When Covid hit and Leigh Rathner’s job as a cameraman in Hollywood was put on hold, he used his newfound downtime to reassess his career—and to bake a lot of bread. “He got a little obsessed,” Leigh’s wife, Cindy Rosenberg, says of the common Covid pastime. “But we saw it as our opportunity to get out of the city. He was like, ‘I’m going to open a sourdough bakery.’ And I was like, ‘You don’t know how to do that.’”
Regardless, that’s what Rathner did. After moving to Wilton in 2021, the couple launched Night Work Bread Co., baking out of a pizza oven in a kitchen borrowed from 9 Miles East’s Gordon Sacks. “We were working all week to produce enough for all the farmers’ markets, and then if there was bad weather on one of the weekend days, the whole week was shot,” Rosenberg says. “We had a vision [to bake] things that were more perishable and hard to send to markets, so we thought we’d keep our eyes open for a spot.” When they learned that a fellow farmers’ market vendor was leaving her location on Science Street in Ballston Spa, they jumped on the opportunity. In February of this year, the couple opened a small bakery that at press time was open Friday to Sunday selling loaves, pastries and breakfast and lunch foods including bagels, specialty toasts and soup, plus coffee from Knockabout Coffee Roasters, flowers from Goode Farm and tea from Saratoga Tea & Honey. Even the tables in the bakery are locally sourced; they came from a woodworker the couple met at a farmers’ market.
Night Work Bread Co. owners Cindy Rosenberg and Leigh Rathner first got into baking bread because they are gluten intolerant; they figured out that if they used organic flour and long-fermented the bread, they could eat it.
How has Rathner been handling the change of pace from Hollywood life? He says that while he’s still working long hours, it’s because he wants to, not because he has to. “Honestly,” he says, “in two years I have not once gotten up and been like, ‘I don’t want to go to work.’” Adds Rosenberg: “His job on set was pretty thankless. They would come down hard on you the minute you screwed up, but every single shot you got right? Nobody cared. Here, what he hears all day long is, ‘Oh my God, thank you for being here, this is the best bread I’ve ever had in my entire life.’”
“Some people don’t care much about that,” Rathner says. “I care.”
Late-April 2021, and the setting in Saratoga was all about perspective. If you were part of a certain film crew working with Hollywood heavyweight Owen Wilson, the Spa City was re-imagined as 1970s Vermont, the setting for a new movie, Paint, which was filmed exclusively in and around the Spa City. If you were a star-crazy Saratogian, locating said film crew and flooding the local Facebook group with photos of it was your new sport of choice. For all, it was mostly post-pandemic bliss. There was an indescribable electricity in the air after being cooped up for a year but at long last being able to work again (if you were part of the film crew), and not be scared of being in a crowd—if you were one of the die-hards with your face pressed up against a window trying to catch a glimpse of Wilson.
And then there’s Wilson himself. Like the movie characters that have made him an international star, he took it all in stride, man.
“I had a great time,” he says, calling in from Maui, where he was vacationing with his two sons for their winter break from school. “I really did. It’s such a beautiful town, and I couldn’t help but meet people. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming to us. I had never really spent time in upstate New York, and I loved it.”
(The film’s executive producer, Richard J. Bosner, was more effusive: “It was really wild!” he says of the local crowds, especially the end-shoot work, including barbershop scenes shot at Lucy’s on Caroline Street before it was Lucy’s. “We definitely felt it. The entire town was watching!”)
Wilson in a still from his latest film, “Paint,” in which he plays Carl Nargle, a TV painter based on PBS icon Bob Ross. “Bob Ross is a good person to be obsessed with,” Wilson says of the current resurgence of interest in the late iconic TV star. “He does have a sort of cachet among hipsters and young people. Even here on Maui, I saw a lady wearing a Bob Ross T-shirt. So he really does have a following.”
