Behind the Gates of Silo Ridge—the Country’s Most Exclusive New Residential Enclave
Most members of the Silo Ridge Field Club community come by car. Some have drivers. A few chopper in. I arrived on a bus.
There is a train to the private club and gated community—the latest addition to liquor tycoon and developer Mike Meldman’s 19 Discovery Land properties—which sits on 800 pristine acres smack in the midst of the Hudson Valley, near Amenia, New York. But the Metro-North was doing track work the day I came up from Manhattan. Hence the bus.
If you have not heard of Discovery Land, here’s the deal: Centered on members-only golf clubs, they are also turnkey real-estate developments. (One must be a homeowner to join the club.) They are golf-centric spots in Maui; Big Sky, Montana; the Hamptons; Austin; and the Bahamas; where affluent individuals can come with their families and be completely taken care of—like they would be at a five-star hotel—but also have their own home. Discovery’s clients are the kind of wealthy people who are turned on by having a vacation home near Tom Brady (the staff at Silo mentioned his membership multiple times).
“People like it because they play shirtless and barefoot and they can just play!” said Meldman. He was talking about golf, and how his approach to his courses—and all of Discovery, in fact—is rooted in how he got his kids into the game. “To keep them on the course, I’d put Cokes and candy bars at each tee box.” Indeed, as you travel the 18 holes of Silo Ridge’s Tom Fazio–designed course, there are gourmet snack stations serving ritzier food than most Americans will ever eat in their lives (more on this later). Bars, too. When I mentioned these informal approaches to the game to a golf-enthusiast friend, whom, with her family, belongs to Augusta, she questioned the level of golf being played there. Regardless, it sounds like fun.
Meldman comes from Milwaukee. He was “not a country-club kid,” he said. His parents spent “all their money” sending him to Stanford so he could become a lawyer, but after bombing the LSAT, he found himself dealing blackjack in Lake Tahoe and getting into commercial real estate. He compared Discovery Land to his casino work—he’s the house. “We’ve de-risked the projects,” he said. “We have 10,000 members. A lot of people want to come in early, get a better deal.” He told me this over lunch in Silo’s Ridge House, where chef Jonathan Wright was serving an array of “terrain-to-table” lunch foods—the pizza came from “our wheat” and the honey on top from “our bees”—as delicious as it was mismatched: pizza, bratwurst, freshly baked sourdough, pate.
A Silo Ridge publicist later emailed me to say that I was “incredibly lucky and fortunate” to have the one-on-one experience. Despite this, I enjoyed eating with Meldman. He was self-assured and straightforward and seemed genuinely interested in his clients and their families. The word “community” came up a great deal. He has the bearing of an unpretentious, effortless salesman who’s more interested in sharing than hawking—come on in, buy a ticket, take the ride.
He also seemed genuinely enthusiastic about creating an experience for his clients, emulating that of a gentleman farmer in Hudson (as he does for his islanders at the Baker’s Bay destination in Jamaica or the wannabe mountain men at the Yellowstone Club in Montana). “If you have a ranch and you’re a gentleman farmer, the thing is you have to babysit it 24-7,” he said. Whether his clients come for economic reasons (a real gentleman farmer would want to build it himself, would want it all to be his, and that takes serious money), or a simple lack of creativity, or time, what he’s offering can be best described, like the U2 song, as even better than the real thing.
Like all of the Discovery locations and clubs, Silo Ridge has vertical membership. When you become a member, so do your kids and your parents. Later, I ask Meldman if he and his partners would ever consider Donald Trump or any of his kids, if they applied. “As Discovery’s private clubs are apolitical, we would welcome anyone to go through the membership process,” comes the reply, with a note that they’ve hosted presidents of both parties.
The history of Silo Ridge involves a local man named Tom Segalla, who purchased a 675-acre former dairy farm for $1.15 million in 1985. The local golf course would not permit him to join, so he built his own. “It was terrible,” said Melman of the course’s general upkeep. Greens fees were $18 per person on weekdays; $24 on weekends. After his death, Discovery bought the land.
Meldman talked about the history of the Hudson Valley, how it had supplied New York with all its building materials, milk, and meat, how it was the city’s engine. He aims to evoke that spirit on many levels, starting with design. The 245 houses and condos are built with local materials whenever possible; views are maximized; the tin roof over our heads had been treated with acid for that weathered dairy-farm aesthetic.
