THE ESTATE UPSTATE
RANDALL WALLACE was mid-air when he first noticed Glen Tonche, an 85-acre mountaintop property overlooking the Ashokan Reservoir in upstate New York. It was 1998, and he was flying to visit a friend, folk musician Jay Ungar, who ran a fiddle camp in the area. The trip was cut short when Wallace contracted Lyme disease, but his impression of the estate (originally built as a summer home for Pennsylvania magnate Raymond Pitcairn’s family) and its spellbinding surroundings stayed with him. The property, he discovered, was for sale, and he had a “novel idea” of what he could make out of it: “a recording studio with a view.”
Wallace — a fashion photographer and also the grandson of former U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace — had little recording studio experience. But he had recently started seeking opportunities in the music world, and he found the bargain and the potential too good to pass up. “I think it was a $1.6 million offer price, and I called in an expert and said, ‘This seems ridiculously low and people must be idiotic to not want to buy it,’ ”
Wallace recalls. “The last time I checked, every recording studio has the ugliest view imaginable — if you even get a window. So why don’t we do this?” He did, and the result is Allaire Studios.
THE BUILD To construct Allaire, Wallace enlisted the renowned Walters-Storyk Design Group and lead designer John Storyk, the architect behind thousands of recording studios since founding Manhattan’s iconic Electric Lady for Jimi Hendrix in 1968. Storyk envisioned turning the property’s giant “Great Room,” with its panoramic view of the Catskills and its naturally low-end-absorbing acoustics, into the studio’s live room. “The setting, the site, the view and the tranquility were key in thinking about what this room should be,” he says. “And at the same time, we created a lounge and a kitchen area and all the other amenities that are usually associated with destination studios — the kind of stuff you might not get in an urban studio.”
THE STORIES Following its opening in 1999, artists were encouraged to come stay at Allaire for weeks with their bands, families or both while recording. Norah Jones laid down part of her 2002 blockbuster album, Come
Away With Me, here. David Bowie was so taken with the area after recording most of 2002’s Heathen here that he ultimately bought a nearby property for his own use. (Sadly, Wallace notes, the rock legend died before getting to do much with it.) And country superstar Tim McGraw took full advantage of all Allaire had to offer: Wallace recalls him smoking a joint with his father — former MLB All-Star pitcher Tug McGraw, who was undergoing cancer treatment — in one of the studios while working on his Billboard 200-topping 2004 album, Live Like You Were Dying, and also renting out the estate’s master bedroom (usually occupied by Wallace himself) with his wife, fellow star Faith Hill.
THE TREASURES Wallace’s world-class array of studio instruments is available to Allaire’s clients. “Usually [studios offer] bass, guitar, drums and then go fuck yourself,” Wallace laments. “I have the finest bass clarinet you can buy… flutes, trumpets... tons of saxophones, all top-drawer.
And then synthesizers, insane quantities of synthesizers right now.” Within that keyboard selection are some of the rarest Yamahas, Chamberlins and Lowreys, including, Wallace notes, those used on classic recordings by rock greats like The Beatles and The Who: “You’re just coming in and going, ‘Look, this keyboard can’t just do “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley,” it can do a third song. Let’s do it!’ ”
THE FUTURE The mountaintop mystique of Allaire continues to draw artists ranging from indie rockers Grizzly Bear to jam trio Medeski, Martin & Wood to alt-pop singer-songwriter Clairo, who came with collaborator Jack Antonoff. (He had sought Storyk’s advice on a place “for a week or two that was really out of the way and quiet,” the architect recalls.)
“There are very few places on the planet where day to day you just don’t hear anything of hustle and bustle,” Wallace says. “And it slows you down very quickly. When you don’t hear anything, you’re now only hearing what’s inside you — and what you’re trying to get out.”