That barbershop is pretty crucial to the indie comedy—Wilson’s character, Carl Nargle, is based on the iconic TV painter Bob Ross, enormous perm and all. Across the street from Lucy’s, the dive bar Desperate Annie’s serves as the town water cooler in the film, familiar houses on Circular Street can be seen as he drives his retro van through town, and Olde Bryan Inn serves as the romantic setting for a date with an aggressive fan. Nargle’s art studio is a barn in Greenfield Center, and his work shots take place—of course—at WMHT’s television studios. Other local spots that appear in the movie include the Hidden Lake Girl Scout Camp, the intersection of Railroad Place and Division Street, the Lincoln Baths, and various residences around Saratoga.
“Carl’s look was obviously inspired by Bob Ross, and his painting, of course,” says Wilson. “[Director] Brit McAdams used that as a jumping off point to imagine this character who works at a PBS station in a small town. I’m the big fish in a small pond, and everyone caters to me. But then a new painter comes along and steals my thunder. I really enjoyed the story and the world that Brit created. This was genuinely my sense of humor—and there aren’t many scripts that are my sense of humor!”
We’ll be able to see this world for ourselves when Paint—and Saratoga—hits the big screen April 7.
Wilson, who rose to stardom alongside brother Luke, hails from Dallas and was seemingly born to be an actor. The son of a renowned photographer, he credits his parents for opening the door for him to choose a creative field, a destiny that has brought him fame via movies such as Rushmore, Zoolander, Night at the Museum and Wedding Crashers. Early in his career, he co-wrote the screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums with director (and close friend) Wes Anderson, earning him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
“I just kind of fell into it,” he says. “I was an English major in college and became friends with Wes and then he and I were roommates. He was very focused on wanting to be a director, so we started writing together. And then he wanted me to act. Both of my parents were creative. My dad was the head of the PBS station in Dallas and did some books and things. My mom was a photographer who photographed Donald Judd before he passed away. I always loved looking at the pictures she did of [west Texas artist enclave] Marfa and the installations there. I enjoy being around creative people because that’s how it was growing up—always around interesting and funny people. It’s been a fun life. I consider myself fortunate.”
Feathered Antler owner Gretchen Louise Tisch and Owen Wilson at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market.
His dad’s running of a PBS station is but one of many full-circle moments for the star and his latest movie. His buddy Peter Brant, the world-renowned art collector and a producer on Paint, has a house in Saratoga. And then there’s that tranquilizingly slow Bob Ross TV delivery that Wilson didn’t really have to practice.
“Carl does have a very soothing, calm way of talking, much like Bob Ross,” Wilson says. “I mean, I’m from Texas, so hopefully that’s in my wheelhouse to speak in that way—if you’re from Texas, you probably speak more slowly. I’m not great at doing voices and haven’t done them that much in movies. I can only think of one movie where I really, kind of changed my voice, and that was a sort of fake southern thing in The Life Aquatic [with Steve Zissou]. I’m sure it had no bearing on an actual Kentucky accent, but it was something that Wes thought was good and funny for the character.”
Executive producer Bosner and director McAdams loved the “unique vibe” that Saratoga was able to offer Paint. “Saratoga Springs has a timeless feel,” Bosner says. “Brit loved that version of the world that we were trying to create for Carl.”
Mother Nature even cooperated, delivering a cold spring— and late-April snowstorm.
“It snowed on our first day of filming,” Wilson says. “I was actually really excited because we had wanted to film a little bit more in the winter originally, when there would be some snow. I took it as a very good omen.” Then the southern boy paused before adding, “Yeah, it was pretty cold shooting in Saratoga in May.”
On a personal level, history nut Wilson loved Saratoga’s vibe as well—and shout-out to “landscapers Andy and Bob” for showing him around. “Growing up in Dallas, there’s not a lot of history,” Wilson says. “If you have a 7-Eleven that was there since 1978, it’s considered a landmark. So it was nice to be in Saratoga and have some genuine history. On my day off, I drove over to that great park [Saratoga National Historical Park] where you can see some sites regarding Benedict Arnold—you drive in and there are different places where you stop and look. One place is overlooking a valley, and it was a strategic place to set up cannons. And the place [Grant Cottage], where Ulysses Grant finished writing his memoirs! I’m interested in history, so that stuff was fun for me. And then, just the natural beauty of the area. We went for a hike up Buck Mountain. I even went swimming in Lake George. Now that was a cold swim.” (No kidding.)
