For nearly 30 years, Peter Finn has been working toward a vision that once seemed improbable: helping transform struggling mountain communities into thriving cultural destinations.
“My great-grandparents bought property here in 1907,” Finn said. “My grandmother spent her summers here, my father spent summers here. I knew this was an important family location for all my years growing up.”
Today, the founder of the Catskill Mountain Foundation can point to renovated buildings, expanded arts programming, and a region that has experienced a dramatic revival. But when Finn first began investing in the northern Catskills in the 1990s, the landscape looked very different.
When he took over family property, he found the villages of Hunter and Tannersville facing significant decline.
“On Main Street, a third of the buildings had ‘for sale’ signs on them,” he said. “Buildings were in a bad state of repair. Some were actually collapsing.”
The conditions convinced him that intervention was needed.
“It was clear that something needed to be done by somebody to try and turn around the fortune of the local community here,” Finn said.
That effort eventually became the Catskill Mountain Foundation, a nonprofit organization that today encompasses arts programming, arts education, theater operations, publishing, and community development initiatives throughout the region.
Before launching the foundation, Finn built a career in public relations and later founded FINN Partners, a global communications agency with roughly 1,300 employees and 35 offices worldwide.
“What I learned from my years in the PR agency business is that communications is a critical part of everything that any organization does,” he said.
As the foundation expanded, its mission grew. The organization purchased a local movie theater, began presenting films and performances, developed a studio arts campus on a former resort property, launched arts education programs, and took over publication of The Guide magazine.
“It didn’t happen all at once,” Finn said. “The different things we’ve done in the arts have evolved over time as we’ve looked to strengthen the presence of the Catskill Mountain Foundation in the community and in the region.”
Still, the foundation’s early years were not without difficulties.
“There were members of the local community who were resistant to change,” Finn recalled. “Their attitude was everything is fine and we don’t need this.”
But Finn’s deep family roots in the region helped establish credibility.
“I was not an outsider from New York City coming in to change the community,” he said. “I was somebody who had very deep roots in the community.”
Looking back, Finn sees the region’s transformation as evidence that arts and culture can serve as catalysts for economic development.
“There are very few buildings for sale right now,” he said. “The vast majority of the buildings have been renovated and look much better than they did before.”
The success has also created new demands, including a shortage of housing for the local workforce, a problem Finn noted is shared by many communities experiencing growth.
For rural communities elsewhere seeking revitalization, Finn believes the Catskills offer a useful lesson.
“I think the arts are a proven engine of economic revitalization,” he said.
But he cautions that meaningful change requires patience and personal commitment.
“You’ve got to realize it takes a long time,” Finn said. “You’ve got to be committed. You’ve got to be prepared to put your own money into it before you can expect other people to do the same.”
Nearly three decades after launching the foundation, Finn remains focused on an ambitious goal.
“My goal has actually been to turn our community into an arts destination with a worldwide reputation,” he said. “It’s one thing to have a regional reputation, it’s another thing to have a national reputation, and it’s quite another to have an international reputation, but I hope that’s what we can get to.
He acknowledges that achieving international recognition remains a significant challenge.
“People over the years have asked me why I do this. My answer to them has always been, there’s no known cure for my condition,” he said.
Image: Peter Finn is cofounder of the Catskill Mountain Foundation, which he and his wife Sarah started in 1998, as well as the founder and CEO of FINN Partners, a public relations and integrated marketing agency he launched in 2011. (FINN Partners)