Take Part in BeaconArts' Upcoming Member Show! Submissions Now Open!

All BeaconArts members are invited to submit artwork for our first annual Member Show at Hudson Beach Gallery (above Hudson Beach Glass) at 162 Main St., Beacon, NY. The exhibition runs Saturday, July 13 to Sunday, August 4, and is curated by Theresa Gooby and Karlyn Benson.

Space is limited, so send your submissions to membershow@beaconarts.org before Friday, May 24 to guarantee your spot. All mediums are welcome. For complete details and submission guidelines please visit the event’s website.

If you would like to participate, but are not a BeaconArts member or need to renew, please click here to join today.

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BeaconArts is a Community Partner of A Little Beacon Blog and is part of our Sponsor Spotlight program. This article was part of their monthly messaging partnership. Thank you for supporting organizations who support us!

Branding Made Easy :: Small Businesses Can Post Couture Branded Templates (Sponsored)

A special message from our sponsor, Katie James, Inc.

Branding Made Easy :: Social Media Card Templates

The philosophy at Katie James, Inc. is to make clients’ lives easy, branded and beautiful. Katie James, Inc. is designing blank Social Media Cards for clients to use as they share announcements, like "Open Hours" or if they post a new workshop. This is especially important after a new website design, where the business wants social media posts to match their new website look. This way, followers in Instagram will quickly and easily see and get a feel for the brand as they thumb through Instagram.

These templates were designed for Knot Too Shabby, at 155 Main Street in Beacon, NY, where they sell Annie Sloan Home furniture paint, stencils, picture frames, soap, country-style signs, and other household decor. Now, the business owner Caryn can use whatever photo she wants for a new Make and Take Class, and put the official title on top of it, then upload it to her Shopify website, and voila! She is on-brand.

For example, if Caryn decided to host a new class where the signage is a personalized baseball, she can do this, and put the Make and Take title atop it without asking Katie James, Inc., her website design team, to do it for her. (Empowerment is everything!)

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Katie James, Inc. is a Spotlight Sponsor of A Little Beacon Blog, and a sister design agency who has designed this website and sponsors’ ads. It is with the support of businesses that A Little Beacon Blog can bring you coverage of news, local happenings and events. Thank you for supporting businesses who support us! If you would like to become a Sponsor or Community Partner, please click here for more information.

Sunday Real Estate Feature: Cute Storefront Space on Main Street - Formerly A Kids Consignment Shop

Here's a little secret - this little yellow storefront is what hooked my hubby and myself into Beacon. Back when we were only thinking of making the move up from the city, we had dreams of filling it with a boutique, and doing something spectacular with the raw warehouse space behind it (also available for rent right now). What will you do with it?
From Gate House Realty: “Beautifully maintained storefront in Central Main Street zoned business district of Beacon. High visibility with double window displays, open floor plan with incredible natural light, hardwood floors and half bath. Available immediately. Call listing agent to schedule a viewing.”
RENT: $2,000/month
Real Estate Agent: Gate House Realty, (845) 831-9550
Details + Pictures >

Happy Independent Bookstore Day, Binnacle Books! Last Chance On Their Original Tote Bag

Happy Independent Bookstore Day Binnacle Books! It’s risky for any retail shop to open a brick-and-mortar store, but perhaps even more so for an indie bookstore! Many cheers to Binnacle Books for doing that in Beacon, and for connecting all of us with the printed page and for readings and other book 📖 based events.

It’s also really easy to order any book you want from Binnacle - just tell them what you want over the counter or the phone, they click up some magic, and 💥 BAM, you can pick it up in the store!

Binnacle Books has helped promote other indie bookstores by making available the Hudson Valley Book Trail Map, debuting today in their shop. Plus, this is your last chance to get one of their original tote bags - perfect timing for the plastic bag ban!

Says their newsletter: “Stop by to browse some fantastic recent releases, revisit old favorites, or get a recommendation for something new. If you spend $75 or more with us today, we'll throw in one of our original blue totes with your order. If you ever wanted one, now's your chance: after this run sells out, we aren't printing them again.” 

A Little Beacon Blog is honored to partner with all of our sponsors, but especially so when Binnacle approached us, wanting to sponsor our Shopping Guide. Thank you for having faith in us! Binnacle Books is a Sponsor, but this is not a sponsored post. It’s a “Celebrate Indie Bookstores!” post.

Go give Binnacle some love! Binnacle Books is at 321 Main St., Beacon, NY.