Wilson was just in London for six months working on the second season of the Disney+ series “Loki,” starring Tom Hiddleston as the title character. (Marvel Pictures)
Wilson loved Saratoga so much that he’s determined to come back sometime during track season. Bosner says that the crew still talks about the horse crossings that stop traffic, and Wilson was impressed after riding his bike over to the track to check things out. “It’d be fun to go see the horse races,” he says. “I met one of the trainers and got to see the horses doing their morning runs. It’s such an interesting, cool world.”
Wilson seems to have a true affection for small towns and their quirks. So after two years of endless jokes connecting him with Chick-fil-A (confused? Search the What’s Going On Saratoga? Facebook group), the man himself—most recently referred to on social media as both the owner of Chick-fil-A and “mayor of Saratoga, head of the Chick-fil-A party”—was finally asked what he orders when he pops into the popular fast food joint that has so far eluded Saratoga.
“I’ve never eaten at Chick-fil-A!” he says, laughing. “Why? Is it really good?” So I took one for the team and quickly ran through the memes and jokes that have flooded our local social media circles. “That’s funny, because I do see them in Atlanta, and one just opened up in Maui,” he says, admitting his sons must like those famous waffle fries because they wanted to go to the new Maui location. “I’m not a huge chicken eater or fast food eater. Is there one in Saratoga? Oh, they wantone…”
The inexplicable running joke is confusing. But in the words of Wilson’s character Carl Nargle, “It’s hard not to feel a little lost…just take it all in.” See you on the big screen, Owen.
Apparel brands that pay homage to a particular place aren’t necessarily a new phenomenon—Straight Outta Compton shirts, Keep Portland Weird! buttons and OBX bumper stickers have been helping natives tout their hometown pride for years. But when budding entrepreneur and Bolton Landing native Domenick Pfau wanted to wear his hometown (literally) on his sleeve, he realized he didn’t even need to usethe words “Lake George” in his logo design. Locals would get it anyway.
It all started with Pfau’s sister, Sara, who was using an outline of Lake George that she’d drawn to make jewelry. After graduating from high school, Pfau got the long, skinny shape tattooed down his spine, and, sitting in economics class during his freshman year at the University of South Carolina, he got an idea. “I was doodling designs that would look cool with that design in the margins of my notebook,” he says. “I had ideas for life jackets, T-shirts…I even drew stuff for the straps on goggles—you know, stuff that you would use around the Adirondacks.” When Pfau and his friend Matthew Peterson, a fellow USC student and Bolton native, came home for the summer, they decided to screen print those designs onto tank tops. And with that, the Local brand was born.
Local cofounder Domenick Pfau’s sister, Sara, makes jewelry using the Lake George design she drew and sells it on iwearlocal.com.
Throughout college, the business partners sold Local merch out of the trunks of their cars. “I don’t know if we ever had more than $300 in the business fund at any time,” Pfau says, “because we’d take [any profit we got] and spend some on T-shirts and then the rest on beer.” Still, that model allowed them to play around with different designs. By the time they graduated, the Local brand had grown to about a dozen products and was so successful that Pfau and Peterson opened a brick-and-mortar store in Bolton Landing in 2014. “We were planning on doing it for the summer, and it was so successful that we went all the way through Christmas,” Pfau says. “We closed and opened up the next spring. That year, we realized we were so busy that we had to stay open all year long.”
Since then, Local has expanded to a second location in Lake George Village, and also has products—everything from shirts and hats to cutting boards and coasters, plus Sara’s jewelry—available online at iwearlocal.com. Pfau, who now lives in Saratoga, says the biggest sellers are hoodies and, unsurprisingly, decals, which have become so popular that you can’t drive north on I-87 without spotting one of the iconic white stickers on the back of someone’s Subaru. “It’s almost like a secret club,” Pfau says. “It doesn’t say Lake George, but if you know, you know. And if you don’t, you’re not a local.”
