Plans to transform Pine Plains’ historic Grange Hall into a bookstore café called Sky and Celery have been shelved, according to the property’s owners, Michele Moses and Henri Lipton.
“Henri and I have decided that we needed to table our plans for the business, at least for the time being,” Moses wrote in an email to the Herald. “With all of the information and projections we have been able to gather, we could not figure out a path to the business model sustaining itself in the way we had previously imagined. It was difficult to force ourselves to be so practical about a dream we have put so much love and care into, but it was also necessary.”
The couple, who first presented their vision to the Pine Plains Planning Board in December, had hoped to breathe new life into the 186-year-old Grange Hall at 3007 Church St. Their plan was to fuse their professional backgrounds — hers in literature, his in culinary arts — into a business that would also foster community. Or, as Moses put it at the December public hearing, “A place where everyone in this town and who comes to this town can congregate.”
The Grange Hall previously housed Gallery & Goods, a local artisan market that closed in 2022. The couple’s proposal was met with enthusiasm by the public at a January meeting of the Planning Board, whose members supported it 5–1 in a nonbinding straw vote. A resolution on the project had been expected earlier this year.
Though the bookstore café will not be moving forward for now, the couple said they remain committed to ensuring the space serves the public good. They expressed a willingness to rent or sell the property, though they have not listed it yet.
“We love Pine Plains and we love the Grange building,” Moses wrote. “We hope that we can find someone who can turn the space into the public resource that it deserves be, whether as tenants or as new owners.”