The property includes a gorgeous three-acre organic farm, where member-residents are encouraged to go “shopping”—I nearly missed my train home because I got caught up playing with the chicks and giant Flemish bunnies in the greenhouse. Kids who chopper up can swim in the ol’ swimming hole, which they’ve also stocked with bass and trout, should there be any fishers in the family. There’s a man-made beach, equestrian offerings, shooting, kayaking, tennis, squash, basketball—you name it.
The houses offer as many options in their design. Residents can simply buy a plot of land and build their own structure—pending board approval—but most of the 245 sites include homes that have been chosen from a menu, in both their structure and interior design. The results are modern and fine, a late-to-the-game ski-town expansion vibe. Taken together, from the patio of the Ridge House up above the residences, these brown squares on all this lush greenscape are inoffensive, even attractive.
When I toured one of these homes, a five-bedroom unit belonging to a family (which would cost between $4.6 and $6.5 million; there are also smaller units and condos), the overall feeling was that of a place not lived in. It seemed more fussed over than cared for. The living room’s vaulted ceiling and general bigness eliminated most chances of coziness, but the giant windows gave lovely views of the valley. “Southern views are the most coveted because you can see the mountains falling away,” said Discovery’s design director, Kim Baker, who was also my guide.
“Something that’s very Discovery is that every bedroom has its own bathroom,” I was told. The appliances are all Waterworks and look heavy and functional. The kitchen cabinetry, door frames, and casings are all white oak, stained in a dark version of what my mother would call “greige” (a mix of gray and beige). For their counters, two inches thick, clients choose between marble and Caesarstone. The bathrooms are limestone. And all of it is local, some from Vermont. There was art on the walls, which could be described as “decorative,” and in the basement there was rec room, two more bedrooms, and wine storage. One of the kids’ bedrooms had a murphy bed, so with a single push the room could be transformed into a basketball court. His favorite players’ jerseys were framed on the wall.
This was one of the six “exquisite” home designs Silo offers. Custom-built houses had to be approved by not only Discovery’s board but also the town of Amenia, which made me think back to the lunchtime discussion of community. Baker told me how Discovery had purchased the church in town, turning it into a design center. “The town loves it,” she said. I pictured a museum where kids could learn about the history of design, perhaps with educational programming for the community. But it’s not that kind of “design center.” It’s a place where Silo Ridge clients can view and choose their furniture.
This gave me pause, but a few minutes later, I was drinking bone broth and getting tipsy on frozen margaritas. We were standing in one of Silo’s two comfort stations—the grown-up answer to the candy bars Meldman would provide his sons. It was beyond. There was a charcuterie platter next to another charcuterie platter comprising only duck products. There was a warming drawer for the corn chips and hot dogs roasting nearby. For these, each in their own heated containers were chili, sauerkraut, melted cheese, butters—flavored by both chili lime and smoked onion. There were six hot sauces. Six! In vintage lunch boxes were stacked layers of beef jerky (which was not to my liking). There was a bao station (a type of pork bun) with yet more toppings. There were pickled beets, cucumbers, eggs, and cornichon. A man in a uniform tended a grill outside. Today’s menu: short rib tamales, duck and foie gras brats, grass-fed Angus beef sliders, and Wagyu beef hot dogs.
A machine churned frozen margaritas made with Casamigos Tequila, which was also heavily featured in the comfort station’s well-tended and well-stocked bar. The fact that Meldman is a partner in the tequila company was repeated. I would have had another, but it was time to go.
On my train back to New York, I thought about why alcohol branding would feature so prominently in a zone that emphasized such seemingly disparate elements of nature and luxury. The things most people know about Casamigos is that George Clooney and Rande Gerber (the husband of Cindy Crawford) are the owners, and that it was sold last year for nearly a billion dollars. These are markers, not necessarily for Meldman, but certainly for the kind of clients Silo wants to attract.
Not that there’s anything wrong with any of this. There’s great appeal to the tasteful modernism, cute bunnies, the man-made beach, and all that delicious food. But balancing this is the choice of six home designs, the “art,” the same people (several families have properties at more than one Discovery Land location). With all the wonderful, nearly endless amenities, there is also an undeniable degree of sameness.
When marketers research contemporary notions of luxury, the findings indicate that what people with money truly value is their time. It’s not about cars or gadgets or nice clothes or even nice houses. What they really cherish is time to do the things they want. The luxury is spending family time, doing things like playing golf with your kids. Which Silo offers, in spades.
The problem, of course, is that Chris Christie might be golfing behind you. And he may not be wearing a shirt.
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