Oh, Snap!
While Domenick Pfau has been busy dominating Lake George’s apparel scene with his brand Local since 2014, the pandemic brought a new venture to the Saratogian’s doorstep. Stuck at home but still wanting to be creative, Pfau and another one of his friends from USC—Charlotte, NC resident Nick Hurd—got to talking about a concept Hurd had been ruminating on for a few years. “Nick remembers that he had this meeting where a guy came in with these multi-colored buttons on his shirt, and every single person in the meeting said something about them,” Pfau says. “It ended up being that the guy’s wife sewed them on by hand. So Nick’s gears started turning.”
His idea: What if he could find a way to change the color of your buttons, or accessorize those buttons, and make it easy enough for you to change them from day to day? The solution was Button Ups, small plastic covers that snap onto a shirt’s existing buttons, allowing you to customize a single shirt in many different ways. Pfau and Hurd launched the product on button-ups.com in 2021, and currently offer them in eight colors including The Maverick Blues (navy), The Smoking Aces (slate) and The Power Moves (red).
The business world, Pfau believes, is ready for a product like this, given the post-pandemic fashion trend toward a more casual look. “Nobody is wearing ties anymore,” he says of professional work environments. “You can wear your goofy socks, but nobody sees those.” So for those men looking to stand out from the hordes of white-shirted, blue-blazered suits? Help is only a tube of Button Ups away.
Of all the goals people hope to achieve in celebration of their 40th birthdays, Jeff Engler’s is a unique one. The Wright Electric CEO—whose milestone birthday is this month—wants to build the world’s largest electric plane.
The challenges are immense, but Engler must be doing something right: Major backers such as NASA, the US Air Force and easyJet have already lined up behind his buzzy electric aerospace start-up, which recently relocated to Malta. The aviation world is excitingly on the precipice of a green-energy revolution, with first-generation electric commercial planes set to launch in the next few years—and Engler says his company’s planned 100-passenger Wright Spirit will be among them come 2026.
Founded in 2016 and formerly based in Boston and cities in California, the 15-person company set up shop last summer in the woodsy 280-acre Saratoga Technology + Energy Park—the former site of the government-run Malta Test Station, a rocket testing and research facility that is now a haven for various high-tech, clean energy companies.
“We make a very specialized motor and a very specialized computer to control that motor, and there aren’t a lot of places in the world where there are people who have deep expertise in that,” Engler says of the talent pool here in Tech Valley, citing the presence of high-tech companies such as GE Research and GlobalFoundries and techy higher-learning institutions like Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “There are lots and lots of engineers and suppliers and general knowledge through academia, as well. It’s a virtuous cycle.”
Engler seemed destined for a career in sustainable aviation. His grandfather was an aerospace engineer, and his parents were ardent environmentalists who instilled in him a love for the planet and the great outdoors. “I love all the outdoorsy activities in the Capital Region, north and south,” he says. “There’s extraordinary hiking and biking;
the nature in the area is unparalleled.”
After growing up in Westchester, Engler went on to receive an MBA from Harvard Business School before eventually eyeing an online calculator that measures one’s personal carbon footprint. He was so affected by seeing how his shot up with every flight he took that he stopped flying completely for six months. He found that wasn’t a
viable long-term solution in the modern world, but the exercise changed his life.
Wright Electric CEO Jeff Engler, seen here with a jet engine fan, moved his company’s headquarters to Malta in part because of its techy talent pool. (John Garay)
“What’s already happening with electric vehicles is going to happen with planes, too,” he says. His mission is to eliminate carbon emissions from all flights under 800 miles by the year 2040. In pursuit of that goal, Wright Electric set out to design an emissions-free, electric propulsion system that’s compatible with either batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, which can ultimately convert planes to all-electric power.