Exciting New Frames From Anne & Valentin Visiting Luxe Optique

What a delightful surprise while making our sponsor rounds today for this weekend’s Friday Feature in the newsletter (subscribe if you haven’t!). When stepping into Luxe Optique, we got to see a real live stylist and representative from Anne & Valentin with the newest designs.

Often, actually, we stumble in when a major line is in the store with all of their suitcases filled with precious goodies while we’re collecting a feature photo.

Meet Andry pictured here. He was sooo nice, and knew all about the designer curves of all of these new frames. Look for Luxe Optique’s feature photo in their sponsor spot this Friday!

Discover more shops in A Little Beacon Blog’s Shopping Guide! You can always tap Guides and Calendars in the navigation above - from your computer or mobile.

A Girl Can’t Pass Up A Good Sale Rack...La Mere Delivers

A girl can’t pass a good sale rack... La Mère Clothing and Goods always delivers.

It was a pleasure visiting the shop and #shootingtheshingle (a new Tin Shingle term!) during our mini-photo session for her sponsor spot in A Little Beacon Blog’s Shopping Guide!

Go visit our Shopping Guide to learn about more Beacon stores, by tapping Guides and Calendars, then tap Shopping Guide.

Do hit up this clothing rack in person!

2019 Parade of Green Grand Marshal Fred Antalek Shares His Fondest Beacon Memory - "Rowing Behind Rite Aid" (Sponsored)

You’ve seen this face before - longtime Beacon resident and business owner Fred Antalek. Fred was born in 1937 and still works for his family business, Antalek & Moore Insurance Agency, coming to work “faithfully to keep everyone in check.” On Saturday, March 9, 2019, he’ll be bundling up along with everyone else to serve for his first time as the Grand Marshal in Beacon’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade of Green.

To find out how Fred feels about being this year’s Grand Marshal, we reached out to his daughter, Susan Antalek Pagones, who now runs the business with her partner Vince Lemma and their team of staff members. “Fred is quite honored about being the Grand Marshal this year,” Susan replied. “People ask if he is Irish… LOL, he is actually from the Gallagher family, so don’t be fooled!”

Fred’s Fondest Memory of Beacon

Schoonmaker’s, a department store in Beacon. Open from 1929 to 1960.
Photo Credit: Beacon Historical Society

Our Beacon elders are filled with fond and important memories. We asked Susan for one of Fred’s: “When Fred was 10 years old, he used to row around in a boat on the street behind Rite Aid,” Susan recalled. That street is also the location of Antalek & Moore’s current Beacon office. “This area was always flooded.”

Flooded? “Yes,” said Fred. “Matteawan Brook is what constantly overflowed. This brook caused major flooding to the back of what is now Rite Aid and the intersection of Church and South Chestnut Street.” Before Rite Aid, the location was the home of Schoonmaker’s.

Schoonmaker’s, which you may have heard references to in old stories, was one of the first department stores in Beacon. According to the Beacon Historical Society:

Schoonmaker's Department Store. Beacon had its first "modern" Department Store when Schoonmaker's opened its doors in the Christmas season of 1929. With "60 departments under one roof" (including "Toyland" in the basement), Schoonmaker's was the first stop for your Christmas shopping on Main Street. Later on, across the street at 341 Main, was the W.T. Grant store (Schoonmaker's biggest competitor), where you could even buy a live parakeet for Christmas! Like so many other good things in Beacon, Schoonmaker's and Grant’s were both gone by the late 1960s.

- Beacon Historical Society

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A map of Beacon from 1876, when the town was known as Fishkill on the Hudson. The Map shows the Matteawan stream.

UPDATE 3/9/2019: Since first publishing this article, a reader wrote in with a picture of a map of Beacon from 1876 when it was known as Fishkill on the Hudson. The stream is also on the 1867 map we covered earlier. The reader, Air Nonken Rhodes, is on the Resources Committee for Beacon, a new committee that is currently compiling all known natural resources in Beacon. Residents who live in that area still experience some flooding, so we asked Air about the stream as it is today:

“They buried the stream circa 1910 - scavenger hunt to find the plaque in Memorial Park commemorating that! The stream-burying was done rather poorly. It was especially challenging since it was swampy ground all around what’s now Rite Aid. That’s a big part of why the center section of Main Street wasn’t developed sooner and more fully. So, flooded basements still today, and not many historic buildings along there.”

