Windham Mountain Club is seeking approval for a 26-room boutique hotel off Resort Drive, a change that would replace eight townhouses already approved as part of the club’s redevelopment plan.
The Windham Planning Board has not set a vote on the proposal, which drew questions from nearby residents at a June 18 hearing about lighting, water use, and the hotel’s fit with the surrounding neighborhood. Club President Kristen Leach said the hotel would stay within the same footprint, size, and height as the approved townhouses and would help address a shortage of lodging in Windham.
“It’s a family area,” Trailside Road resident Ann Ryan said at the hearing. “A hotel doesn’t quite fit with the family, community type thing. People coming and going that are not going to be the same people every weekend, that’s a concern.”
Leach said the hotel, described by the club as a “luxury, boutique hotel,” would be open to club members and the general public. Its small cafe and bar would be open only to hotel guests.
“There was a large wedding in the area this past weekend,” Leach said. “We saw buses coming from down the mountain, and they were actually out of lodging and heads and beds were a problem for them as well. We’ve seen that and heard that before, that there’s a limit on what that is.”
Mark Ryan, another resident, said he was concerned that lighting would affect views of the mountain from nearby homes.
“Additional pole lighting, potentially in the parking lot, that’s going to impact our view and what we see,” he said.
Leach said the hotel’s lighting would be “dark-sky compliant” and directed downward.
A third resident, Lynn Paul, said residents on Trailside Road, about a half-mile from the resort, have periodically lost access to water.
Leach said the hotel would connect to Windham’s municipal water system, not the water system operated by the mountain that also serves nearby residents.
The Windham Planning Board approved the club’s original redevelopment plan in April 2025. The proposed amendment would replace eight approved residential structures and lots with the hotel and an associated four-bedroom detached unit, according to a public notice from the town.
Leach said the club’s master plan had included a hotel before the club decided to pursue townhouses instead.
“What we’ve done is basically, taken the same footprint of the original townhomes where they were planned to be, and that upper section will be replaced by a hotel,” Leach said. “It replaces the same footprint, same size, same height of what would’ve been there with the townhomes.”
The hotel would offer valet-only parking. Leach said the club hoped to position it above existing lodging options such as Wylder and Eastwind.
“We’ll kind of be above that,” Leach said. “We’re not looking to compete with Wylder, we’re looking to kind of go to the next level up of that.”
Windham Mountain rebranded as Windham Mountain Club in 2023, shifting toward a member-focused model while saying the mountain would remain open to the public. The Times Union reported in 2023 that lifetime family memberships were initially offered at $175,000, plus annual fees, and that the price was expected to rise. The club continues to sell public lift tickets, subject to capacity limits.
The Windham proposal was discussed the same week another developer presented plans in Hunter for 114 homes, a 45-room hotel, a 100-seat restaurant, and event space, in what town officials said would be one of the largest developments there in decades. The Hunter proposal is separate from the Windham Mountain Club project. Allyson Phillips, the attorney representing the Hunter developer, is also the Windham Planning Board’s attorney.
The planning board is expected to continue reviewing the hotel proposal before voting on whether to approve the amendment to the club’s existing plan, though no meeting has been set for a vote. That review includes determining whether the change would create additional environmental impacts under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.
“When we consider an amendment to the plan under SEQR, we have to consider the potential for adverse environmental impacts, but we use the approved plan as our kind of baseline condition,” Phillips said. “So now we’re looking at any incremental impacts of the change.”
Phillips expects the hotel to be grandfathered under Windham’s new zoning law because it’s an amendment to an approved proposal.
“The use is permitted at this location, but we need to still look at the incremental impacts of the change because it wasn’t part of the project that we approved,” she said.
Connor Greco is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Windham, Hunter and surrounding Greene County communities. Send correspondence to connor@theoverlooknews.com.
