For sale: Catskill Mountain land with 6-acre stone sculpture, giant monolith, mountain view

Giant bluestone sculpture for sale in Catskills

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. — Harvey Fite spent 37 years turning an abandoned bluestone quarry in the Catskill Mountains into a strange and striking landscape sculpture. Visitors to Opus 40 walk through rock-wall mazes that swirl around a 9-ton monolith looming in the center.

Fite’s family has kept the Woodstock-area attraction open to seasonal visitors since his death in 1976. But now they’re trying to sell the land, and local officials are working with them to keep this novel Hudson Valley site open.

Opus 40 has an asking price of $3.5 million. Town of Saugerties (SAW’-ger-teez) supervisor Greg Helsmoortel (HELS’-mohr-tell) says his small town 100 miles north of New York City can’t afford to buy it. But the town is starting to work with arts and cultural groups to look at ways to keep it open.