More Beacon Business Trivia

Family businesses run deep in Beacon. Fred used to have his office on East Main Street, where Tiko’s Hair is now. “I remember it well,” recalled Susan. “I used to slide along the floor, where the large picture window is. playing with my toys. His sister Mary Ann worked for him.” In the late ’70s/early ’80s, Fred moved to 308 Main Street, where the Darrow Brothers used to have their clothing store. When Fred merged with Pat Moore, the business moved to 340 Main Street, Antalek & Moore’s current location. Fred’s mother worked at Gallagher’s Market, the current location of BAJA.

Continuing in her father’s footsteps, Susan has recently closed on the purchase of their building. She is one of Beacon’s newest female building owners. She’s got her eyes fixed on a new project on their roof involving a light. “We are trying to get the ‘beacon’ light on the roof - look for it the next time you pass by. I think that might be neat to find out the history of that.”

Stay tuned…

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Antalek & Moore is a sponsor of A Little Beacon Blog, and this article was created with them as part of our Sponsor Spotlight program. It is with the support of businesses like theirs that A Little Beacon Blog can bring you coverage of news, local happenings and events. Thank you for supporting businesses who support us! If you would like to become a Sponsor or Community Partner, please click here for more information.

Local Shopping to Local Pickup! La Mère Clothing and Goods Changes How People Shop Local (Sponsored)

Main Street is getting even more shoppable as business owners invest in their websites so that locals - or out-of-towners who have never been here, yet - can easily shop a local store online to buy in advance and reserve at the shop for local pickup.

For La Mère Clothing and Goods, it may be easier for owner April’s clientele (who tend to be women, who sometimes need to have their children tagging along when out and about) to buy in the middle of the night as they are thumbing through La Mère’s very active Instagram feed. This way, April’s customer (or men who buy for partners or their home) has the option of buying something without bringing the whole family inside of the shop to complete the purchase of the coveted pink velvet ballet flats shown here. And yes, those are mine now, purchased on a Sunday night at 10:30 pm, picked up on a Friday morning while I was in the shop taking La Mère’s advertiser photo for our weekend Happening This Weekend newsletter.

Our sister design agency, Katie James, Inc. designed La Mère’s website and fashioned the Free Local Pickup option on the site. Whenever in the shop, I “shoot the shingle” (a term used over at my other training business, Tin Shingle) with most business owners about how business is going, what is working and not working. Turns out, when La Mère’s owner, April, told customers in the store that they could “buy an item online,” they took that to mean that she was giving them permission to go elsewhere and purchase it online, like at Amazon or something (I’m not a fan of Amazon for a myriad of reasons). Turns out, shoppers needed to be educated about La Mère’s own online shop, and that it was OK to shop local that way. The online store was the end result of the sale.

To let shoppers know about the online shopping feature, we came up with this official Local Pickup Pile in the store. April made a sign for it, and she may show it more to her customers via Instagram and a future newsletter to customers. Shoppers can select the Free Local Pickup option at checkout, and then come in when they can, and visit with April! I love getting these personalized pink Post-It notes on the bag!

Up Next: Knot Too Shabby on the other end of Main Street is in the final stages of website redesign for her shop. Stay tuned! There are LOADS of things you’ll find in her store other than the Annie Sloan furniture paint. Which is of course, everyone’s favorite.

PS: I had insider intel that these pink velvet ballet flats - which suddenly went on sale - were only available with one pair left in my size. You know what that means: midnight shopping for local shopping. 🛍

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Editor’s Note: This article is a Sponsored Partner Post that A Little Beacon Blog did with Katie James, Inc., which is also part of A Little Beacon Blog and is also run by me - Katie (it’s like owning different restaurants that serve different food). This article a way to show you about our design and consulting services, but it made for a pretty good article regardless, don’t you think? ;) We can do these kind of editorial approved Partner Posts for your business as well. See our Media Kit for details, and reach out if you have a topic that might be appropriate.

Welcome Firefly Yoga As A Sponsor Of A Little Beacon Blog's Adult Classes Guide!

Welcome to our new Sponsor of A Little Beacon Blog’s Adult Classes Guide, Firefly Yoga and Juice Bar! With their support, we are able to show you inside their beautiful studio, feature regular and special classes, and promote to this Guide in general, showcasing many small businesses in it. See all the pictures and offerings by hitting our Adult Classes Guide right here!

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A Big Thank You To Our Supporting Sponsors Of The Shopping Guide!

A big Thank You to the sponsors and supporting businesses of A Little Beacon Blog’s Shopping Guide!

This is a Guide we created that includes all shops in Beacon (if we missed you, email us!), and businesses have the opportunity to stand out with a Sponsor Spot to show readers photos inside of their shops, and special events.

