Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.139 | Skaneateles Field's Resort & Spa

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Exploring Skaneateles Fields Resort & Spa with GM Kyle Harris In this special edition of Good News York, host Mike Brindisi visits Skaneateles Fields Resort and Spa to speak with the general manager, Kyle Harris. The episode covers the resort's development, amenities, and focus on wellness. Kyle shares his background in hospitality, the importance of community partnerships, and the resort's unique, individualized guest experiences. The episode also highlights the resort’s family-friendly packages, culinary offerings, and future plans for expanded activities. Whether it's the luxurious spa, the farm-to-table dining, or the various recreational activities, Skaneateles Fields Resort and Spa offers a comprehensive retreat for all visitors. 00:00 Welcome to Good News York 00:30 Introducing Kyle Harris and Skaneateles Resort 01:06 Kyle Harris' Journey to General Manager 02:36 Involvement in the Resort's Planning and Construction 03:42 The Unique Curio Resort by Hilton 05:52 Focus on Wellness and Amenities 08:32 Community Partnerships and Local Involvement 10:46 Culinary Excellence and Farm-to-Table Experience 12:34 The Story of Scout the Fox 15:25 Modern Lodge Feel and Family-Friendly Features 18:38 Events and Conferences at Allen Lodge 19:46 Final Thoughts and Farewell

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And Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Hello and welcome to a special edition of Good News York. I'm your host Mike Bern-Dissie.

Matt is not with us, and that is his own fault because he's missing out on a good news. Good one. This is not our new studio. Yes, if you've heard, we are moving to a brand new 17,000 square foot facility soon, our new studios, and hopefully there's as beautiful as this. Where am I? I am in Skinny Atlas, New York, at the Skinny Atlas Fields Resort and Spa. And I am sitting with a very special gentleman. Good morning to Kyle Hares, the GM. Thank you for this beautiful place. Thanks for sitting down with me. And thanks for the coffee.

Of course. It's a pleasure to have you in as a guest. I mean, I guess I'm technically a guest, But, I mean, I sat down to do this interview, and all of a sudden you have people waiting on us, and you run a tight ship around here, my friend. Service forward. Service first. Absolutely. Well, obviously, this place is just gorgeous. Skinny Atlas itself has always been gorgeous, so it's a perfect spot. If you don't mind, talk a little bit about your background and how your journey to get here as the general manager.

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually grew up in Auburn, New York. Nice. So my household growing up is 12 minutes driveway to driveway. So I take a lot of pride in this area, this community, if you will. For me, right in my yearbook, I put that I want to be a general manager or a resort down south. I checked two of those, the down south piece. One I guess could say it's relative.

Maybe I'm a little south of my house. There you go. Went to school for hospitality management, spent some time in Orlando, Florida. was fortunate to work for Gaylord Palms, now a Marriott brand, and 1,406 rooms really understand things very directly. And for me, it opened my eyes to a new world, a hospitality world, one that was very service forward, where the guests were important. Worked my way through and back to Syracuse, New York, worked at the Crown Plaza as Director of Sales of Marketing and General Manager there. I did that for about 11 years and had to be part of this project. I had coffee with Tom.

I've been with the company three years, but I had coffee with Tom, and I said, I want to be a part of this from the beginning from ground up. So I was fortunate to be here through the construction phase and really see it from dust to what it is today. That's amazing. And so getting it on the ground floor is always, you know, best case scenario for situations like this. Were you involved in any, did they allow you to be involved in,

any of the planning process or the building process. Absolutely. Ownership, Woodbine Hospitality, fantastic company to work for, a family company rooted here in the community, and very open to ideas. It was their vision. I was executing and assisting with the construction side. So from a design phase, obviously, that was done in a different, you know,

through Teaselwood designs and some of the design firms. But at the end of the day, it was, you know, small operational tweaks. Obviously, we were very able and capable to make those changes throughout to make sure that, you know, write down to, hey, does this plug make sense here? Does this plug make sense there? Type of changes and making sure that it makes sense for our guest. Yeah, and that's, I'm so glad that they leaned on you for that

because with your extensive background in hospitality going to school for it, you want that kind of input from somebody who is literally, like, where should we put the phone chargers that stuff matters especially in a place like this now this is also a I don't want to make sure I say a curio how do I say Kiro resort by Hilton which is a very well-known name talk about that a little bit yeah absolutely so we wanted to be part of a larger we are a franchise of Hilton we went with the Kiro brand because of what Kario encompasses Kiro is food and beverage focused and it's a lifestyle brand so it fit well with our focus of wellness

So we also strive to be a Curio Resort. We are the only resort, Hilton Resort in the Northeast, and the only Curio Resort north of Key West. So we're very fortunate to be a part of that. And again, you said you wanted to go down south. I mean, so you're not in Key West, but, you know, you're at a resort that would be in Key West. Let's look at it that way. We'll talk about all the amenities, which are incredible here in a second. Was Skinny Atlas always the target place for them to build something like this?

