Save Our Rural Towns
The $20 billion InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) purchased the Old Stone Farm at the crossroads of Clinton, Hyde Park, and Rhinebeck and plans to build a large resort hotel under the luxury “Six Senses” brand. In 2024, Hyde Park and Clinton Zoning Boards repeatedly DENIED the project which would violate Hyde Park’s Greenbelt protections, Clinton’s zoning laws and the Comprehensive Plans of both towns. IHG has used aggressive legal maneuvers to intimidate our town governments into steamrolling the project through, twisting the previous property owners’ special-use permit for a small (44 guests max) dude ranch into plans for a large-scale resort & spa and wedding venue. The project will devastate 32 acres of prime open farmland, choke off sensitive wetlands and habitats, pollute pristine waterways and clog our peaceful country roads.
Their plan includes:
5 endangered species including Blanding’s Turtle, Indiana Bat, Northern Long-eared Bat, Monarch Butterfly and Cat-tail Sedge are threatened. The development will cause irreversible environmental destruction. The proposal impacts land identified in Dutchess County Wetland Significant Biodiversity Areas and Important Areas for Rare Wetland Animals. This commercial development will create deadly roadways and barriers between wetlands and forests, the continuous habitats that many native and endangered species require for their seasonal migrations.
including surface water (streams and ponds), vital wetlands and, ultimately, our groundwater are harmed. Wastewater will be dumped into the Crum Elbow Creek. Science now shows the destructive impact of pharmaceutical, chemical and microplastic pollution that goes with the hotel and spa business, especially on bats, turtles and other diminishing wildlife AND humans.
Wetlands restoration is now recognized as a top priority nationwide and locally yet this project would actually increase wetlands destruction.
The developer’s own estimates show 458-608 vehicles entering and leaving each-day (not including delivery trucks). Besides the traffic nuisance, there will be air and noise pollution areawide. Increased traffic and noise are more than an annoyance for humans — they threaten nesting areas and major wildlife crossings, including for our endangered turtles. Heavy trucks will be almost constant as guests arrive and depart and food, supplies, and equipment are delivered multiple times each day. The resort’s garbage and snow removal needs will also increase the frequency of large truck equipment.
will be obliterated with light pollution, required for the hundreds of onsite guests and employees, 24/7. Artificial lighting is especially harmful to birds and insects, adding to biodiversity decline. The full-service hotel is also likely to impact the electrical grid with amenities such as air-conditioning, a restaurant, on-site transportation by golf carts, and general electrical service to the dozens of structures. The vulnerable condition of the power grid will create a need for generators, further increasing noise and disrupting the landscape.
of our towns will be forever changed, while providing nothing for the town residents. The project flies in the face of Clinton’s own Comprehensive Plan, the Open Space Protection Plan, and the Conservation Advisory Council‘s work, ignoring the will of the people. Clinton has repeatedly said NO to Hotels.
Large continuous habitat is crucial for wildlife like bears, coyotes, bobcats, bats, owls, turtles and more. The additional roads and drives will fragment this habitat, disturbing or killing ground-nesting birds and migrating animals like endangered turtles and frogs. Route 9G already poses a mortal threat to seasonally migrating species from the Crum Elbow wetlands. Building new heavily traveled drives to the east, disrupting the connection between wetlands and forest, will trap them between two deadly roadways. New York’s environmental laws demand our towns be stewards of the land, not tools of big developers.
of our community will be marred, undermining open spaces of pristine farmlands and historic structures and upending conservation efforts that have taken years to put into place.
for local businesses and growing income inequality, especially for young people and working families. Management and directives will come from overseas, as will local management, so local jobs gained are likely to be exclusively lower-tier service work.
Local businesses will compete with the resort hotel for the limited workforce, driving up costs for existing local business owners and consumers.
The resort hotel will increase the need for emergency (police, fire, medical) and road maintenance services and vehicles, raising taxes for local property owners.
The potential for this property to be developed into 77 new homes is a fallacy being promoted by supporters of the Six Senses resort project to scare. In reality, the largest portion of Old Stone Farm that is in the Town of Clinton is generally in the AR5 zoning district, requiring either agricultural use or single-family residential use with 5-acre minimum lots. (A smaller part of the farm is located in the AR3 zoning district, which allows for 3-acre minimum residential lots.)
