Stone Ridge's Community Center Is Still Closed. Here's Where Marbletown Gathers This Winter.

The town shut the Marbletown Community Center at 3564 Main Street on Christmas Day 2024, and it has not reopened. Its regular calendar has broken up across at least seven other buildings in Stone Ridge, High Falls and Cottekill. Each one hosts a slice of what used to happen under a single roof on Route 209. This second winter without the building, finding the potluck, the yoga class or the holiday bazaar means knowing which address to check.

What one building used to hold

Hudson Valley One reported in August that the center held up to 150 people. For 25 years it was the town's main indoor room for civic meetings, blood drives, voting, lectures, homeschool activities, birthday parties, funerals, dances, game nights, library events, art classes, yoga and Zumba. Seniors were its heaviest users, and more than two dozen community groups booked it regularly.

The building is older than the town's current use of it by a couple of centuries. Its stone foundation went down in 1770 as part of the Philip Hardenbergh homestead. It later housed what may have been Stone Ridge's first store and post office. After that it became St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church, then American Legion Post #1512, and in 2001 the town acquired it as the community center.

Moisture damage, a sagging roof, a leaning chimney and outdated electrical and plumbing systems led to the closure. The town first planned to sell the property. Residents responded with a grassroots campaign that raised $15,000 from more than 300 small donors, and a 2025 town survey showed a large majority wanted it repaired and reopened.

Where the renovation stands going into November

The money is in place. Marbletown won a $1,305,977 NY BRICKS grant in December 2025 and committed a $326,493 town match, for a total project budget of $1,632,470. The town hired North River Architecture and Planning for design work on April 20, 2026. Residents saw preliminary plans at a July 9 listening session. The planned work includes foundation and drainage repairs, a new roof and exterior repairs, upgraded plumbing and electrical, an upgraded kitchen, flexible community rooms, accessible entrances and three relocated accessible bathrooms.

The schedule is less settled. In August, Hudson Valley One reported a forecast of construction starting in September or October 2026, with reopening targeted for July or August 2027. The town's own project page now lists the grant timeline as "under revision." At the August 18 Town Board meeting, councilmembers said they would meet with Peak Engineering about structural issues at the building, including budgets and how to mitigate them. The October 20 agenda included a resolution on a Community Center lot line adjustment. No general contractor award appeared on it.

So the 2027 date is a forecast from the summer. The calendar below is the one Marbletown actually has this winter. The town posts updates on its projects page and takes questions at [email protected].

The seniors' route shows how the calendar moved

The group that relied on the building most has also moved the most. Marbletown Senior Citizens, a nonprofit that meets twice a month, used to hold all its events at the center. In May 2025, the Shawangunk Journal reported that the group had moved to a smaller room at Christ the King Episcopal Church on Route 213. The paper noted the community center was the only place in town that could fit more than 100 people. One member described the new room to the paper this way:

"We feel squeezed in."

In that same story, group president Donna Lamerson said she had asked about using the fire department and been turned down. The only other offer came from the Marbletown Sportsmen's Club in the Vly, which the paper said was not central enough for the group.

By this fall the group had found a firehouse. According to Blue Stone Press, the November meetings are at the High Falls Fire Department, 333 Firehouse Road. The first-Friday lunch is Friday, November 6, at noon: bring a dish or put $3 in the basket. The third-Friday dessert meeting is Friday, November 20, at 1 p.m.: bring a dessert or put $1 in the basket. Meetings are open to anyone over 55, whether or not they live in Marbletown.

The group went from a church room on Route 213 to a fire hall in High Falls, roughly two years after leaving a building on Main Street. Other parts of the old calendar have also landed wherever there was a room with the right size, kitchen or schedule.

The rest of the map, building by building

Yoga was one of the center's regular offerings, and the free Wednesday class listed in the Blue Stone Press calendar now meets in the Cottekill municipal gym. Art classes and library events also used to run at the center. This season the library runs its own programs and High Meadow's campus hosts the larger craft and swap days. The two church events fill the dinner-and-bazaar slot that a 150-person hall on Main Street once covered.

What that looks like on Saturday, November 7

The first Saturday after this post publishes shows the spread clearly. Four separate gatherings are planned in four separate Stone Ridge buildings:

1. Noon to 3 p.m. High Meadow School's AcornFest, its public annual fall festival, at 3643 Main Street.
2. 1 p.m. A Pressed Flower Bookmark and Greeting Card Workshop at Stone Ridge Library.
3. 4:30 to 7 p.m. The RVUMC Sauerbraten Dinner at Rondout Valley United Methodist Church, 25 Schoonmaker Lane.
4. Evening. Jazz at Lydia's Café, with Tim Regusis, Dan Blake, Bryan Copeland and Bob Meyer on the bill. The café's October Saturday suppers were listed for 7 to 10 p.m.

All four fit into one afternoon and evening on a short stretch of town. They are just at four addresses, and no single calendar lists them all.

The rest of November and December

With no central hall, the season runs as a string of dates at different venues:

• Saturday, November 14, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Holiday Bazaar at the Community Church of High Falls, 4 Firehouse Road.
• Saturday, November 14. Peter on guitar and Emily on vocals at Lydia's Café.
• Tuesday, November 17, 7 p.m. "Choosing Sides: Ulster County in the American Revolution" at Stone Ridge Library. The topic fits a town whose community center sits on a foundation laid in 1770.
• Saturday, November 21. Elsa Nilsson, Dani Gurgel, Kelsey Mines and Debora Gurgel at Lydia's Café.
• Sunday, November 22. Holiday Artisan Market at High Meadow School.
• Tuesday, November 24, 3:30 p.m. Thanksgiving Story Hour at Stone Ridge Library.
• Sunday, December 6, noon to 3 p.m. Clothing Swap and Repair Cafe at High Meadow School, 3643 Main Street, including a winter clothing, toy and gear swap with the Rondout Valley Repair Cafe.
• Thursday, December 10, 3:30 p.m. Holly Day at Stone Ridge Library.
• Saturday, December 12. Pete Levin, Mike DiMicco and John Doe III at Lydia's Café.
• Tuesday, December 15, 4:30 p.m. Dungeons and Dragons for Teens at Stone Ridge Library.
• Wednesdays through December 30, 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. Free yoga at the Rondout Municipal Center Gymnasium in Cottekill.

When residents gave input at the July session, they asked for better access, improved acoustics, warm lighting, a community kitchen and preservation of the building's history. Until that building reopens, the potluck happens at the firehouse, the yoga mats go down in Cottekill, and the bazaar tables set up in High Falls.

At Fresh Air Realty, we track Stone Ridge's small civic details as closely as its stone houses, because they shape what a week here is like. If you'd like to talk about life in Marbletown over coffee in Brooklyn or on Route 209, Buy With Us or Sell With Us, and we'll keep you posted when the community center reopens.