Greene County Success Stories

The Woodhouse Lodge: Creative Professionals Build a New Destination in Greenville, NY

July 24, 2018

 

Lodge-Front

Megan Pflug and her husband Jay Penry share a vision: Build a sustainable space to live and work together, in a place they love.  Now this vision is realized in The Woodhouse Lodge.

Hammocks-250Born in the Midwest, their skill sets range from design & production to illustration & film-making.  Megan received her design degree from RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), and after relocating to Brooklyn, joined the production team for Martha Stewart.  She quickly put her interior design skills to work developing content, blogging, and gaining a loyal social media following with elegant images and engaging stories. 

As her career progressed she joined the team at One Kings Lane, an online style portal that promotes brands traditionally only available through interior designers.  This experience laid the foundation for her own interior design and consulting business – Megan Pflug Designs: a blog and design studio that delivers original home-décor-focused content and residential design services.

Megan is a Do-It-Yourself evangelist “on a one-woman mission to elevate DIY to an art form” — she is a firm believer that creativity, not budget, is what truly dictates style.

Number-10The couple took on a major renovation project in 2013 as first-time home owners of a Brooklyn row house built in 1901. Frequent visits to a friend’s Greene County farm gave the couple a real love of the area, and a desire to live and work here full-time.  They began searching for an ‘opportunity property’ but hadn’t really thought of buying and renovating a 1960s era 10-room hotel.  That all changed when their realtor stepped out-of-the-box and they began thinking through possibilities. 

After a solid year of revitalization, The Woodhouse Lodge is not only a base of operations for Megan and Jay to serve their Design & Illustration clients but has been transformed into a ‘shaker meets country modern’ escape set in the Great Northern Catskills of Greene County, and perfect for friends get-aways, retreats and planning sessions, or putting up out of town guests.

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As a key component of the character of the lodge, and keeping with her DIY Mantra, Megan set about seeking out other Greene County Creative Economy businesses – makers that embrace entrepreneurship and share her vision.  She utilized her brand promotion chops to create relationships with specialty WHL-Logo-1manufacturers, bringing signature products to be featured in use at the lodge and celebrated in her blogs and social media posts.

Susan Baldaserini (who runs her graphic design business from her Pilothouse Paper storefront on Reed Street in Coxsackie, NY) created the logo and brand standard. 

Amenities-250Ben Lebel & Blake Hays (Village Common Mercantile in Catskill, NY) created custom branded bathroom amenities, as they do for hotels, inns, and spas across
the country.

Megan also developed relationships with furnishings makers in Greene County and the NY Metro area, whose unique soft goods enhance the personality of the lodge and the individuality of each of its sleeping and gathering spaces.  

Megan & Jay are part of a new generation of creative professionals bringing world-class experience and expertise to our communities (so they can ‘Do What They Do in a Place They Love”). 

To find out more about opportunities in The Growing Creative Economy in Greene County, NY, download our free eBook

For concierge service locating or expanding your business in one of our 14 Catskill Mountain, Rural Valley, or Historic Hudson River towns, contact the team at Invest In Greene by eMail or call 518-719-3285.

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Topics: Success Stories