The Ranch Hudson Valley opens upstate New York wellness retreat
The Ranch Hudson Valley is a new immersive wellness resort with retreat programs that cost more than $1,000 a night. Credit: Ellen McDermott/The Ranch Hudson Valley
Would you spend more than $1,000 a night for a reset?
Before you answer, consider the areas you're looking to improve in your life: managing stress levels, eating better, limiting screen time and exercising more.
The Ranch Hudson Valley, a new wellness retreat opening next month in upstate New York, is especially for those looking to restart, reconnect, restore, recalibrate and rejuvenate, as long as they have $3,275 lying around (three nights, four days) or $5,675 they’re not doing anything with (four nights, five days) to pay for the experience.
The effectiveness of the luxury wellness retreat’s everything-all-at-once approach has already been established at its sister resort in Malibu, Calif., where glitterati including Michelle Obama and Brooke Shields have stayed. The Ranch Hudson Valley, which hosts only 25 guests at a time, will presumably chart the same wellness journey, perhaps free of such distractions as movie stars, influencers and the occasional first lady.
Housed in a 40,000-square-foot English Gothic mansion — a 52-room wedding present from J.P. Morgan to his daughter on the occasion of her 1902 marriage to Alexander Hamilton’s great-grandson, and more recently a Byzantine Catholic school and home for Ukrainian nuns — the sprawling Rockland County estate, an hour north of the New York City and roughly an hour and half from Long Island, has come full circle. Its 2,000-square-foot ballroom, a playground for big shots past, now provides a haven for big shots present, a healing space for fitness, yoga and quiet reflection.
The Ranch Hudson Valley is located about 90 minutes from Long Island. Credit: The Ranch Hudson Valley
Still, the program’s reputation rests on its rigor. Mornings start at 5:30 a.m. with two- or four-hour hikes after a plant-based, nutrition-forward breakfast. (In a blow to deprivation seekers, the Ranch recently began allowing consumption of coffee, albeit only its private label java, a low-acid, antioxidant-rich brew known as Ranch Roast.) Afternoons are for more exercise, strength training and daily massages, along with optional modalities such as infrared sauna sessions and “contrast hydrotherapy”--going from a hot tub to a cold one and back again — or extras like colonics, chiropractics, IV therapy, Bod Pod body composition assessments and something called energy healing, defined by the Ranch as “the act of utilizing life-force frequency to inspire invigoration and replenishment.”
Meals are designed to be device-free time at The Ranch Hudson Valley. Credit: Ellen McDermott/The Ranch Hudson Valley
Dinnertime, like all meals, offers the opportunity for strangers to socialize and make in-person connections that occur when one is unencumbered by devices. There are no TVs on the premises, and guests may only use Wi-Fi in their private rooms, which as you would expect are beautifully decorated in muted tones and demonstrate the same twin-pronged commitment to luxury and austerity.
If all goes well, guests will depart Hudson Valley with something called the “Ranch Glow,” a physical manifestation that apparently comes when you submit to the program and reconnect with yourself and those around you (credit the sound bath, yoga, dinner), even as you become calmer (meditation, massage), stronger (training, IV drip), lighter (hiking, calorie restriction, colonic) and, for most of us, significantly poorer.. Still, the holistic, boot-camp vibe of the Ranch’s program is admirably serious, a reminder that wellness is something we can ill afford to ignore, even when it comes at a cost few of us can afford.
The Ranch Hudson Valley, 150 Sister Servants Lane, Sloatsburg, theranchlife.com.
Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.