. Visit the factory to see old world craftsmen transform molten glass into works of art and useful tools using historic techniques. Browse the gift store’s sparkling showcase of items rendered in glass.
Harness racing gets its due at the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Goshen, where more than 1,700 works of fine art and 6,000 artifacts chronicle the sport. Trophies to books, sulkies to caps, if it’s about harness racing, you’ll find it here.
The leading artists of the last half-century are elbow to elbow at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, on the Hudson River in Beacon. Fine art, drawings, early video and film from the 1960s to today fill its exhibit rooms. Public tours, readings, and gallery talks happen year round, along with music and dance performances.
Learn the dramatic story of water power and innovations that created turn-of-the-twentieth-century renewable energy at the Beacon Gallery, Main Street in Beacon. Harnessing the Hudson: Waterwheels to Turbines is the latest in a series of Gallery exhibits by the Beacon Institute, devoted to illustrating life along the Hudson River in photos and art. Free admission.
The Hudson Valley and Springwood were the home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the estate he loved welcomes you today. See the home of FDR and the first Presidential Library & Museum. Weekends in September, visit Beatrix Farrand Garden for a self-guided stroll through the walled formal garden designed in 1912 by one of the nation's finest landscape architects. The Garden is open daily from dawn to dusk and admission is free.
For more information, visit the Hudson Valley region.