With a worsening climate crisis, there’s no time to lose. The aviation sector is behind a billion tons—or about 3 percent—of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions, with projections for aviation’s carbon emissions to triple by 2050 without the implementation of sweeping decarbonization measures. While most airlines have agreed to meet the United Nations–set net-zero carbon emissions targets for 2050, in order to avert the worst effects of climate change, those goals can only be successful if fossil fuel–free airplane technologies are developed. Electric aircraft not only serve to eliminate jet fuel emissions, proponents say, but also reduce noise and slash operating costs, too.
Luckily, Wright Electric’s planes are not some far-off fantasy. The company’s first electric aircraft, the 100-passenger Wright Spirit—a retrofitted BAe 146 plane from British aerospace company BAE Systems—is targeted for 2026. The four-engine planes are expected to have a flying range of about one hour, or 400 miles; ground testing on the electric propulsion unit is currently underway, with flight tests expected to follow in 2024.
Engler says there are many advantages to retrofitting an existing plane with electric motors, rather than designing an entirely new aircraft. “Because you’re starting
with an existing airplane,” he says, “you get to market more quickly, and there’s less work to be done.”
An electric engine prototype. (John Garay)
All the same, Engler says he has some major hurdles to overcome as well, including a stringent regulatory process to clear with the Federal Aviation Administration. “There’s a lot of technology still to be built, and not just the motors that our company is doing,” he says. “People are working on this technology, and it also needs to be validated and verified.”
And finally, there’s a certain amount of inertia to counter.
“There are a lot of people within the airplane industry who are really happy with existing airplanes, and so we’re sometimes looked at as a disruptive force,” Engler says. “With any new company that comes in with a new technology that has the potential to have
some advantages but disrupts the existing supply chain, you sometimes see headwinds.”
Further out, with a target for the early 2030s, the company is angling for an all-electric new-build commercial plane. Dubbed the Wright 1, it will be designed from scratch, with a 186-passenger capacity and 800-mile range. Engler says that the planes’ designs won’t look much different than standard jet planes, though they will have several more engines underneath each wing.
“It’s kind of like how from the outside a Tesla doesn’t look very different from a regular car,” he says. “But under the hood, it’s quite different.”
Most of Wright Electric’s fellow electric aviation start-ups focus on smaller passenger planes requiring less battery power (such as United’s planned fleet of 19-seat electric planes). But that was never enough for Engler. “We’ve been laser-focused from day one on building technologies to decarbonize airplanes larger than 100 passengers,” he says of the plane size that’s responsible for the vast majority of emissions in the aerospace industry. “Even though, of course, it’s a harder technical challenge and is going to take longer, that’s where the biggest opportunity is for carbon emissions reduction.”
It’s an ambitious strategy that he says has put the company “years ahead of the competition” and has attracted some major government contracts, and partnerships with short-haul behemoths such as the aforementioned easyJet in Europe and Viva Aerobus in Latin America.
For its part, the Capital Region, with its key crossroads location along historical transportation routes, is no stranger to aviation innovation. In 1910, this area gave us America’s first long-distance intercity flight, piloted by Glenn Curtiss between Albany—whose airport was established two years prior as America’s first municipal airport—and New York City. Meanwhile, Schenectady County Airport, now home to the Empire State Aerosciences Museum, was once the site of the General Electric Flight Test Center, which was responsible for major advancements in aviation. Famed American aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart once hopped between these early regional airfields.
Today, the region is once again promising more pioneering work and headline-making achievements in the aviation space. And Engler, who hopes his planes will soon fly out of Albany and other airports, emphasizes that there’s not a moment to waste in launching this new era of electric flight. “With every flight, a little bit more carbon goes into the air,”
he says. “It’s a race against time.”
With warmer weather around the corner, it’s time to swap that black turtleneck you’ve been wearing all winter for some colorful and fun styles from Lucia. First up, we have an earthy green matching set that’s perfect for a springtime lunch date. The lightweight fabric makes it comfortable to wear on even the warmest of days. Dress it up with a pair of heels or down, like I did, with Nike sneakers, a beige bag and a hat—this is Saratoga, after all!