Supporting Sponsors include Luxe Optique, Lambs Hill Bridal Boutique, Binnacle Books and La Mère Clothing + Goods. Thank you so much! Your ongoing support helps us maintain these Guides, and produce the Happening This Weekend newsletter that everybody loves that comes out on Fridays. We’re busy working on that today!

An exciting weekend is coming up, with Second Saturday and the Parade of Green! You can always visit the Shopping Guide here, that lists all shops with addresses and links. Share with your friends who are visiting! Or use it yourself to go inside the stores! You'll be so happy you did.

If you run a business and are interested in participating, click here to our Media Kit for details.

New Shingle In Town On The Telephone Building

Look who got a new shingle! Our building, Beacon’s own Telephone Building, which was built in 1907 and restored almost a century later. A Little Beacon Blog’s office and venue space is located inside on the first floor, sharing the building with other great business tenants.

Owner and master gilder Deborah Bigelow has completed her renovations to this building, a project that has taken her many years. Yet you’ll always see her outside tinkering on something with the building, such as securing the food compost bin or cleaning marks from the limestone.

We are honored to be a part of her journey as a tenant, and also as her branding partner with the designing of her first website to showcase the building. A Little Beacon Blog’s sister design agency, Katie James Inc., designed her website so that you can learn about all the building and the work Deborah and her team put into it over the years: www.telephonebuildingbeacon.com.

Antalek & Moore Hires Local Talent For Website Makeover (Sponsored)

Crucial to the success of a community is jobs. Some people have full-time jobs and work for other people. Antalek & Moore Insurance Agency in Beacon, NY, employs a staff of 10 full-time employees and 1 part-time employee. Other people create their own jobs based on their creative talent as small business owners and entrepreneurs. Antalek & Moore reached out to these entrepreneurs in the local market when they decided to kick off 2019 with a new online presence, featuring a cleaner, mobile-friendly website!

Hiring Local Design and Photography Talent

Says Susan about the website design process: “Two years ago, we changed how we market, using social media and a new website. We wanted to work with locals to create this for us.” Antalek & Moore entered the social media landscape with Kate Rabe of Marketing Inbound, who works with several organizations throughout the Hudson Valley.

For the website design, Kate referred Antalek & Moore to Katy Dwyer Design, who is known for working closely with clients. Katy and her team produced the design, and Kate shaped the content. “The goal was to re-vamp the website so it is more user-friendly, and not so stiff,” explains Susan.

“One of the most exciting aspects of the project is how we were able to use the photography of our longtime friend of the family, Scott Snell, who is a broadcast camera operator and drone photographer (learn more about him in his interview in the Highlands Current). He was responsible for the beautiful local artwork that now hangs on our walls.” Scott is known for sharing beautiful photography of Beacon with the public on social media.

New Website Features

Whether you’re looking to pay your bill, request a quote, or want to find out when Susan’s next Defensive Driving course is scheduled, the new design provides easier navigation for visitors. Since Antalek & Moore Insurance Agency serves as your local agent and liaison with whichever national insurance agency you elect to go with, you can pay that insurance company directly as well, if you’re used to paying that way.

If you are curious about updating your coverage for your home, car, or business - visit Antalek & Moore at www.antalek-moore.com.

Personally, I’m all bundled up with Antalek & Moore! Home, Car, Business. Easy.

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Antalek & Moore is a sponsor of A Little Beacon Blog, and this article was created with them as part of our Sponsor Spotlight program. It is with the support of businesses like theirs that A Little Beacon Blog can bring you coverage of news, local happenings and events. Thank you for supporting businesses who support us! If you would like to become a Sponsor or Community Partner, please click here for more information.

Barb's Butchery - More Than Cuts Of Meat! (Sponsored)

A Little Beacon Blog is excited to welcome back Barb’s Butchery as a Restaurant Guide Sponsor! We met Barb when she opened Beacon’s first butcher shop in December 2014 and has since become a staple in the city. The shop butchers grass-finished beef, lamb, pork and poultry, all raised in the Hudson Valley.

Barb’s Butchery, located at 69 Spring St in Beacon, is open daily from 11 am to 6 pm. The grill is on during those hours so walk-ins are welcome for enjoying a tasty meal in-shop such as burgers, sandwiches (including brisket, and corned beef), tacos and so much more. You can see Barb’s full eat-in menu here. If you plan to visit, you can call in your order for faster service.

Not only can you get your stock of fresh, local, grass-fed meats, you can order fun treats for your party such as Meatballs topped with Mashed Potatoes , a Meat Party Cake, and Meaty Muffins…. yes, you just read all of that correctly. This is a meat-lovers dream!

