KERHONKSON, N.Y. — The Pine Ridge Dude Ranch on Cherrytown Road, which closed in May, has been sold to Wawarsing-based Camp Rav Tov for more than $13.7 million, according to Ulster County real estate records and Rochester Town Supervisor Mike Baden.
Baden said he was unaware of the price paid for the 30 Cherrytown Road parcel but county records indicate a sale price of $13,740,000 and tax payments of $63,914.50, which include a state recording tax of $54,960 and a mansion tax of $8,624. The deed was recorded on June 24.
David Breuer, the attorney representing the buyers, who purchased the property as Kerhonkson 12446 LLC, would not speak to a Freeman reporter about the purchase. On Tuesday afternoon a sign in Hebrew at the entrance to the property, read in part, “Welcome.”
A sign in Hebrew stands by an entrance to the former Pine Ridge Dude Ranch in Kerhonkson, N.Y., on Tuesday, July 19, 2022. (Tania Barricklo/Daily Freeman)
Ulster County Clerk Nina Postupak said Kerhonkson 12446 LLC, or limited liability corporation, was registered with the county on May 23.
On Tuesday, Baden said Camp Rav Tov is the buyer. “It is the same owners as Camp Rav Tov. It’s being run by the same people,” he said.
The Pine Ridge Dude Ranch, a family resort featuring indoor and outdoor activities, closed in May.
Baden said he anticipates the property will continue being used as a “family resort,” which is how it is currently zoned. He said the new owners hope to get approval for a 4,000-square-foot building on the property but their application is on hold because of a town-wide building moratorium. He said they have installed a fence around the property and replaced a few sheds.
Baden said the new owners have also installed a sprinkler system which was required by the county Health Department before a certificate of occupancy could be issued.
He said, “there’s been activity” at the site “somewhat in conjunction with the girls’ summer camp down the road. Baden anticipates Rav Tov will run the property as a “private resort.”
Camp Rav Tov, a religious camp, has tax-exempt status at its Wawarsing property but will be paying town, school and county property taxes in the town of Rochester at least through 2022, Baden said. The property remains on the tax roles “at least for the short term,” possibly because the sale was finalized after a March 1 deadline to apply for a religious exemption.
“They could still apply (for an exemption) in 2023,” Baden said. The property tax amount and total assessed value of the ranch were not immediately available on Tuesday.
Rav Tov and other Jewish camps have struggled to maintain their tax-exempt status in neighboring Wawarsing.
In December 2021, Rav Tov joined a federal lawsuit on behalf of several Jewish summer camps against the town of Wawarsing charging that a 2021 zoning law amendment unlawfully and discriminatorily “targets” those camps.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, states that the amendment confines camps to an area called an “overlay zoning district so as to clearly distinguish Orthodox Jewish camps (in Wawarsing) from similar secular uses like conference centers, so that regulations on ‘camps’ would not apply to secular uses.”
Orthodox Jewish summer camps have operated in Wawarsing “for over 70 years and are by far the majority of camps in Wawarsing. The plaintiffs … all own properties in Wawarsing where they operate Jewish summer camps. … The complaint alleges that for years the town harassed the Orthodox Jewish camps and obstructed development, and that the harassment reached a crescendo with the passage of the new zoning laws specifically targeting Orthodox Jewish Camps,” according to a January press release.
At issue, in part, is whether summer camps can be considered “places of worship,” the attorneys state.
In May, federal District Judge David N. Hurd issued a stay “in relation to land use regulations on religious camps” in Wawarsing for six months “allowing the Town the time to draft and adopt a Local Law amending the Town’s Zoning Code as it relates to religious use camps.”
For the duration of the order, Wawarsing must “refrain from zoning enforcement of religious camp uses, with the exception of the enforcement of New York State building codes or for health and safety violations,” according to Hurd’s ruling. It continues, stating that “there shall be no new or expansion of camp uses by Plaintiffs.”
According to the camps’ suit, “The purpose of the challenged laws is to impose severe restrictions on Orthodox Jewish camps, thereby preventing new Orthodox Jewish camps from opening, limiting the expansion of existing Orthodox Jewish camps, and making current use extremely difficult and impracticable.”
Unlike a secular summer camp, the religious camps are educational in nature, according to the suit, since “Orthodox Jews usually send their children to religious day schools near their homes” during the school year and during the summer “usually send their children to religious overnight summer camps that allow them to continue their religious studies.”
The Pine Ridge Dude Ranch, which opened in 2018, was previously known as the Pinegrove Ranch and Family Resort. Pinegrove closed in September 2017, four months after its owner, David O’Halloran, died while on vacation in the Bahamas.
Michael Bernholz and Mike Offner, the former owners of Pine Ridge Dude Ranch, did not return calls from the Freeman.
The ranch offered horseback riding, as well as indoor and outdoor pools, a climbing wall, a miniature golf course, a lake with paddleboats, tennis, basketball, paintball, an arcade, and a nightclub with a stage, among other amenities, including a petting zoo and spa.
Like other travel destinations, the ranch was affected when the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020. It closed for a while that year before announcing plans that spring to reopen at 50 percent capacity in order to observe guidelines from the state Department of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Offner said in a 2020 press release that the ranch had laid off more than 80 employees in mid-March 2020 when it shut down but said he intended to call all of them back on a rotating basis.
Wawarsing sued in federal court by Jewish summer camps