But don’t stop there: This sweet, white dress paired with a bold, pink blazer is perfect for a special occasion or night out on the town. With delicate detailing and a flattering silhouette, the dress will make any woman feel beautiful, and the satiny blazer will make you stand out in the sea of fabulous Saratogians out and about this spring.
Sometime around February 2022, saratogaliving.com’s day-to-day news coverage ceased. You can still read all the articles from each print edition of Saratoga Living here, but as for stories about what’s happening now, those live on Saratoga Living After Hours, a website and newsletter hosted by Substack, a platform that allows writers to publish content directly to their audience through subscriptions.
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Start planning your outfits now, Saratoga. Overdress to Impress,presented by Keeler Motor Car Company with cosponsors N. Fox Jewelers and California Closets, is back and better than ever.
👗 Saratoga’s best dressed ladies and gents showing off the outfits they’ve been planning all year long
🥂 A welcome glass of Besserat de Bellefon Champagne Rosé, courtesy of Bocage Champagne Bar
🍤 Passed hors d’oeuvres and risotto from The Adelphi
🎟 One drink ticket for a complimentary beverage
💁♀️ An impromptu fashion show, emceed by Bocage’s Zac Denham and judged by Buttonista Taylor Rao of Two Buttons Deep, Joy Rafferty of California Closetsand Andrea Zappone, host of last year’s inaugural event
🎁 Prizes for the evening’s best dressed attendee, including a1.5L Magnum bottle of Besserat de Bellefon Champagne Rosé and a $50 gift card to Bocage
📸 Photos taken for the next issue of Saratoga Living
💄 Party favors for every guest
🚘 Electric car service by Keeler Mercedes from the Saratoga City Center garage to the event
In every story—horse racing or otherwise—there’s a hero and there’s a villain. In this story, the hero is Richard T. Wilson, Jr., who led the restoration of Saratoga Race Course to its former glory in the early 1900s, and the villain is Gottfried Walbaum, who was largely responsible for the fact that the track needed saving.
After struggling for much of the 1890s because of the dysfunctional leadership of Walbaum, a nefarious character known for operating brothels and shady racing venues in New Jersey, Thoroughbred racing at the Spa was in a precarious position with diminished purses, a sagging quality of racing, and an overall lack of faith in the track’s future. Enter Wilson, a New York City native who began his association with racing as an owner in 1896 and went on to develop an extraordinary stable, winning the Preakness with The Parader in 1901 and both the Preakness and Belmont with Pillory in 1922. In 1900, Wilson sought out famed sportsmen William C. Whitney and Francis Hitchcock and presented them with a plan to purchase the track from Walbaum. With Whitney’s money paying for a whole slew of improvements (including a new grandstand, paddock and training track), Saratoga was once again poised to be held in high regard on the American sporting scene.
While both Whitney and Hitchcock headed up the new management team in the first decade of the new century, Wilson took over as president of the Saratoga Racing Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses in 1909, a position he held for the next 20 years. Writer Kent Hollingsworth said Wilson “had an innate love for the Spa and left no stone unturned to maintain it as the gayest resort in racing.”
The 1920s were a golden era of racing, aided by the emergence of great horses such as Man o’ War. But it was Wilson who rebuilt the Spa’s fine reputation in all areas of operation; he oversaw the construction of the present-day Clubhouse and Turf Terrace, and encouraged women owners with the introduction of the Lady Owners Handicap.
After Wilson fell ill and passed away in 1929 at the age of 63, Saratoga honored its esteemed leader with the Wilson Handicap, which was won by the likes of Hall of Famers Equipoise, Discovery and War Admiral before being discontinued in 1958. Today, the track pays homage to Wilson with the Wilson Chute, a configuration for one-mile dirt races located just beyond the 1863 Club that, though dismantled in 1972, was reintroduced prior to the 2022 Saratoga meeting.