Check out her monthly specials! Their front door is a stop on the Beacon Free Loop Bus route, so there’s no excuse to not pay a visit.

Barb’s Butchery
69 Spring Street
Beacon, NY 12508
(845) 831-8050

The Highlands Current Needs Your Help! Seeking Fundraising To Continue Covering Beacon

The Highlands Current is a local newspaper you’ve seen around town, stacked in storefronts, and now in the blue boxes that keep popping up on street corners. The paper is a nonprofit organization, and while they do rely on advertising, they count on individual donations more - 75% of publishing costs come from donors! The paper, which is distributed for FREE, is in the final, heated days of their big fundraising appeal, and needs Beacon’s help! Beaconites are so important to the publication, that the paper has invested in an ad campaign here at A Little Beacon Blog to help them get the word out. And you know we love helping to spread the good word.

Years ago, the Highlands Current was launched and covered Cold Spring, Garrison, Nelsonville and North Highlands. In 2015, they expanded their coverage to include Beacon by dedicating at least two reporters, Jeff Simms and Brian PJ Cronin, to cover the Beacon “beat” (newspaper term), as well as Alison Rooney to feature stories on the arts, Michael Turton with some articles (he also delivers the papers all around town) and Pamela Doan, the editor of the Calendar section that includes Beacon events in their roundup. And now I too have joined the ranks as a columnist with my “Kid Friendly” column over there. If you attend City Council or Board of Education meetings, you stand a good chance of seeing Jeff or Brian in the unofficial “press box” (aka somewhere in the front rows).

Highlands Current Quick To Report On Important Issues

Thanks to this dedication, The Highlands Current is often the first to report on big changes coming out of our City Council - changes that impact your daily life here in Beacon. Also because of this investment, their reporters follow different events each week at these meetings, so are super familiar with the twists and turns the issues make, and often weave these significant details into their articles for better context. Because they print on paper, a newspaper doesn’t get to use as much space as a blog does, so often they have to select their words so carefully, and cram hours’ worth of events and pages of supporting documents into three tiny paragraphs!

The paper published this picture to show how two Beacon Reporters work from the Telephone Building through Beahive’s shared office space.

Beacon Newspaper Reporters Work From The Telephone Building

Little known fact to bolster your Beacon trivia base: The Highlands Current stations their reporters out of the Telephone Building in Beahive’s shared work space. A Little Beacon Blog also has our office in the Telephone Building! It’s fun to be in a communications hub like this.

Fundraising Opportunity - Double Match Going On Now ’Til December 31!

Thanks to a grant from NewsMatch and an anonymous donor, any contribution from $1 to $1,000 will be matched two times until December 31! Even if you gave just $10, it matters!

Yes, the dollars help, but new donors are equally important. New donors signal to the newspaper that you care, and you want their coverage to continue. If you have already donated to the Highlands Current this year, consider asking your spouse or best friend to also donate if they haven’t yet. #NewDonorAlert!

PS: If you are reading this article after December 31, 2018, you can still donate! Every little bit helps.

Gratitude Alert: Antalek & Moore Insurance Agency As Lead ALBB Sponsor

During this holiday season, we’re sending out a simple message of gratitude to one of our first and longest sponsors: Antalek & Moore Insurance Agency. I first met Susan Antalek Pagones during a joint BeaconArts / Beacon Chamber Member Mingle at St. Rocco’s, and it is an evening I will always remember for its illumination of how history is handed down in Beacon.

Right after introducing myself and saying I had just moved here and where my house was, Susan turned to her colleague, Terry Williams, to ask her: “Whose house is that?” Now, I knew whose house it was from the young family we bought it from (they bought it years ago, and opted to move closer to the mountain), but Susan and Terry knew it from the two generations of the family who had lived there prior.

I have since heard about this other family from our first plumber who could identify the pipes in the basement as his own among the other pipes that were not his work. The next person who knew our home better than me was a handyman I hired for my office to hang an OPEN sign from the ceiling. It turns out he was friends with the son of the family who owned our home decades ago. They have since both turned into professional home improvement professionals, which makes sense when I notice the creatively custom-built details around our home.

Susan teaches me about community-centered business all the time. Susan, her partner Vince Lemma, and their team of dedicated agents can help make it easier for you to decipher insurance, whether home, condo, renters, business, health, car, etc. Learn about how they do it in this exclusive interview with Susan Antalek Pagones here, and the interview we did with Vince here.

Thank you Team Antalek & Moore for supporting local media and A Little Beacon Blog!