As the “Constraints Map” portrays, most of the property consists of either steep hilly woodlands (red) with numerous rocky outcroppings or wetlands (green) that are protected by federal, state, and/or local law, plus wetlands setbacks (blue dotted line) so residential development would be either unfeasible or prohibited there. The area that would be open to development – the same area on which Six Senses wants to place 54 buildings and 10 swimming pools – is approximately 32 acres of flat and fertile farmland, which would realistically allow no more than 6-10 new homes. This translates into approximately 40 additional residents, who would be committed to our community (unlike transient hotel guests and a huge multinational hotel chain) and would have a much smaller impact on water use, traffic, pollution, and quality-of-life in our town than a large-scale resort with 240 guests, 150 employees, and 600 car trips every day.
It is worth remembering that Old Stone Farm was on the market for more than 2 years, before selling for $8.5 Million in late 2021 to people who planned to use it for biodynamic farming. It did NOT sell to a residential developer, even during late COVID, when demand for homes in the Hudson Valley peaked.
An additional constraint… all but 70 acres of the Clinton property is under Forest Tax Exemption Law Program (480-a) to reduce property taxes. Removal from the program would result in significant tax penalties and back taxes, making it cost prohibitive to develop on what little woodlands are not constrained by wetlands or steep grade.
If it operates as proposed, only registered guests and paid or invited attendees at special events (retreats, weddings, private parties, etc.) will have access to this resort, so local residents will not be able to use the pools and other amenities or book dinner reservations and spa services. Rates for a double room at typical Six Senses resorts in Europe and Asia (this will be the first one in North America, if it is approved) mainly range from $850 to more than $2,000 a night, out of reach for most Hudson Valley residents.
IHG, a $20 billion global corporation, has built large Six Senses resort hotels in some of the world’s most environmentally sensitive places. Developers tend to look for locations where legal protections are poorly defined, so that they can exploit loopholes, threaten (and bring) lawsuits against towns that fear high legal expenses, and run roughshod over small rural communities like ours. Once they get their way, the lawsuits often continue because they now know that the town can be effectively bullied into allowing them to exploit local resources and take away maximum profits. Standing up against them before they incur more significant development expenses (and create permanent damage) is the most effective and cost-effective way to block their plans and protect our town.
IHG’s purchase of the Old Stone Farm in Clinton to build a Six Senses Resort Hotel may have predated announcement of plans to build The Forks Hudson Valley. This unexpected competition (on top of existing competition from Mirbeau in Rhinebeck and other luxury hotels in the Hudson Valley) creates a real rush that IHG’s development of Six Senses Hudson Valley could fail to achieve expected profits, ultimately leading them to convert the property to a lower-end hotel brand (for example, Holiday Inn, another IHG brand), which the town could not prevent because a special use permit, once granted, attaches to the property itself and not to a specific hotel brand or property owner. They could sell it to another company or even abandon it altogether, leaving our town with the low-end or even deserted resort instead of the beautiful 200-year old farm that is there now.
A large resort hotel like Six Senses Hudson Valley would put a substantial strain on existing infrastructure and emergency resources. Clinton is blessed with fantastic volunteer fire and emergency services, but providing services for large commercial hospitality and events operations like this one will increase the number of calls they have to respond to, raising operating costs, straining already-stretched volunteer staffing, and requiring infrastructure upgrades and higher maintenance costs. The New York State Police and Dutchess Country Sheriff will face similar stresses, and increased traffic will cause more wear and tear on our local roads, meaning that Clinton will have to increase the budget of the Highway Department.
The Six Senses Hudson Valley resort will not be required to pay any special taxes to the Town. It is likely that the increased costs for emergency and highway services, infrastructure upgrades and maintenance, and town government oversight of resort compliance and operations will quickly surpass any increase in property tax revenue, meaning that Six Senses Hudson Valley will cost you money.
IHG says that the Six Senses resort will have approximately 150 employees. During public meetings, its representatives have noted that senior management positions will likely be filled from corporate headquarters and not recruited from among local residents. Even for the local jobs, most of the positions will likely be temporary construction jobs that disappear once the project is built out, or stressful lower-paid service staff (housekeeping, front desk, food and beverage, and maintenance, etc.) that require long hours, including night, weekend, and holiday work. Promises of local jobs are also a standard talking point for big developers, but the reality almost never matches the hype, according to comprehensive research.
The Six Senses Hudson Valley resort marketed to its global clientele, will provide all of the services that its guests need, including restaurants, bars, retail shops, and recreational and spa services. As at most spa resorts, it is likely that most guests will stay “on campus” for the full duration of their stay, meaning that the impact on local businesses will be negligible.