Maxine Lautenberg spends most of her days around the ice. With slate gray hair and thick-rimmed glasses, she exudes a coolness and poise that betrays her busy schedule as president of a sporting organization almost as old as the Spa City’s famous horse racing track: the prestigious Saratoga Winter Club (SWC).
“It is quite historic that this is the first time we’ve had a woman at the helm of the Saratoga Cup meet being supported by a woman president, and our skaters are being coached by a woman,” says Lautenberg, who in 2019 became only the second woman president in the club’s 135-year history. (The first was Sue Strauss, who held the position from 1999 to 2003.) Lautenberg had previously served as vice president for three years and although she’s never speed skated herself, she fell in love with the sport through her three children, who all learned to skate through the SWC at the city rink on Weibel Avenue. “I was previously a dancer,” she says. “When I watch these athletes, I so appreciate the technicality and the intricacies of speed skating, and being able to skate on the edges of those blades and turn those corners. It’s its own dance on ice, and that’s really where I get my pleasure.”
The SWC began as the Saratoga Toboggan Club in 1888, the same year as the Spa City’s Great Blizzard and only five years after Saratoga Race Course opened. In the early days it was just an allotment of locals who shot riders onto Saratoga Lake via a large toboggan slide. By the early 1900s, however, the organization had changed its name to the Saratoga Winter Sports Club (“Sports” would be dropped from the name in the 1930s) and added skiing, skating and even a Winter Snow Queen coronation. Over the years, the SWC evolved into a serious speed skating center that has sent eight athletes to compete in the Winter Olympics. That number doesn’t include the North American Short Track Champion and renowned Olympics skating coach Patrick Maxwell, who trained some of the SWC’s top athletes from 1976 to 2002. Maxwell’s tutelage was so successful that of the 32 speed skaters who competed at the qualifying trials for the ’98 Olympics, 18 came from the Saratoga Winter Club.
The 1938 Eastern States Outdoor Speedskating Championships, hosted by the Saratoga Winter Club on Saratoga Lake.
The list of those who made it all the way includes the brothers Richie and John Wurster from Ballston Spa, who both competed in the 1968 Winter Games (and John again in ‘72); Kristen Talbot, also Ballston Spa–born (’88, ’92, and ’94); Saratogians Moira D’Andrea (’92 and ’98), David Tamburrino (’94 and ’98) and Erin Porter (’98 and ’02); and Schenectady native Trevor Marsicano, who made headlines in 2009 as the youngest gold medalist in the history of the World Single Distance Championships and again the following year when he won a silver medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The winter speed demon who most tugged at the heartstrings, however, was the imitable Amy Peterson-Peck, a five-time Olympian who emerged from the Saratoga Winter Club to compete in every winter games from 1988 to 2002, racking up two bronze medals and one silver—and then carried the US flag for the opening ceremony at the ’02 Salt Lake City Winter Games. “It was right after 9/11, so it was a very special moment for all Americans,” she says. “It was an amazing experience—culminated my career.”
Peterson-Peck (who was just Peterson during her Olympic career) is particularly important to the SWC because she didn’t just train at the premier skating club: She’s now the head coach, having been promoted to that position the year before Lautenberg became president. “It didn’t really occur to me until just now that I’m the first woman head coach,” Peterson-Peck says with a laugh. She originally came to Saratoga in 1997 to work with Maxwell at the SWC. She later met a local, the brother-in-law of her friend and fellow Olympian Kristen Talbot. In 2006, the same year Peterson-Peck was inducted into the National Speed Skating Hall of Fame, the couple married before settling down in Schuylerville, where they had four boys. “I always see life as an even playing field: men, women, anyone,” she says. “You just do the job to the best of your abilities.”
Female members of SWC in 1939.
But the timing, right before life came to a halt because of Covid, couldn’t have been worse—not only for Lautenberg and Peterson-Peck, but for the SWC as well. Like every other sports organization, the Spa City’s historic speed skating club suffered greatly during lockdown. “The club is in transition for sure,” says Lautenberg of coming out of the pandemic. “We are not the club of the late ’90s and very early 2000s. But we have new members that are enthusiastic and love the sport and appreciate it for its blend of precision, technical training and physical training. It’s a sport to carry throughout their lives.”
