Rosewood Writing Retreats: Your Getaway to Get Things Done

Unless you’ve set up a special arrangement to come during a week outside of those listed, there will always be one of your hosts there to greet you and show you around the property when you arrive.

After we tour the space and get you settled into your room, if there are other guests staying during the same week as you, we’ll work on your section of our guest board. This board, with a spot for each current guest, is where residency participants can communicate with each other in a way that is non-invasive to others’ work flow and process.

Each guest spot features a picture of the guest, a brief description of what they’ll be working on during their stay, and–most importantly–your interaction preferences. If you don’t want anyone to chat with you until having a night cap in the pub in the evening, write it down. If you have a deadline and want everyone to leave you along until dinner on Thursday, write it down. If you are incredibly focused in the morning and the smallest interruption of your thought process before you break for lunch can derail your whole day, write it down.

When we respond to your application with the payment link, we will let you know which of the weeks you’ve requested have spots available.

If anything has changed since you first applied and these dates no longer work for you, there is no financial risk. Simply let us know and we’ll open your spot to someone else.

Author and journalist, Gabi Logan, and her husband, Satyen Kale, a highly-published research scientist at Google, spent years looking for the perfect place for their own individual weekend retreats for times when they needed a place to hole up and get a ton of writing done in a focused environment.

They started looking for a piece of land in Vermont to put a tiny house on. They had the tiny house all picked out and some lovely folks in British Columbia (Canada) ready to drive it across the country to meet them in Vermont, but they couldn’t get the right piece of land. Then they moved their search closer to New York City, so it would be easier to get away for the weekend or even in the middle of the week.

While looking for land in Ellenville, New York, amid regionally famous rock-climbing mountains and at the intersection of the Hudson Valley historic area and the Catskills mountains, we came upon a ridiculous property. Custom built for a family of industrialists in the 1950s, the property had everything from a sauna to a full-sized bar, and we knew that we could make the price (not so bad) and the high taxes (way more than the mortgage actually!) work if we shared this amazing space with others.

We run both travel writing and computer science weekend retreats throughout the year, as well as travel to speak at conferences internationally, so the residency schedule is limited to ensure that the days that residency guests are arriving, there is always one of your hosts there to meet you personally and help you settle into the space.

It might just be you! But there will never be more than four residents in any given week. Some weeks Gabi or Satyen will be there working on the farm or setting up for events and the next round of guests.

There is a bus directly from Port Authority near Times Square in Manhattan (connected by train to JFK airport) to our village of Ellenville if you do not have private transport. Otherwise the house can be reached by car in just under two hours from New York City, just under four hours from Boston, and five hours from Washington, D.C.

The “Weather the Storms” section is specifically designed for burnout recovery and sustainable business design, so you can build a business that supports your energy and goals—not one that depletes them.

This is an area rich with farms. There are also many restaurants right in town and a short drive away if you prefer to go out or order in.

If you would prefer to have your food prepared in advance so that all you need to do is grab something out of the fridge when you’re hungry, we are delighted to offer the option to set up custom catered cuisine based on vegetables from our own on-site farm for a fee in addition to your basic residency fee.

Gabi has a food background (her first blog was around 30-minute dinner parties and featured recipes from all over the world) and has often catered events in the 100-200s over the years. She also has a certificate in plant-based nutrition from Cornell (the same one Giselle and Tom Brady’s personal chef has!). She works with local farms and chefs to coordinate a menu of locally-sourced items that fit your dietary needs so you can focus on your writing.

Expect everything to be healthy, primarily gluten- and dairy-free with vegetables from our own mini-farm or other farms right in our village. We have a detailed food preference form to capture your choices, and will confirm the menu with you in advance to allow you to request changes as necessary.

For weekend retreat attendees, we offer the following menu options, subject to availability and seasonality. Please review these options, prepare a list of potential choices, and review them with Gabi.

Breakfasts

• pancake bar (buckwheat, gluten-free, and other non-standard options with housemade preserves and local maple syrup and honey)
• waffle bar (buckwheat, gluten-free, and other non-standard options with housemade preserves and local maple syrup and honey)
• freshly made breads with housemade preserves and gourmet egg selections
• freshly made breakfast pastries with gourmet egg selections
• Scandanavian spread with pumpernickel and rye breads, cured salmon and locally smoked trout
• Ableskiver bar with freshly made filled Scandanavian pancake balls with sweet and savory fillings
• Israeli breakfast bread with vegetables from the garden, hard boiled eggs, tahini, flatbread (summer only)
• Indian idli bar with steamed rice and lentil dumplings and traditional tomato and vegetable soup
• Quiche with garden vegetables

Lunches

• Carrot ginger soup** with freshly baked brown bread
• Cauliflower** soup with Nordic cheese bread
• Vichyssoise** (potato and leek) with fresh whole wheat bread
• Quiche* with fresh herb salad (summer only)
• Falafel bar**
• Grill bar with local burgers and sausages (summer only)
• Gazpacho picnic** with Spanish tapas (summer only)
• Gourmet pizza bar**
• Taco bar**
• Grilled quesadillas** (summer only)
• Italian picnic* with frittata, panzanella, and other salads (summer only)
• Balinese skewers and salads (summer only)

Dinners

• Meze spread with housemade red lentil falafel and pita and assorted dips and salads
• Greek spread with kebabs and assorted dips and salads
• North African spread with vegetable cous cous and assorted dips and salads
• Spanish tapas spread
• Seasonal pasta
• Thai or Balinese curry with white or brown rice
• Indian idli samber with steamed rice and lentil dumplings and traditional tomato and vegetable soup
• Indian spread of vegetarian cuisine from Maharastra with soup, curried vegetables and lentils served with brown or write rice or fresh flatbreads
• South Indian rice bar with lentil rice, tomato rice, and yogurt rice with Indian pickles

For weekend retreats, you have the option to have food prepared in advance for your attendees but tend to the service and clean-up yourself for $25/attendee/day or to have food prepared during the course of your retreat and served by our team for $40/attendee/day. This includes three hot meals and two snacks per day, typically beginning with dinner on the arrival day and ending with lunch on the departure day. One bedroom will need to be reserved for our team in the second case.

Outside groups renting the retreat center are not able to cook in the space, due to the age and uniqueness of the cooking arrangements. If you would prefer to provide your own food or bring in delivery, please note that food cannot be stored in guest rooms (due to the potential to attract insects) and that a half-size fridge in the kitchen is allotted for this purpose, but the main fridge and freezer cannot be used to store outside food.