Research shows that the impact of large corporate hotels and resorts on local economies is limited because they tend to use their existing corporate supply chains rather than purchasing supplies from local businesses or investing in local communities.
To the extent that guests do venture out for a dinner or shopping, the desires and tastes of tourists paying $1,000 or more for a night in a double room may be quite different than those of most local community residents. If you think Rhinebeck is already getting too crowded and too expensive, this would only make it worse.
According to Smart Water Magazine, a water supply industry publication, resort hotels can use 400 gallons of water per guest each day. This is 8 times what a local resident would normally use — so 240 hotel guests would be equivalent to almost 2,000 residents, which is half of our town’s total population! — and is usually highest during the summer, when they operate at full capacity and local water resources are most stressed. Spas require even more water with excess showering, laundry and related facilities.
During droughts (which are becoming more frequent), local residents’ wells could run dry, especially on the many nearby properties that are at higher elevation that the resort. Using newer deep drilling technologies, Six Senses’ wells could cause a cone of depression that affects neighbors’ shallower wells, a risk highlighted by the Hyde Park Conservation Advisory Council. Needless to say, neighbors’ wells will run dry long before IHG’s pools and spas, and – once the project is approved – neighbors will have no recourse.
Beyond the amount of water they use, spa resorts also use significant amount of chemicals with harmful per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS – the “forever chemicals”) and are a source of significant microplastics pollution. These substances, which will not be filtered out by Six Senses’ onsite sewage treatment plant, will be in the 18,500 gallons of “purified water” that the resort dumps into Crum Elbow Creek every day, affecting the quality of water in the creek, in local aquifers, and in the Hudson River for all future generations.
The Old Stone Farm provides habitat for rare plants (like the cat-tail sedge) and numerous endangered and threatened animal species including the Indiana bat, monarch butterfly, and Northern long-eared bat. The threatened Blanding’s turtle, spotted turtle and other reptiles and amphibians migrate seasonally between Crum Elbow Creek’s wetlands and upland fields and forests, where they lay their eggs or look for food. These small animals generally do not travel more than a few miles in their entire lives (and will always attempt to return home if relocated). Because Route 9G runs directly west of Crum Elbow Creek at the resort site, the east side of the creek – the resort itself – provides their only safe migration path. But with 600 car trips every day on the resorts proposed roads, driveways, and parking lots, animals that have survived the years of excavation and construction of 54 buildings are unlikely to stand much of a chance.
You can learn more about the resort’s potential impact on our town’s fragile environment by reading this 20-page independent assessment by Hudsonia, or our summary.
Yes, if the proposed resort is eventually considered by the Planning Board, the Planning Board can set guest limits and other parameters to regulate its operation. Its volunteer members will then come under enormous pressure from IHG, which has deep pockets, aggressive lawyers, and a proven willingness to bully and file lawsuits whenever it doesn’t get its own way. They know that lawsuits frighten small towns and wear down their resistance. It is highly likely that, if the Planning Board sets reasonable limits to disruption to the town, its residents, and the environment by development and operation of the Six Senses resort, IHG Six Senses will sue the Planning Board and the Town, claiming that they are interfering with IHG’s “business discretion.”
If and when this happens, it will be crucial for town residents to loudly support the Planning Board members in setting strict limits that require IHG to operate this within the law as a conference center and not as the large resort hotel which they are obviously planning on.
Town board members in New York State are expected to create or modify zoning law consistent with the town’s Comprehensive Plan, but the Clinton Town Board clearly hasn’t done so here, essentially ignoring the Comprehensive Plan by fiat. Private short-term rentals are being severely restricted, but the Conference Center Law has been interpreted to allow a 240-guest resort. Unless the Conference Center Law is modified or repealed, it seems clear that a global corporation is getting special treatment while residents get the short end of the stick
We agree! What’s the sense of restricting individual short-term rentals, agricultural event venues, and hotels and other lodging while allowing a huge 240-guest resort development at the same time? Unless the Conference Center Law is modified or repealed, it seems clear that a global corporation is getting special treatment while residents are getting shortchanged. Remember, there are NO benefits to local residents from this resort.
NO. It is true that Hyde Park passed Local Law 1 in January 2025 to overturn its own zoning officials. Hyde Park’s Town Supervisor outright said the law was designed specifically for Six Senses. But the law still requires IHG to file an application for approval of the project’s access roads, and it gives any Hyde Park resident 30 days to challenge the proposed roads. On April 17th, 2025, three Hyde Park residents filed a petition asking Hyde Park to deny the application. IHG immediately tried to have the petition thrown out, and is now urging that the public hearing where the Town Board will consider it – currently scheduled for Monday, June 9th at 6:00pm – should be postponed. In any case, until the Hyde Park Town Board approves the Six Senses access road application, there is no approved road access to the property.
