The Story
Hammertown sits a half mile east of the village of Pine Plains, in a narrow valley cut by the Shekomeko Creek. The hamlet took its name from the sound of the trip hammers at the Harris Scythe Works, the forge John Harris established after the Revolution, and in its prime it held a post office, a schoolhouse, a blacksmith, and a carding mill. The farmhouse at 85 Hammertown Road rose around 1774 and has passed through just three families in two and a half centuries.
The most recent chapter is the one Hudson Valley readers know. In 1985, Joan Osofsky, a former New Jersey schoolteacher newly arrived upstate, spent ten thousand dollars fixing up the 1810 barn beside her house, horse stalls still in one half, and opened Hammertown, the country furnishings store that grew to outposts in Rhinebeck and Great Barrington and ran for four decades before winding down this spring. The sale of the property closes that chapter.
Inside
The main house holds five bedrooms and four baths behind a plan that still reads as a colonial farmhouse: a boot room, formal dining room, and living room across the ground floor, with a large kitchen anchoring the back. Five fireplaces are spread through the house, the floors are wide-plank wood, and millwork lines nearly every wall. Upstairs, two en-suite bedrooms each pair a full bath with a fireplace, joined by three more bedrooms and another full bath.
The Land
The 1.8 acres are layered rather than large: a wrought-iron greenhouse, a French parterre garden planted with herbs and lavender, stone walls, two porches, and a broad dining terrace. The 1810 barn arrives with electric, heat, air conditioning, and plumbing of its own, and the two-bedroom guest cottage at the entrance carries a double-height great room with arched windows and French doors. Millerton is minutes away, the Connecticut line fifteen, and the city about two hours.
In Contract