One of Lautenberg’s first moves as president might have saved the organization. She created a new program that offers accessible skating classes for all ages and levels, including beginners. The program kicked off shortly before Covid and, while it had to take a hiatus during the pandemic, it’s come back strong. “Maxine has been instrumental in designing and implementing the learn-to-speed skate program,” says Peterson-Peck. “Of our current members, I’d say maybe 80 percent or more have come through that program. Skating has such a history in this town that we just keep wanting to make it thrive and provide the same opportunities that we had when we were younger.”
Of course, Peterson-Peck’s expertise as head coach has also been part of the SWC’s secret sauce. She’s been skating since she was 2 (speed skating since the age of 6) and is one of only a few Level 3 certified speed skating coaches in the country. “Coaching is a big part of our success,” says Lautenberg. “We’ve been super fortunate to have had really great coaches: Pat Maxwell, Paul Marchese—who’s one of the top boot-makers in the world—and now we have Amy!”
Erin (Porter) Bembry, one of several SWC alumni who became Olympians, competed for Team USA in ’98 and ’02.
And one more powerhouse female recently joined the ranks. This past autumn, Karolina Quinn, who shares the office of VP of Racing with her husband, Tim, stepped up as the new meet director, the first woman to ever hold that position since the SWC started hosting skating meets 90 years ago. “I can assure you it’s a collaborative effort all the way,” Quinn says about overseeing the Saratoga Cup, a regional ability meet held in the Weibel Avenue ice rink that attracts nearly 100 skaters from across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast every fall. “It’s humbling to work with so many dedicated people who donate their time and talents to make this meet what it is.”
Though her children are all grown now and no longer involved with speed skating, Lautenberg says her family’s experience in the sport was completely worth it. “As a woman,” Lautenberg says, “one thing I’ve brought to the club is not only continuing the competitive opportunities, which are significant on many levels, but also acknowledging the importance the sport has as a lifelong form of exercise and a place to find community and friends. The Saratoga Winter Club is a breakout place for me—it’s where I can go and just enjoy being there.”
As an architect, Michael Phinney spends a lot of his time working on new, state-of-the-art buildings that utilize the latest and greatest sustainable building methods. But sometimes an old house comes along that requires his firm’s expertise to restore it to its former glory. That’s the case with 73 Union Avenue, a signature High Gothic Victorian that recently underwent a two-year restoration courtesy of Phinney Design Group.
“You don’t get to touch three-story, historic Victorians every day,” Phinney says of the mansion that was originally built in 1883 for John M. Jones, a jeweler and watchmaker, and his wife, Henrietta, whose uncle was the French composer Jacques Offenbach, famous for a can-can from his comedic opera Orpheus in the Underworld. In 2016, current owners John and Michelle Haller purchased the 6,500-square-foot home and lived in the carriage house during the renovation of the original structure, which required foundational reinforcement, structural modifications and improvements, and a lot of interior renovations, including a wholly redesigned kitchen, primary bath, living room, mudroom, office and dining layout.
“We wanted to respect the past but really embrace the future,” says Phinney. “We were very careful to replace parts with exact replicas or, when replacing a damaged item, getting it made to match exactly. But in other instances, we incorporated modern conveniences.”
Those modern conveniences include a much larger kitchen with a giant island, a chef-grade stove, and a pop of sky-blue color in the cabinets. The reconfigured dining area features a creative circular theme, including a round table and rug, rounded bay window, and organic gold chandelier under a round-coffered ceiling. The third floor, originally the live-in servants’ quarters, was turned into a study. All this was done without touching the iconic Union Avenue façade, which brings its
own freshness.
“The color scheme of the original house is unique for a Victorian because of its darker colors,” says Phinney. “To work with that palette, to save an old girl like that and have it be even better than it was in its heyday, is really nice. Now hopefully it’s going to be something special for another 100 years.”
