If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD229.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
It’s almost impossible to stay indoors in the Catskills, but Eastwind Oliverea Valley has created a hygge-fied haven you simply won’t want to leave. The Scandinavian-inspired, nature-coddled cabins tempt even the most adventure-hungry to hit snooze (the tent-shaped Lushnas act as hibernation stations when the snow sets in). The surrounding wilderness is laid bare at your full-height window or perfectly placed skylight, which beam forest-swathed and star-sprinkled views into the wood-panelled spaces. When you eventually bring yourself to put one hiking boot or snowshoe in front of the other, there are plenty of mountain trails to take – and a farm-fresh restaurant, saunas, and swimming pool to come back to.
11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £204.93 ($256), including tax at 12 per cent.
More details
Rates exclude breakfast, but hampers laden with freshly-baked goods, seasonal fruits, yoghurt, granola, and boiled eggs can be purchased for $30 and delivered to your cabin (each breakfast basket feeds two).
Also
This is an ADA-compliant property, and most spaces are wheelchair-accessible with the exception of selected cabins and the saunas.
At the hotel
Fire pit, s’more-toasting kit, bikes to borrow, grab-and-go wellies, snowshoes available (during winter), and free WiFi. In rooms: air-conditioning, minibar, coffee machine, tea-making kit, Pendleton robes, and vegan Zenology bath products.
Our favourite rooms
The Scandinavian-inspired aesthetic ensures each wood-cocooned cabin has a healthy hit of hygge, and indoor-outdoor features like private decks, soaring skylights, and cozy reading nooks bring the Catskills right to your full-frame windows. Indulge your inner child by clambering up the ladder in the King with Loft room, and stargazing the night away on the first-floor hammock, or take your glamping experience even closer to the great outdoors in one of the Lushna cabins, with a nature-immersed terrace discreetly tucked into the hillside.
Poolside
Soak up the abounding natural beauty of the Catskills from the hotel’s heated outdoor pool (open 8am to 7pm), which has been built into the ground to oh-so-cleverly blend with its forest-fringed surroundings.
Spa
Soothe mountain-weary muscles in the hotel’s two Scandi-style barrel-shaped saunas – one is infrared, and the other is a traditional dry sauna. There’s also a wellness cabin with massage tables, and tatami mats in the light-therapy loft space.
Packing tips
Creature comforts are mostly taken care of here, but you might want to bring some Nordic knitwear, thermals, and bed-socks for snowed-in evenings.
Also
Venture off the old logging road and you’ll find yourself within 47 woodland acres, where the hotel has hung hammocks amid the trees for all your forest-bathing needs.
Welcome, but cabins are best suited to couples. Folding cots are available on request, and the interconnecting Fern Suites are ideal for small families.
Sustainability efforts
Deeply in-tune with its Catskills setting, Eastwind Oliverea Valley took an as-nature-intended approach during the build to keep environmental disturbance to an absolute minimum. The cabins were designed and built in Slovenia using sustainably-sourced wood which is naturally water-resistant, and they’re fixed on recyclable ground-screws (instead of traditional foundations) to reduce any negative impact from digging the site. Rainwater is collected in drain run-offs around the property, and directed into the pesticide-free gardens, which are exclusively home to native plants. There’s also a strong focus on foraging in the restaurant, which supports small, eco-conscious farmers in the area.
Hunker down by the wood-burning fire, or take any table in front of the floor-to-ceiling, forest-framing windows.
Dress Code
Whatever the main character in a Scandi Noir novel would wear.
Hotel restaurant
Invoking all the coziness and rustic warmth of an aprés-ski joint, Dandelion (open for dinner Thursday to Saturday) is a ruggedly handsome, wood-panelled restaurant with a hunter-gatherer ethos. Co-founder Daniel Cipriani can be spotted in the kitchen, overseeing the seasonal, weekly-changing menu which brings foraged ingredients, plant-based dishes, and locally sourced produce from agricultural artisans to the fore. Like the rest of the hotel, a Nordic influence can be seen in dishes like lohikeitto (Finnish fish stew) and mustikkapiirakka (Finnish blueberry pie) – but you’ll also get a taste for other cuisines from around the world, including the Italian-inspired homemade ricotta cavatelli pasta (with wild mushrooms and pecorino cheese), and the Korean Gochujang-slathered short-rib. To avoid disappointment, we’d recommend reserving a table ahead of your stay.
