“Is it a place??”
This was the first question (in fact, the first FAQ!) that we were asked by our friends and non-friends when we told them about our plans to open a new store upstate called "Camp Hudson."
So we figured, as the subject for our VERY first, Highly Important, and soul-becalming blog post here on the site, that we should explain the idea.
First, as to our name: Camp Hudson isn’t, in fact, an actual camp. To our knowledge, there actually isn’t a campsite with that name carved out anywhere along the 315 miles of the Hudson River. There’s an amazing summer learning program organized by the folks at the Hudson Lab School in Hastings-on-Hudson, called Camp Hudson, and there’s a Camp Hudson Pines up in the Adirondacks between Lake George and Saratoga Springs that looks beautiful. If you know of a real Camp Hudson that we can visit, we’d love to check it out!
But our Camp Hudson isn’t either of those. Instead, we’re an online store that curates antiques, vintage items, and new housewares for your home, at accessible price points, that hopefully evoke the history, sense of place, and natural beauty of the Hudson Valley here in upstate New York.
We also hope to be a publication where you can learn about the people and places that make the Hudson Valley so fun.
The Big Idea
The goal is that, at the start of each quarter of the year, we’ll drop a collection of housewares centered around a different theme, and pepper in an occasional restock or unique finds in the between months.
We’re featuring mirrors as our first collection, because, in addition to being in love with each frame and foxed mirror glass in the group, we feel mirrors also offer us a chance to try out how we might build content around a housewares category with such a rich cultural history.
Some mirrors here were found as they are, in their frames with supposed original glass, while others were found merely as stunning antique frames that we enlisted to house new mirror glass, custom-cut to fit.
We’re learning as we go — about running an ecommerce business, about the world of antiques and antiques research, and about the ever-evolving interior design and housewares industry — and with Camp Hudson, we hope to take you along with us as we try to figure it all out.
When we moved into our first house as new homeowners, we instantly fell in love with the endless styles and ways of mixing antique items with modern design, while simultaneously being quite intimidated by antiques in general, and the amount of space in our three-bedroom house to fill (we’d moved from a one-bedroom apartment in Jersey City, and only had a couch, bed, one floor lamp, and two bookshelves).
So we hope Camp Hudson can be a place where you feel welcomed to browse, ask questions, say hi, and also not gag at our prices; we aim to list each item at an approachable price point as far as antiques go — not to undervalue them or cheapen the industry — but to exist as a store somewhere in the middle of the “antiques pyramid.”
“The Blow-Hole”
Storytelling is another pillar that’s so important to us. We both come from careers in media — Jess as a founding editor, director of audience, and social media strategist; and James as a journalist, editorial director and creative director — and so we hope to use the Camp Hudson brand as a platform for telling stories about people in our community.
We’ll publish stories on our social feeds (@camp_hudson), on the blog here, and through our newsletter, “The Blow-Hole.” Whales are a big part of our inspiration for the brand, which we’ll explain in a future blog post!
The Future
So for this first year, you can look forward to more mirrors, behind-the-scenes content on our social media feeds (we’re @camp_hudson on Instagram and TikTok), and original storytelling that profiles our neighborhood’s vibrant characters, creators, and antiques community.
We hope you enjoy all that Camp Hudson has to offer and all that it grows to become, and encourage you to follow us on the socials, subscribe to our newsletter, and stay in touch!
We’re so glad that you’re here.
James + Jess