The Roxbury Booked as Top Cheese of Chamber Tourism Asset

Catskill Mountain News
September 14, 2005
by Trish Adams

A twilight run on the rails and an evening feast in Kirkside Park were just two of the perks for those who gathered Thursday evening to honor this year’s winners of the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce awards for the most exciting and innovative businesses and the groups who support them. 

All the awardees made inspiring and often amusing remarks about their efforts to bring prosperity to this corner of the Catskills and sometimes just survive the implementation of their business ideas.

Greg Henderson, one of the two proprietors of The Roxbury, the hip and savvy motel-cum-cultural oasis had some of the most riveting tales to tell. The Roxbury garnered this year’s tourism award and has earned its one-of-a-kind reputation for everything from its chartreuse green doors to its Austin Powers suite (even some of us who already live here would like to stay there just to have the experience”.)

Henderson and his partner, Joseph Massa, who resurrected The Roxbury made the transformation look as easy as a Fab Five makeover, but behind the scenes, things weren’t always seamless. In fact, Henderson and Massa were sometimes swimming in problems — literally: “Around this time in 2003 we were knee-deep in rising floodwater from burst pipes,” recounted Henderson. “Everything that could have gone wrong with our renovation, went wrong.” Greg even admitted that he once had a “What were we thinking?” moment and asked Joe seriously if maybe they shouldn’t abandon their ambitious renovation plans. Fortunately, the moment passed. “We were determined not to give up,” said Henderson, “And here we are two years later selling out every weekend. Since opening, we’ve had more than 5,000 guests stay at The Roxbury and we’ve appeared in more than 20 print and broadcast media articles in publications ranging from The New York Times to CNN to National Geographic.

Even better than the buzz, says Massa, is “Getting to know our guests — it’s the most wonderful part of our job. People from lieterally all over the world are finding our website and coming to stay at The Roxbury. We’ve had guests from every single continent.”