EXPAND YOUR CAPACITY FOR CURIOSITY
RENSSELAERVILLE, NY · EST. 1924
Hilltown Commons is a historic nonprofit retreat and arts campus hosting world-class institutions, leaders, and creatives to tend the commons.
• AT THE COMMONS • A curriculum of gatherings.
Programs designed for the kind of learning that requires other people.
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Our flagship gatherings. We bring together people who rarely share a room to sit with the hard questions to cross-pollinate ideas. Host with us →
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Open-registration workshops hosted by instructors. Leave with a honed skill and renewed perspective. Join the Inquiry →
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Film screenings, local fundraisers, pub nights, and live music. Open to all. Just show up. Full schedule →
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Nonprofit and company retreats for organizations needing space to align, advance, or explore. Full and partial campus buyouts available. Host with us →
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Time, space, and inspiration to create. Apply →
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Bookings for milestone events. Celebrate here →
• ORIGINS •1924
A century ago, in a post-World War I period of reckoning, this place began as a radical act of openness: a living room thrown open to communities pulling apart at the seams.
The founding instinct was countercultural yet simple: people gathering on shared ground can find common ground.
History has a way of repeating itself. The antidote remains the same.
The oldest technology for change is a room full of people.
A 'commons' is shared ground made fertile by all who show up and tend to it. Hilltown Commons is protected by a permanent conservation easement, held in trust for the people and communities curious enough to find it.
• THE CAMPUS •OUR COMMON GROUND
90 acres in the Upper Hudson Valley. Heritage residences, a 180-person theater, a pub in the original carriage house. Each space a different chapter of the same century-long story: preserved and re-tended for the questions of our time.
FIVE HERITAGE RESIDENCES
RE-WILDED, PROTECTED LAND
ONSITE RESTAURANT & BAR• METHODOLOGY •CURIOSITY AS A PRACTICE
We view curiosity as a communal practice, requiring humility and the courage to step outside of certainty.
• THE MOVEMENT •Every living room that opens after ours. that's the movement.
Curiosity, practiced together in shared physical space, is one of the most effective tools we have for rebuilding what has been lost.
The macro problem gets solved at the micro level through depth and tending.
That's what we build toward.
• WE ARE A NONPROFIT •OPEN FIELD
As a 501(c)(3), every dollar has a destination. Here’s where it lands →
HOW WE (RE)GENERATE REVENUE
PROGRAMMATIC INCOMEWorkshops, retreats, convenings, and artist residencies are offered at all-inclusive package rates that cover instruction, lodging, and farm-fresh meals. This qualifies as related educational income.
PRIVATE EVENT INCOME (UNRELATED BUSINESS INCOME)Celebrations and events for old and new friends through customizable package options.
CONTRIBUTIONS & DONATIONS Foundational partnerships and our friends near and far provide their support through contributions for our programming and historic preservation.
COMMUNITY PUB NIGHT Our Pub serves as an onsite restaurant for retreats & workshops, and is serves as a community hub every Friday. Our neighbors gather and share seasonal farm fresh meals, natural wine, and local beers!
THE COMMONS
IS CALLING
Ways to Visit
FOR VISITORS
Workshops, week-long retreats, artist residencies, community pub nights. All-inclusive packages with farm-fresh meals from local growers. FOR INSTITUTIONS & leaders
Convenings, team off-sites, partner residencies. Full and partial campus buyouts available.