The joyous lake, a Woodstock club that opened in the 1970s, was the place-to-be for decades. Customers would fill the restaurant and bar, leaning back with drinks in-hand and listening to live music. Some nights, a young local band would play, only to be joined onstage by legends like Paul Butterfield.
Paul Covello fondly remembers the music of those days, and the Woodstock-area native hopes to recreate the same atmosphere at Hotel Dylan. Sitting on Route 28 across from the Ashokan Reservoir—and just a seven-minute drive to Woodstock—Hotel Dylan channels the spirit of the iconic art colony through mountainside comfort.
Guests, hailing from places as diverse as the tri-state area, Great Britain, and Australia, frequently meet at the hotel’s fire pit to strum guitar, roast marshmallows, and have a few drinks after a day spent hiking Overlook Mountain or attending a concert at the Bearsville Theater. Hotel Dylan gives them a chance to wind down among like company.
“We just decided to stick with what makes woodstock woodstock and really embrace the communal atmosphere,” Paul says, “so we put the fire pit dead center in the middle of the lawn.”
Paul bought the Hotel Dylan property after his brother built 28 West Gym on the other side of Route 28. It was a way to tap back into his Woodstock roots after moving to Manhattan. Now, Covello returns to the Hudson Valley on weekends to check up on the hotel.
