495 Silver Hollow Road, Willow, NY 12495

Two-bedroom house at the end of Silver Hollow Road, in the hamlet of Willow. It was drawn in 1971 by a commercial artist who had come from London and built a career in New York, and it went up to that design in 1972. He put it up as a country house and then made it the place he lived.

The county carries it as a contemporary, bi-level, 980 square feet: wood siding and concrete over a block foundation, an asphalt roof, double-pane glass.

Upstairs is a single room under cathedral ceilings, the original beams left exposed overhead, with walls of glass at either end so the forest reads from both sides at once. Living room, dining area and kitchen run together without a wall between them.

The kitchen has been rebuilt: new cabinetry with built-ins, quartz counters, new stainless appliances. A door opens straight onto the deck that runs the back of the house.

Both bedrooms are on the floor you walk into, each one facing woods. The bathroom has been redone in custom tile with a glass-enclosed shower, and the laundry sits on the same floor. Sliding doors lead out to a covered patio under the deck.

Warner Creek runs through the parcel and is included in it. Beyond the property line the road stops and the Catskill Forest begins, held as wild forest land by the New York State Constitution since the language went in in 1894.

From the hamlet a yellow-blazed trail climbs out of Willow to meet the blue-blazed Warner Creek Trail, which carries north through the Phoenicia to Mount Tobias Wild Forest, past Silver Hollow Notch, and on into the Indian Head Wilderness. The walking starts where the driveway ends.

New roof, new septic. The house last changed hands in April 2003 and has been held since by the same owners, who used it as a retreat first and kept it that way.

Woodstock is minutes east on Route 212, Phoenicia a short run west, and Kingston, the Stockade District and the Rondout are under half an hour.