Hotel bar
Dandelion’s ever-changing drinks list is guaranteed to quench your post-hike thirst, with botanically-dressed cocktails, locally-brewed beers, and sommelier-selected wines. In the winter, you can’t beat an aprés-ski hot toddy by the crackling fire.
Last orders
Dinner is from 5pm to 9pm on Thursdays, and 5pm to 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays.
Room service
Technically, no – but bountiful breakfast baskets are delivered to your cabin like clockwork each morning.
Eastwind Oliverea Valley puts the famed Catskills hiking and skiing trails at your feet, from its remote outpost near the New York State county of Big Indian.
Planes
The closest airport is Albany International (around 90 minutes by car from the hotel), which is well-served by direct flights to various US cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington. Further-flung arrivals will need to fly into New York City – the hotel is just under three hours’ drive from JFK.
Automobiles
Roaming the Catskills really requires a set of wheels, so we’d recommend picking up a rental from the airport and capitalizing on the hotel’s free on-site parking.
Worth getting out of bed for
Outdoorsy travelers can run wild at Eastwind Oliverea Valley – whatever the weather or season, the Catskill Mountains call for nature-based adventures. The milder months are best for hiking, and a number of trails start on the edge of the property – including the scenic McKenley Hollow Trail, which has connecting routes to Haynes Mountain. Popular Giant Ledge is just five minutes away (time your trip during off-season if you want the jaw-dropping view to yourself), and the hotel’s detailed trail map is overflowing with nearby waterfalls to visit. Mountain-biking routes become ski runs when blanketed with snow during the winter, which you can whizz down with ease thanks to the hotel’s proximity to Hunter Mountain ski resort.
Local restaurants
Mountain-facing Peekamoose Restaurant follows a farm-to-feast philosophy, serving up down-to-earth dishes in a no-frills, converted farmhouse setting. Menus change on a daily basis, and the seasonal ingredients are all sourced from small, local suppliers. Similarly rooted in sustainable, back-to-basics cooking, family-owned Silvia cares deeply about the provenance of its plates – organic vegetables are plucked from the pantry, and biodynamic wines flow freely in the restaurant’s open kitchen with a wood-fired grill.
Local cafés
With a ‘come for the mountains, stay for the food’ motto, Phoenicia Diner is an easygoing eatery and all-day breakfast spot, fuelling hikers for the climb ahead on feel-good grub like sourdough muffins, Brooklyn bagels, and buttermilk pancakes drizzled with local maple syrup.
Local bars
For a laidback evening in the Catskills, head over to the Pines, a lodge-style bar and restaurant with an impressive international wine list, plus craft cocktails, indie beer and cider, and crisp lagers brewed by local favorites West Kill.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this wild-at-heart hotel in the Catskills and unpacked their ski boots and Nordic walking poles, a full account of their back-to-nature break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Eastwind Oliverea Valley in Upstate New York…
Eastwind Oliverea Valley has an ever-so-slight edge over its Windham counterpart (and Smith stablemate) – it’s the first ground-up build for co-founders Bjorn Boyer, Julija Stoliarova, and Daniel Cipriani, who have injected the brand’s signature Scandinavian minimalism into a new (and even more remote) corner of the Catskill Mountains. Well-heeled (and suitably booted) New Yorkers in cashmere cable-knits come for a hygge health-kick and some much needed breathing space from the city. And Eastwind is undoubtedly, wholeheartedly a breath of fresh air, with its triangular Lushna cabins (tucked away like wooden tents or ground-level treehouses), outdoor showers, and Nordic saunas nuzzled into an almost-silent mountainside with the Big Indian Wilderness at its back – and only the gurgling of the Esopus Creek and the whisper of the wind through the snow-dusted trees to disturb your inches-from-nature slumber. After an adventure-packed day on the slopes, gather round the hotel’s fire pit to toast s’mores and a few Woodstock-brewed drinks to tomorrow’s muscle-burning expeditions.
