NORTH BRANCH  — When Tom Roberts and Anna Åberg started asking around about the owner of the North Branch Cider Mill, they heard time and again that people had written letters asking him to sell, but he’d always said no. 

So they decided not to write Dan Sullivan a letter. 

Instead they got in a car and drove straight to his house. The trip was an hour-and-a-half from the couple’s own home in Livingston Manor, but Roberts was undeterred. 

In fact, over an 18-month period, Åberg estimates her husband took 10 trips to Sullivan’s home, doing his best to win over the man who held the fate of the North Branch landmark in his hands. During each meeting, Sullivan would share more about the history of the once bustling mill and Roberts would share more about the couple’s dreams for bringing the property back to life. 

In late 2022, after more than a year-and-a-half of back-and-forth, the couple officially became the new owners of the cider mill building and the various buildings on the well-known property, along with a chunk of undeveloped land across the street, perfect for a parking lot. 

“I feel like pinching myself every day I come in here,” Roberts said while sitting on one of the couches left behind in the largest barn on the property. “We dreamed about this for so long. I planned our lives around the property for so long.” 

Originally from England, Roberts was the one who first  discovered the area while fly fishing with friends in the Livingston Manor area. 

In 2016, he and Åberg  —  who hails from Sweden — bought their first home in the area, a fixer-upper that they were able to fix up with the help of numerous friends who would come into town to lend a hand. 

Both had spent about eight years living in New York City and realized they’d had enough. 

“We were starting to feel like there weren’t enough trees,” Roberts says with a smile. 

Each grew up in largely rural settings in their respective countries, and Sullivan County reminded them of their childhoods. 

That first fixer upper soon became the Livingston Manor Fly Fishing Club, a nature retreat on the banks of the Willowemoc. With backgrounds in marketing and hospitality — the couple met while both worked in the marketing departments of Absolut Vodka — they’ve since put their design, renovation and branding skills together as Homestedt. 

The business has a series of local rental homes, renovates local establishments and even operates a small home goods store in Livingston Manor. 

It was while working on a renovation of Seminary Hill Cidery in Callicoon that the couple first spotted the cider mill, driving by the empty red buildings sometimes two-to -three times a day on trips from the Manor. 

“We’d drive past ... looking at the building and dreaming about it,” Roberts recalls. 

Those dreams involved pulling all the facets of their work together under one roof, and reviving the cider mill itself. 

Now that they own the property, those plans are slowly taking shape. The mill itself will be the biggest undertaking and one the couple says they’re only just now able to wrap their heads around as they grapple with zoning rules, health department guidelines and more. 

With significant work required to meet health codes and bring the old mill building back, the couple is focusing first on the large barn property where they hope to open a larger version of their home good store, add a commercial woodshop where furniture will be produced, and house Åberg’s design offices.

The goods will be things the couple has vetted — everything from garden tools to frying pans to the thick woolen sweaters Roberts has come to prefer wearing to keep warm while working in the midst of a Catskills winter.

“It’s useful and specifically useful for up here,” Roberts explains of the type of items they intend to stock. 

With hopes to have their first phase complete by the end of 2023, the couple says they will then be able to turn their full attention to the cider mill itself. They hope to get a cider press running again, as well as adding a commercial kitchen and creating a space akin to those they remember from their own childhoods when a Sunday morning meant “having a ramble in the countryside,” as Roberts calls it, before heading somewhere to sit and have tea or coffee. In Roberts’ memory it was a place children would be able to buy hard candy, in Åberg’s there would have been ice cream. 

Whatever the menu, it will be family-friendly and aimed at both visitors and the local clientele, as well as being open year-round. But perhaps most importantly, it will pay homage to the original Cider Mill.

Already they’ve been gathering local stories from neighbors in North Branch, and they’re on the hunt for more to piece together the complete history of the mill. 

“We love looking into old history, but so many buildings you look into the history and there isn’t much to find,” Roberts says. 

The opposite has been true of the Cider Mill, which the couple has found holds fond memories for nearly everyone they ask. 

“It would give us such pleasure to see those people come back and relive those memories,” Åberg says.  

If anyone has old photos of the mill, the couple would like to see them, along with old advertisements. They’d like to hear old stories too. 

“Tell us what they loved about the place,” Roberts says. “We want to hear that!”

Emails can be sent to contact@homestedt.com, and the couple will arrange to scan photographs so people don’t have to part with their own memories. The photos will be used to aid in the renovation but also used in future displays so future visitors can get a taste of the long history of the mill. 

“We want to really do the place justice,” Roberts says. “It will take a while, but we will get there!”