Ward + Blake Architects

The Catskills Retreat is located in Livingston Manor, New York. The site is at the top of a small mountain overlooking the town with distant views of Catskill National Park. The program is for a high end resort containing 110 guest rooms, including luxury suites, tennis facilities, swimming pools, hot tubs, spa, squash courts, bowling alley, game rooms, banquet, and conference facilities. The resort provides a variety of single family cottages and a series of outdoor trails for running, mountain biking and hiking.

Utilizing sod roofs and roof gardens the hotel fits almost seamlessly into the site reducing its visual impact in this sensitive area. The tennis facility is set into a natural embankment and bleachers are incorporated within the existing slope. A service road drops below the main porte cochere to separate public and service facilities while preserving natural views of the property. 50% of the parking is placed in this service drop which provides all of the necessary employee and valet parking and places all services, deliveries, etc. out of the public sight. Each room is oriented toward the Catskill views and has a private roof garden that doubles as the roof of the guest room or suite below. Translucent glass block skylights are incorporated into each roof garden to provide natural light into the corridors below. The design contains 3 distinct public nodes incorporating roof gardens and terraces for a variety of possible venues to happen simultaneously at the resort.