The sloping hills, warm breezes and soft rain gave personality to one of the world’s most famous pieces of real estate long before it became one of the world’s most famous pieces of real estate.

Lines and color, the horizon, the sky, the Earth, the past, the present and the future all converge at the intersection of West Shore and Hurd roads, not far from Route 17B in the Town of Bethel, Sullivan County, where you will find the 600 acres of land upon which the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was held in August 1969.
Jimi Hendrix shocked and satisfied at that gathering of the ages. Roger Daltrey of The Who was defiant. Joe Cocker, Carlos Santana, even Sha Na Na tapped into some primal power, some aquifer of enlightenment, some lightning bolt of beatification.
There is a power to this place.
The late dairy farmer Max Yasgur, who owned this land in 1969, and without whose cooperation Woodstock never would have occurred, farmed this land as men and women had farmed fields around the world for centuries upon centuries. But from Aug. 15 to Aug. 18, 1969, a different type of harvest came forth - hope, peace, cooperation and optimism.
“It’s absolutely beautiful farm country with open fields everywhere,” Michael Lang, the man behind Woodstock, wrote in his memoir, “The Road to Woodstock,” about the region in which the festival site sits. “We took a right turn off 17B and onto Hurd Road. About a quarter mile up, we broached the top of a hill and there it was.”
And there it remains.
The land that has become part of American popular culture has a historic mystique, draws visitors from around the world and towers above all the incredible things that happened at Woodstock
It can humble you - as only nature can.
This is no Grand Canyon, no Rocky Mountain, no Great Lake, no Mississippi River. There is no obvious grandeur here.
The power of this parcel infiltrates, assimilates, hangs in the air, and is more of a presence than a point of interest.
This land is what we call God’s country.
Bethel may mean “house of God,” but there is more to this landscape of the Lord than words and meaning.
The mud, the rain, the sunrise at Woodstock shaped those days as much as any guitar solo or bass line.
Forty years after the crowds left and the concert ended, the legacy of the land lives on.