Ryan Chadwick first came to Tannersville by design, literally.

In 2019, his wife, Emily Siegel-Chadwick, who runs the design firm Emily Frantz, suggested a trip upstate for inspiration. She wanted to see the area’s rustic decor, specifically the wood-paneled, well-appointed rooms at Deer Mountain Inn. At the time, Chadwick, a native of southern Maine who’s now 50, was living in New York City and running three seafood-focused establishments on the Lower East Side.

That trip began a love affair with the Mountaintop that deepened during the pandemic. Since then, Chadwick has run the Rip Van Winkle Lake boathouse, Kaaterskill Trolley Co., and Fred’s Coffee and Donuts on Route 23A. His next project which he hopes to open around July Fourth weekend in 2027, would add three buildings beside Fred’s with studios for artists and craftspeople, retail space, and 8,000 square feet of self-storage.

Chadwick lives in Connecticut with his growing family; his second child was born just over two months ago. He’s invested in Hunter partly because it reminds him of home.

“I grew up in a small town in Maine with one traffic light. This reminds me of where I grew up in coastal Maine. It’s beautiful,” Chadwick said. “I’m trying to do my best by the people in this community.”

During our interview on a sunny October day at Fred’s, Chadwick immediately busied himself with a repair. He flipped over the cast-iron table we’d chosen and began fixing the casters on its legs as we spoke.

Chadwick’s first local venture came in 2021, when he took over the lease for the Rip Van Winkle Lake boathouse in Tannersville. The building had sat closed for at least five years until Phyllis Landers turned it into a takeout sandwich and soup business during the pandemic. Chadwick took over from Landers and opened a lobster shack serving fried fish baskets, alongside boat and trail-bike rentals.

“We got them on Marketplace!” Chadwick said of the colorful kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards he found on Facebook that have dotted the lake each season since.

The rentals appear to be a first in recent memory. Robin Dumont, Tannersville’s village clerk since 2003, couldn’t recall any earlier boat rentals on the lake.

Chadwick said he also worked with the town to clear an invasive lily-pad species that had clogged the waterway. The lake’s beaver dam was left intact, he said 

The boathouse restaurant has since become a barbecue joint run by Tadd and Daisy Johnson of Johnson’s BBQ, and the boat rentals stayed.

Fred’s followed in 2022. When Chadwick bought the property, it held only a pair of dilapidated buildings; one had housed Pete’s Place and a string of other restaurants. Twin Peaks, a donut shop in Tannersville, had just closed, leaving “a hole in the market,” Chadwick said, adding, “no pun intended.”

He bought Twin Peaks’ donut machine and soon was in business.

Fred’s is open seven days a week, which fills a local need, said Kody Leach, a Tannersville native who managed operations for Chadwick’s three local businesses (the boathouse, the trolleys, and Fred’s before opening Wintergreen dispensary this year.

“Fred’s,” Leach said, “is a community small business that is operating seven days a week. If we were going to be part of people’s daily routine, we need to be available seven days a week.”

Many businesses in town close one or two days a week, so Fred’s schedule also creates part-time work, Leach said, including for people picking up shifts on their days off from other jobs. 

“This allows people in town to get a part-time job, or,” he said, “to come in on their off day.”

Chadwick also ran Kaaterskill Trolleys, which carried visitors to Kaaterskill Falls and other Mountaintop destinations for four seasons before shutting down this year. He cited rising insurance costs and what he described as a lack of state support. The trolleys also cut down on litter, he said.

Now Chadwick is turning to the rest of the 3-acre Fred’s property, which sits near the junction of Route 23A and Bloomer Road, in front of Williams Lumber/Ace Hardware. The development will eventually be called Maker’s Way. Chadwick likes the site’s location between the main streets of Hunter and Tannersville and its access to Platte Clove Road, a route off the mountain.

The project was approved by the town’s planning board in May, 2025. Wastewater limits shaped the plan, Chadwick said.

“I can’t do another restaurant there because it’s in the watershed; I can’t add another septic system. So I tried to think of the highest and best use, and I thought maker studios would be a great thing for the artists and craftspeople who live in town,” he said.

Plans presented to the board in April 2025 call for the new buildings to share Fred’s existing septic system, with one shared bathroom for the shops.

The main building would have two levels and be built into an incline, with retail space facing the street and studios on the lower level, reached by a driveway around the back. Two low self-storage buildings would sit behind it.

A coffee roaster has reached out about renting space, Chadwick said. A tenant, for instance, “can roast coffee in the basement and sell it upstairs,” he said.

He hopes tenants will share resources and would like to attract a trade business, such as a plumber or electrician. He also plans climate control in the self-storage buildings for tenants who want to store wine or preserve antiques.

Catskills Candle Studio plans to move its production to Maker’s Way while keeping its Tannersville storefront. The shop stopped pouring candles there last month to free up room for more candle-making workshops. 

The move grew out of a conversation with Chadwick, said Nicole Andrick, the studio’s owner.

“It happened very organically. He had the idea and came to us,” Andrick said. “He asked us ‘what’s your biggest pain point right now for scaling your business?'”

She told him it was a lack of space.

“He said, ‘we have one coming,'” she recalled.

Andrick said she loves the idea of “a makers’ community on the Mountaintop” and hopes it will draw visitors.

For Chadwick, the project combines his two favorite things.

“I love being outdoors, just being on the mountain,” he said.

His ideal day there pairs that with “being involved in production and operations,” he said. In other words: making things.

Lex Sottile is a contributing writer. Send correspondence to reporting@theoverlooknews.com.