Cidery Celebrates Holistic Agriculture and Architecture
You won’t end up in Callicoon by accident. Located deep in the Catskills and just a few miles downstream from where the east and west branches of the Delaware River converge, Callicoon has long served as a haven from the oppressive summers of New York City and a destination for those living nearby who want a night out. While the hamlet’s main strips continue to have a certain nineteenth-century rail town charm, they are now home to several new restaurants, as well as a tasting room for a distillery. Less than a mile outside of town, up a road surrounded by a dense forest that is home to an abundance of deer, foxes, and bears (allegedly), one will also find Seminary Hill Orchard & Cidery—the first cidery, brewery, or winery in the world to receive Phius certification.
Designed by Cold Spring-based River Architects, built by Poughkeepsie-based Baxter, and certified PHIUS+ 2018, the two-story, wood-frame cidery is virtually all-electric (there is a propane-fueled backup generator) and extremely energy efficient, but the focus on sustainability does not begin and end with the structure. Rather, this ethos extends into every facet of the operation, including pest control within the orchard, the facility’s greywater system and dark-sky compliant lighting, and the menu. Responsible stewardship of the land is paramount to the operation of Seminary Hill and founder Doug Doetsch even worked with the late Michael Phillips, one of the most celebrated orchardists in the world, to create ideal soil conditions for apples using a methodology that relies on organic and holistic agriculture.