Let's Get Local: More From Columbia County and the Fox Hill Vineyard Saga.
Spoiler Alert: It's not over. Not any of it. What's new? Well, I guess it the "FU".
Next week—assuming we make it, which feels less like assumption and more like prayer these days—the good people of Columbia County will gather for a public forum on the Fox Hill Farm and Vineyard saga.
For those late to the drama: Ed Williams and his wife Cheri want to open a tasting room for their vineyard—which isn't yet ready for wine time. But the tasting room? Urgent, apparently. This is, of course, lipstick on the same pig they trotted out pre-COVID—a wedding venue thinly disguised as agriculture, redux of their first attempt to monetize their large home on Bashford Road. The neighbors went to the mattresses over that iteration. But Ed and Cheri—you have to admire the persistence, if nothing else—kept pivoting to new concepts, all of which the neighborhood has rejected with the same answer: This does not belong here.
In December, the Zoning Board of Appeals met. The Williamses’ lawyer continued his valiant effort to shoehorn his clients’ wishes into something resembling acceptable and legal. The meeting was so riddled with confusion over the actual land use that the board decided, inexplicably, to hold a public hearing. This is a matter of law—why we’re now treating it as public spectacle, I cannot say.
What I can say is that after covering this story for months and knowing about it for years, I am still learning. A lot.
Most recently, I reached out to everyone who submitted concerns to the town. What I heard back from several of them tells you everything you need to know about this situation.
When people have asked Dr. Williams what he thinks of his neighbors’ concerns—and I heard this from three separate sources who asked not to be identified—his response has been consistent. Verbatim. “I don’t give a fuck what my neighbors think.”
His lawyer’s latest submission to the town confirms this ethos. They’ve abandoned even the pretense of selling their own wine. They’re now openly acknowledging that this tasting room is built for the likes Josh Cellars, not Fox Hill Vineyards. At present, the Williams “farm” does not possess enough vines to justify a tasting room. A dinner party would suffice. This is a fact. As is the continued lack of transparency and none of the leg work that was done by the Silver Brothers located on Shaker Museum Road.
On a personal note: thank you to everyone who reached out to say they’d never have written what I did, but were thrilled someone did.
Many people have contacted me—off the record, and I understand why—expressing their dismay. A few questioned what right I had to weigh in at all. One person pointed out that I have no real history in the town. When I explained my actual history—that I grew up there, owned a property there until 2024 and that I’m the eldest son of Dorothy Purello, one of the town’s beloved residents—he immediately said she would have approved of what I wrote.
One person, not a resident of Columbia County and never has been, has taken a more pit bull approach toward me. I’ll call her Lady Montague. Apparently she’s been mooing like a cow in support of the project. But even she will not commit to writing a letter in support of the project.
My mother and many of her contemporaries have passed on—like the Spencers who once owned Falcon Crest—but the roots remain. Things do get back to me. And everyone’s opinion matters. I mean this. Even when the opinion is more connected with making bank on the backs of a winery that needs a caterer.
People should show up to this public meeting. For all the chatter and snark, this decision will change a community. And why should a community tolerate a neighbor who has made his position so clear? After all, we now know exactly how he feels about his neighbors.
The town meeting is next week, January 22 at 7PM.
My previous articles and letters from the community are available on the Chatham Town’s website: here.
You can also access them here: