Woodstock Regeneration - Robyn Gerry's Planning

Times Herald-Record - May 13, 1997

Woodstock Regeneration... Robyn Gerry's Planning Shapes a Bright Future

By: Barbara Gref, Staff Writer

Still in the gold pumps and matching suit of her work day, Robyn Gerry cleared homework papers, recycling projects and magazines from her kitchen counter. It was the end of a long day that began with the school bus and ended with karate.

In her lovely, but not luxurious farmhouse in Liberty, she pulled her stool up to dinner with her 7-year-old triplets and 9-year-old daughter. She was the one in the middle, the only one who had not lost a baby tooth recently.

A tall, brunette, divorced mother of four, Robyn Gerry is five months from her 40th birthday. She's also the single-line explanation in every story about the purchase of the original Woodstock site by her father, multi-millionaire Alan Gerry. She is the one, they say, who suggested it, making her also the mother of some thing that's already cut its teeth in history as well as local lore.

"Was it my idea?" she asked. "You can't really say that... The idea, the thought, the vision does not belong to me.

"I mean, who doesn't have some idea about what should be done with Woodstock?..."

"I was the initiator who continues to this day to make trouble for my Dad." It took time, pressure and perseverance, but he did buy it. And now there are plans - yet incomplete - to preserve it and establish a center for performing arts there based on its significance.

Last week, in between the stuffing, spilled milk, spelling drills, computer games and a maniacal dog, Robyn Gerry told the story of her last 14 months. They included a secret project, a code word and a multi-million dollar deal. They ended up in a plan that means economic salvation to an entire county and that means even more to an entire generation and its followers.

The money and the magic

It all started with Peter Frampton.

Dec. 17, 1995

At the Concord resort in Kiamesha Lake, where the stars of yesteryear regularly fill the billing.

Robyn was a Frampton Freak from way back. For the concert, she hooked up with some friends and sat in a seat she wasn't suppose to have - closer to the front.

Evan Bloom has also moved his seat forward. They wound up sitting next to each other talking Woodstock.

Bloom is a guy, an electrical engineer, and sound man from Liberty, who saw many of the Catskill resorts go belly up before his eyes in the 1980's. He's also a guy who has made saving the original Woodstock site a driving force in his life for the past decade.

He hung out with Sid Bernstein when he thought Sid was the man to do it. He hung out at the Bethel Town Board as the long string of suitors tried for some angle on the site.

Robyn Gerry told him to sit tight. Two months later, she got him two hours with her father.

Bloom claims he's still got the marks on his leg from that day. Robyn kicked him under the table to keep him from talking too much as he made the pitch. She wanted to keep it business-like, focused.

Gerry showed some interest and a little compassion.

That Robyn backed the idea didn't hurt.

Her father had the money; she knew the magic.

For people who revere the site with religious passion, there is a link that must be there for things t go right with the Woodstock site: Gotta have the feeling, gotta know the power of the land.

Gerry really didn't get that part of it back then. But he took their word and it helped them convince him. But the big sell didn't go down that easy.

"In my mind, I saw the (positive) points," she said. "(But) my initial reaction in my mind was why would Alan Gerry want to get involved with this - this is not his cup of tea." He said "no" - lots of times. She kept coming back.

Gerry put them through the paces. He grilled them on the details. He required a business plan. They hashed over strategies, then gave him a list of every reason they could think of to do it.

She touched on his standards: his reputation, his credibility, his money. In the end, Robyn believes, he was convinced on instinct and conscience. It was just after he'd sold Cablevision to Time Warner for $2.6 billion - a deal that was smart business, but put some 200 local people out of work. "One of my key points was: Somebody's going to do it. It can be done wrong... or it can be done right."

Vision, backing, tenacity

Robyn Gerry never went off to get a fancy college education; she took every business course she could at Sullivan County Community College and worked her way up from the cable payments counter in her father's business. Later she went off to a satellite communications network in Stamford, Conn., then came back.

When it came to the Woodstock deal, she matched Gerry wit with Gerry wit in an inter-generational showdown of that locally legendary, brass-tacks savvy. He finally said "yes" and it came down to this, she said: "The vision of the world, his backing and my tenacity."

Bloom had the connection to the site's often-obstinate owner, June Gelish, a woman who operated on gut more than anything else. Bloom set up the first meeting, concealing Gerry's identity, until they met in Brooklyn.

She trusted Bloom and took a liking to Gerry. She sold him the field last July. From then on it was mum. Not mum like your sister's surprise party, but mum like the CIA. The deal was code named Project 2000, they called it "The Project" for short. It drove Robyn's kids nuts, especially Samantha, her older daughter. Every night, she'd beg before going to bed, "Tell me, tell me, tell me." Three or four months of secrecy turned to 10, 12 and 14. A corporation was formed, Granite Associates: It was Robyn, her father and his longtime Cablevision associate Darrell Supak.

Then they mobilized Gerry's Manhattan law firm for real estate, and quietly, covertly bought the land - 1,000 acres of it surrounding the property. It all took a lot longer than Robyn had expected.

"I had said, 'I feel like I've been in labor for 14 months; when are we giving birth?"

While Robyn was away in California on vacation, the secret began to unravel, word got out. "Too many people were connecting the dots," she said. A map appeared in the paper with blacked out areas showing where land had been bought. People were asking questions. No one involved in Granite wanted to lie.

So, they broke the silence two weeks ahead of time. Robyn got the word on the West Coast: "Darrell called and said, 'Congratulations' you've just given birth."

Acquiring the feel

It wasn't until 1994 that Robyn Gerry, born and bred in Sullivan County, first set foot on the Woodstock site. She was 11 in 1969 - too young to be among the throng that hitched its way to Max Yasgur's farm.

Her sister, then 16, took off with friends. Robyn sat out on the stoop of her mother's Buckley Street apartment in her best hippie regalia: hip-hugger bell bottoms, bright yellow shirt, ultra wide cherry-red belt, bare feet. She watched the grand procession through the village and gave a few directions - "thataway."

People like her sister came back with their stories, and the thrill subsided. But she didn't miss out on the 25th. In 1994, she set up camp up on the road with her then - husband. They arrived in the evening, and she saw the tents begin to dot the field. The next morning, she walked down Best Road and came to crest of the hill where the view opens out onto the entire expanse of the site. "It was breathtaking... Overnight the masses moved in. Throngs of people were there, and you knew you were part of something special... you could feel it."

She has camped out at or near the site for the three days - August 15, 16, and 17 - ever since.

In the news

The last time Robyn Gerry Jardine was in the news, she'd given birth to her triplets. Now, her life is working motherhood to the max. It's business deals and school bus schedules; planning consultants and piano lessons; lunch boxes upside down in the kitchen sink.

Six months ago, when she knew the magnitude of what was going down, she got a live-in nanny for the first time. But she still insists on being around for homework and bedtime and dinner, even if it's pizza more often than roast chicken.

"I have a lot of drive and energy and enthusiasm and I love to work," she said. "After my kids, my second love is my work."

And yes, she said, it's hard being Alan Gerry's daughter. "Knowing that I share so many traits with him, why would I be happy riding on his coattails when I know I'm capable of building my own success in life? I feel like I'm working toward those goals."

It was close to bed time Monday night by the time Robyn Gerry finished her story. The kids piled up their school papers. Their mom cleared the last chicken and wiped up the spills, a copper penny swung from a chain around her neck. A close friend found it last summer when he went to stamp out his cigarette on the ground at the field.

Being responsible, he went to bury the butt in the dirt, dug a tiny hole and hit the penny, minted in 1969. The jeweler who was to mount it as a gift for Robyn told him it was a proof penny - the first one to be minted, and never meant to be circulated. "It's special," she said. Her kids all hoot at this. They rib her no end. "It's special, it's special. Yeah that's what it us... Everything's special to her." I'm a strong believer that everything happens for a reason," she said. "Somehow, someway, this penny wound up in the field."

She's got a million dollar field, a magic penny and a plan. That's all anybody needs to know.