Or did they kind of have to come here and see the beauty for themselves first? Yeah, so ownership is local. So they've had wonderful hotel establishments in Syracuse, New York. Previously, the Genesee Grand, Hotel Schuyler, which is a tapestry, Parkview Hotel, and currently the Tailwater Lodge Resort up in Altmar, New York. So all of those kind of stepped into what their passion really became, which is this wellness, you know, service-oriented facility, which every detail is hyper-focused. And the guest is, you know, the important piece of the equation. So the experience kind of stepped them from Syracuse into the Skinny Atlas market because they saw a great opportunity, especially, you know, pre-COVID and into post-COVID, the leisure.

traveler is is wellness driven they they care more about what their wellness is they they're more mindful of when they get away and they also travel with families so we're a family friendly resort which was an important aspect for ownership because again staying with those trends you know people are traveling with their family as they should absolutely you know you hear that word wellness and we hear it a lot in society these days and you said it's it's a very it's a primary focus of this place talk little bit about what that means to you and what it means overall what what

is the focus on wellness absolutely I'm glad you asked so wellness for me is specific to the individual so the wellness journey could be simplistic in one's mind or it could be very complex they could have no experience with it or they could be very well experienced in wellness we have every aspect of that so as a resort we give the options and we help we're happy to create a journey for a guest, but ultimately we want them to come and experience it as they see best fit. Some of those amenities could be as simple as snow shoes and mountain bikes to get out into nature.

We have walking trails. Obviously, we have spa and our various spa treatments. We have a partnership with taproot fields that infuses a wonderful growing practice into our produce to give us a local flare with our restaurants. So, yeah, so the wellness piece, I think for me, is specific to the journey of the guest. in the individual. See, this is so unique and I'm not just saying this. It's not like I'm paid to say this stuff. Everything I talk about on air is from the heart and from the mind, which can be scary. But you're talking about wellness and how it's really an individualized experience.

I've been to resorts in spas, and it's hard to complain about a resort and spa because it's incredible, no matter what you experience there, but it is very unique in the way that you guys say, hey, you know, It's not like here's package one, here's package two, here's package three. It's here's what we offer. Let's customize it to you. And I think that is so unique. And I just, I commend you on that. Let's talk about some of those amenities because it's absolutely incredible.

The first part, you've got rooms and suites, obviously, which include hot tubs, fire pits for smores. You've got your leisure activities. You can do weddings and events here. you also offer, you know, the town itself is kind of an add-on, you know what I mean, for no charge. You could go downtown and have an incredible experience on its own. Talk a little bit about, oh, and then the culinary aspect. That's the big one I want to talk about after too, because you guys are very unique in that way. But talk about a little bit about, you know, some of the amenities, the packages, the experience, and the details on it.

Yeah, so many things to unwrap here. I know. Things that we're very excited to bring to this community. You know, I'll start with the community. We've forged some wonderful community partnerships. Local Branch is a shop in town. They help to curate our pantry, which is our little gift shop, if you will. We have our partnership with Taproot Fields.

Taproot Fields is where we get our produce for our farm to table, fork to seed, whatever buzzword we want to use, concept. And we also have scan strength, which is, a recreation company, you know, a family-owned small business, and they help assist with curating our activities throughout. So when the guest gets here, you know, there's the natural activities. I say the natural activities. We have seven different vessels of water.

We have an outdoor pool that is heated year-round to 90 degrees, so you could go for a swim today. It's not too cold out for Central New York, but... I mean, we're Bill's fans. I can handle the cold. I'll take a dip. Jump through it. Jump through a table and then jump in the pool.

Jump through one of your tables, I'll pay for it, and then I'll jump in the pool. Absolutely. So we have our outdoor pool. We have two outdoor hot tubs for guests to enjoy. And then we have our indoor pool, if a guest prefers. And on the spa side, we have an indoor hot tub, outdoor hot tub, and we have a cold plunge. So speaking a little bit about the spa, we've got some unique amenities, cold plunge being one of our differentiators.

We also have a salt chamber. There are some great benefits to inhaling salt. and it is a salt therapy. It's a ritual, so it's a small room where it dispenses salt into the air, and then obviously breathe in for lung health and circulatory health. We also, you know, on the spa side, I talked about the cold plunge. We talked about the salt therapy. We've got saunas.

