Spruceton Inn owner Casey Scieszka carves out quality time in the Catskills.

It’s hard to imagine that life ever needs slowing down in the northern Catskills, where people are few and acreage abundant. But when Casey Scieszka decided to reopen her hotel in West Kill, New York, after closing for a year during the pandemic, she chose to welcome guests on weekends only and usher in a less-hurried pace. With her new work schedule, she had time mid- week to be with her children and work on her writing.

The Spruceton Inn was once run as a bed-and-breakfast by the Schwarzenegger family (yes, those Schwarzeneggers), who lived there in the 1960s. When Scieszka and her husband Steven Weinberg bought the place years later, they turned it into a “bed and bar” for people looking to escape the noise and chaos of New York City. It’s a per- fect weekend getaway spot, inspired by the hospitality Brooklyn-bred Scieszka experienced while living in Morocco. She’d wanted to open a hotel in that country, but fell in love with the Catskills on trips there with Weinberg. “I decided to open the kind of place we would like to go,” Scieszka says. “Way out in nature, a very pared-down experience.”

Scieszka had always known that the 9-to-5 grind wasn’t for her: Both of her parents are self-employed (her father’s a writer; her mother’s an interior designer), and she finds that lifestyle freeing.“[I like] get- ting to say, ‘It’s the middle of the day on Wednesday, but screw it—we’re going to the museum,’” she explains. “Or, ‘It’s 11 p.m. on a Saturday, and I can’t go to bed until all of these invoices are taken care of.’”

Scieszka and Weinberg’s two young daughters are reaping the benefits of that flexibility. Whether they’re having tea parties in a creek near the Spruceton Inn on Tuesdays or swinging in the hammock with one of the graphic novels their father illustrated, they’re learning that with work-life balance, life can look many different ways.

To be sure, their life looks different now than it did just a few years ago. In 2020, the pandemic hit and business came to a screeching halt. It gave Scieszka time to think about what really mattered. “We weren’t comfortable welcoming thousands of tourists into our tiny hamlet,” she says. That realization led her to reboot the inn with a smaller team, and to take up a spot behind its bar. Now she spends her days talking to guests “like I’ve always loved to do,” explains Scieszka.

She knows that her trajectory is a little unusual. “You’re encouraged to grow, grow, grow your business, and there are times when I think, Am I crazy for [downsizing]?’” Scieszka notes. “But that’s just capitalism talking.”

Today, Scieszka donates half of her inn’s bar sales to non-profits focused on social justice and environmental protection. She also ensures that 15% of Spruceton’s purchasing budget goes to Black-owned businesses. As she sees it, where there’s opportunity, there’s obligation—to give back, to create, and to protect one’s time...midweek or otherwise. ❤