CSHV is also part of a lawsuit, along with many individual area residents and the Town of Rhinebeck, challenging Hyde Park’s law and its actions to overturn its Zoning Board of Appeals and Zoning Administrator. That suit is pending in Dutchess County Supreme Court.
To understand the issues around the development of the particular property, it’s valuable to understand the history. We’ve created this chronology based solely on the information we’ve been able to gather from online resources, Clinton’s LaserFiche and our FOIL requests.
The first three (collapsed) portions provide great background history of the area, the property and Clinton’s history of land stewardship, and conference center law revision. (touch/click the “+” to expand the earlier timeline portions.)
Then the IHG Six Senses issues begin in 2022…
The Mid-Hudson Valley was inhabited by various indigenous peoples, primarily the Lenape, Wappinger, and Mohican for thousands of years prior to European colonization. These groups had complex social structures and sustainable relationships with the land. These groups utilized the land for hunting, fishing, agriculture, and seasonal encampments.
The stream we now know as Crum Elbow Creek was originally called the “Ea-qua-ry-sing”, meaning "It is very shallow" before Henry Hudson in the early 1600s, Today’s Route 9G was developed out of a native trail that follows this stream at many places. It is a local landmark and a Class A(T) Trout Stream with miles of stocked trout, home to many native species, and its connecting waters are essential to the endangered Blanding’s turtle, spotted turtles, wood turtles, American eels, pool-breeding amphibians, and other wildlife.
In early 1600's when the Dutch settled, Crum Elbow Creek was known as the Kromme Elleboog (Dutch) and then morphed into the name Krom Elbow (English) and now, its current name, the Crum Elbow creek.
European Settlement increasing substantially, including “official negotiation between indigenous and Europeans” for transfer of land.
Special-Use Permit granted for small-scale facilities for a maximum of 28 guests. Owners Sherry & Stewart Kahn founded Old Stone Farm as a small-scale agriculture-based dude-ranch operation.
Clinton adopts Farmland Protection Plan designating the property as a prime agricultural area classified as an “Important Farmland Area". This classification is based on four agricultural resource attributes: prime farmland soils, soils of statewide significance, participation in the agricultural districts program and participation in an agricultural assessment program. The report notes that farmland and other open space lands generate more public revenue than they require in public services.
Town of Clinton adopts its Open Space Protection Plan, stating that the Town of Clinton desires to maintain its rural character consisting of natural landscapes, native ecosystems, working farms, hamlet-scale development and historic structures to preserve its scenic quality, promote its small-town atmosphere and protect quality of life. See property identified in Circle #3...
Rare Animal Species Map
Or see the full...
Clinton Open Space Protection Plan
Town of Clinton adopts its Comprehensive Plan, concluding that The Town of Clinton desires to maintain its rural character, consisting of natural landscapes, native ecosystems, working farms, small hamlet-scale development and historic structures, while preserving its scenic quality, and to do so in a manner that continues to promote its small-town atmosphere and quality of life. Clinton Comprehensive Plan
The Town of Clinton collaborated with Hudsonia Ltd. to conduct a comprehensive habitat mapping project resulting in the "Significant Habitats in the Town of Clinton" report. The property is included in that report raising numerous conservation concerns including forests, streams, significant habitat areas and watershed issues.
The Dutchess property operates illegally as a “secret hotel”, restaurant and event venue, promoted through area media channels. These uses violated the Special Use Permit for a small-scale dude ranch and conference center and owners were cited many times for illegal operations.
The Hyde Park Town Board passed Local Law G that amends Hyde Park’s zoning code to allow any road or driveway in the town to be used to access property in a neighboring locality, even if that property’s use violates Hyde Park’s own code. The public hearing was attended by over 150 people, with almost all opposing the new law specifically designed to facilitate the Six Senses project. During this meeting, the Hyde Park Supervisor explicitly stated the law was negotiated for Six Senses.
Despite vocal opposition from residents AND Hyde Park ZBA's chair AND detailed written concerns by Hyde Park's Conservation Advisory Council, the Town Board passed Local Law G by a narrow 3-2 vote (only Prine & Mesquita defended their residents, ZBA and Greenbelt.)
(Proposed Local Law G is now known as "Local Law 1 of 2025".)
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