We have two barrel saunas outside. We have two saunas on the inside. So our spa is really a class act, and we take a lot of pride on the treatment is important, but the experience overall, I think, is what really differentiates us. We have a large lounge area. We've got private nooks. They can order lunch in. They can really come and enjoy themselves in whatever manner they think is best.

You nailed it because, you know, looking on the site and doing research with the place, there's all those amenities and services that you listed. But what I really keyed in on is the culinary aspect. I mean, you've got the Fields Restaurant, you've got a lobby bar, you've got a pool bar, you've got that pantry. Farm to field, field to fork, whatever you want to call it, that's really unique. in itself, talk a little bit about that and the unique kind of process in which you guys take care of your...

Very fortunate. So, Teproot Fields, local farm. Literally, you could throw a baseball three times and be there. And our walking trails will eventually connect over to the farm. We're going to start doing tours of the farm, and they already do tours of the farm. They take a lot of pride in their regenerative growing practices. They grow in living soil, for example, and they have healthy, above-organic type thought process and they're growing.

Great partners, basically, we have the farm operator that works directly with our executive chef, Esperanza, and they're basically saying, hey, we should grow this, hey, we should grow this. You know, your carrots are purple. Why? Because that's the natural color of carrots. That's awesome. So it's just really high-end. It's produce the way that it's true.

should be. Right. It's not bulk produced. Right. And literally it comes out of the ground from this community, which is just part of our story and our charm. That's, you don't hear about that. When it comes to, you know, let's be honest, when you hear of a big company coming to an area and building a place like this, you think corporate. You think, okay, it's going to be beautiful, but it's not community. This is so unique that this really is community involved in every step of the way. Even the food is supporting local farmers. I just, I think that's absolutely, absolutely wonderful. And I did notice, when I came in, one of your employees mentioned something about a fox,

and I'm noticing a fox on your house. Is there, is there some sort of relevance that I missed with the fox? Yeah, this is Scout. Scout is our resident fox. Okay. During construction and in the area, we do have a fox in the area. Okay. During construction, this is kind of a fun story.

We had a passive security system, if you will, that any sort of movement would call me in the middle of the night. Well, there was a fox that used to love to play about 2.30 in the morning. And that same fox was the reason I got a handful of calls. Obviously, false alarms. Deer and fox were the biggest threat up here. Sure. So originally had a different animal for the logo, but we kind of diverted. to scout the fox and it's kind of grown from there. We have different renditions of scout. We really feel that scout embodies a lot of what our brand is, agile, witty,

fun, curious, and really friendly and cute in certain aspects too, right? So as you walk around the resort, this is that's sitting fox. So our standard is our curious standing fox is what you see on the sign. We've got a jumping fox by our fitness. center, a swimming fox by our pool, a curled up fox on our robes that should kind of show the comfy side. So, you know, we really leaned into scout, and I think it's been fantastic. There's even, you know, on the hand-painted murals, there's a small scout back there. So we, you know, kind of interject them everywhere. So this is, again, this is another tip of the cap to you on just the detail that you put into everything about this place. Okay, a fox comes every night

at 2.30, and you find a way to incorporate that and embrace it. I love that. Yeah. We had a Before I moved to our new house, we had Fox in our backyard. And my children used to get scared, and I would go, I don't know if you have, I don't know anything about Fox. I was like, I don't think you have to be scared, or maybe you do, do Fox? They don't attack people, right? No, they're pretty, they just kind of exist. It's part of the chain, so to speak.

Yeah. And I think, you know, we have a local artist, Chris, that did some of our photos on our art wall. And he had a barn here, one of his family members, has a barn and he had a group of Fox and he has a cool picture so again we leaned into it we've got you know a local artist that we're going to showcase his artwork and the Fox just kind of worked yeah and I'll tell you the decor here is unbelievable the New York Times I'm not quoting them I don't remember the quote but basically was like this place is an incredible gem and it's a perfect

mixture of modern and rustic was that kind of the idea what when the build was originally happening you know the lodge was a modern lodge feel I would say would be the best description I would give it yeah we you know own and operate the tailwater lodge up in Altmar New York yeah they are on the Little Salmon River they're very good about you know again a similar feel but they're a little more lodge sure a little more remote you know snowmobiling fishing is is huge for that that property for us we kind of have a modern twist on on the lodge, but we kind of lean into that. You'll see some of our white oak, or white birch,

rather, accents. That was actually cut from Altmar, New York on the Tailwater property. Amazing. So kind of, again, it's from an ownership side, an intentional detail that was interjected that really has some meaning behind it. That's great, man. A couple more questions. I want to be respectful of your time. I know that every experience here is individualized, which is just amazing, but let's say, I'm coming for the weekend, and I say, Listen, give me one thing that I must do or I must experience here. What would you say? I know it's tough.

