I was recently invited to attend the annual board meeting of the Central Upstate Regional Alliance. They wanted to hear first hand from emerging businesses in upstate New York. It was a great opportunity to share the our perspective on the current environment for emerging companies, and to ask for some assistance from those who influence the decision makers in Albany.
What was unique about the meeting was the setting. Instead of the normal bland conference room with a grey table surrounded by grey chairs in a beige room, it was held in a massive log cabin that looked like Theodore Roosevelt decorated it himself.
Here, have a teddy graham
The location was Savannah Dhu. Greg from Sound Reading and I drove up in the pouring rain and parked in the underground garage, where you get a first glimpse of what his place is like. Over each parking spot was a mounted animal, mostly deer and boar. And everything was either stone or "log cabiny". You enter next to the wine cellar, which is flanked by a full action scene of a stuffed moose in a fight with stuffed wolves. Up the stairs past the magnum-sized bottles from their private winery, you enter a cavernous room built from whole tree trunks, rough hewn beams, and lit by a massive wrought iron chandelier. In all parts of the room were spectacular examples of wildlife, from a polar bear, to massive stags, moose, elk, white deer, as well as grizzly bears, bobcats, and a rafter of wild turkeys in full strut.
We all sat in a circle in heavy wooded chairs appointed with red leather and sipped coffee from cups that said "Savannah Dhu 1984" on them. Other than feeling like this place was from 1874, the rest of the meeting and day was normal. We got some work done, shared a lot of good ideas, and enjoyed being dry and warm on a wet autumn day.
What was unique about the meeting was the setting. Instead of the normal bland conference room with a grey table surrounded by grey chairs in a beige room, it was held in a massive log cabin that looked like Theodore Roosevelt decorated it himself.
The location was Savannah Dhu. Greg from Sound Reading and I drove up in the pouring rain and parked in the underground garage, where you get a first glimpse of what his place is like. Over each parking spot was a mounted animal, mostly deer and boar. And everything was either stone or "log cabiny". You enter next to the wine cellar, which is flanked by a full action scene of a stuffed moose in a fight with stuffed wolves. Up the stairs past the magnum-sized bottles from their private winery, you enter a cavernous room built from whole tree trunks, rough hewn beams, and lit by a massive wrought iron chandelier. In all parts of the room were spectacular examples of wildlife, from a polar bear, to massive stags, moose, elk, white deer, as well as grizzly bears, bobcats, and a rafter of wild turkeys in full strut.
We all sat in a circle in heavy wooded chairs appointed with red leather and sipped coffee from cups that said "Savannah Dhu 1984" on them. Other than feeling like this place was from 1874, the rest of the meeting and day was normal. We got some work done, shared a lot of good ideas, and enjoyed being dry and warm on a wet autumn day.
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