Oh, man. I'll let you just do two or three if you want. No, that's a good on the fly. You know, for me, you know, I lean into, I have a 12-year-old daughter. I lean into families. Me too. And I think we're a family-friendly Finger Lakes Resort. We have a wonderful family package that we sell online.

That package includes resort credits for breakfast, resort credits for the, resort credits for the facility as well as a game room we have a small arcade downstairs so the game room itself again family friendly but I think that the family piece is what I would want to interact with whether it be you know putting at our executive putting course you know toasting us some more by the fire at night time you know jumping in the pool outside so for me it would be just a family you know staycation I think is the best way and I think we've already seen a lot of it you know over our December break before Thanksgiving

We had people in town that were booking rooms just so the grandkids could come here and swim So I think the family piece for me would be the in really the activities that we provide would be what I would So I have a wife and two kids and one of our favorite things to do are to do to do staycations like we know will come to Syracuse or Somewhere you know not too far away from I live in Ithaca and I mean you don't when you're thinking of doing stuff like that you don't you don't think that a resort would be family friendly That's kind of unique in this industry, right? Absolutely. And especially in the Finger Lakes region, you know, having that area, you know, we have a

room to, we have a specific suite called our family suite. Awesome. And it's got a bedroom with two queen beds in a common area with one king bed. And the thought process there is you can put the kids to bed. And mom and dad could have a glass of wine in the common area. Enjoy some of the flare of Finger Lakes. And so, yeah, I think for us, you know, our restaurant's very family-friendly. We have a kids menu if that's necessary.

Or, to be honest, kids nowadays, let's call it what it is. They're ordering off the adult menu. They are. They're getting into some of those wonderful dishes as well. My kid eats sushi. I'm like, who are you? You're six. Elevated pallets.

Elevated pallets. For me, it was hot dogs and mac and cheese when I was at age. Before we go, though, I do want to make sure I mention you also do events. What kind of facility do you offer? Is there a conference room, event center? What kind of events and how do people kind of book that? So our main focus is our wellness leisure traveler. However, we have a partnership.

We own and operate the Allen Lodge, which is literally across the street. It is the largest northeast timber structure. So again, a cool lodge feel that really almost perfectly fits what we're going after and some of our field. So the Allen Lodge is an event meeting space with plenty of ballrooms and meeting areas, 30,000 plus square. footage so we could have events over there and then they could stay over here so some of the thought would be you know some of these corporate meetings are going a little bit of leisure a little bit of business we can do both sides of that so you know they could you know have their meetings over there their general sessions their high-end elevated dinners and then maybe they have a cocktail before or after

here at our bar so our partnership at the allen lodge we see is as a key opportunity for that Sunday through Thursday business amazing before we go obviously give us some Do you have any events coming up or how can people contact you and find you guys? Yeah, Skinny Atlas Fields.com is the best way to get a hold of us. All of the resources will be at your fingertips there. You can book your spa appointments on there. You can book your restaurant reservations here for Fields Restaurant. You know, coming up, you know, we're leaning into the busy season and really just really expanding our activities.

So coming up, we have an expansion where we're going to start getting to start getting up. getting into some hot yoga classes and really focusing on how do we elevate and enhance the stay at no additional cost to the guest. So these amenities that we're going to bring forward at the end of January and February I think are going to be some key elements that are going to spring us. And you said busy season. What is busy season? A busy season would be your typical Lake Town. So I would say Memorial to Labor Day would be our quote-unquote busy season. You know, things slow down a little bit. Although again, you know, we have these amenities outside for a reason. Yeah. You know, you can jump in the pool even if there's 12 inches of snow on the ground.

Absolutely. So it's, you know, for us, you know, the staycations are going to be big, but people kind to hunker down a little bit. Obviously in the summer once school gets out, kids, family, leisure travel couples, and we're also pet friendly. I should plug that as well. Because from a, we've had a couple of, actually very famous pets stay with us. A couple that have been, I can't remember them by name, but there was one that was written

on USA Today and what not. Really? So yeah, so even pets are all-stars here. So, you know, if you were questioning if they've thought of everything, they even have celebrity dogs. I mean, what don't you have here? Listen, Kyle, thank you for your time. From the bottom of my heart, I mean this. Just in this small experience of just coming in, asking, you know, to speak to you and your staff taking care of us, I mean, everybody is so friendly, so welcoming.

And it's absolutely gorgeous here. But more importantly, everything you've talked about is so unique. And I'm wildly impressed. And you have my word. My family is going to be here. I've already made that decision up here. Any last words? Anything else?

You want to get out there? No, like I said, we want to welcome the community. We want to welcome our guests. We want people to come and try us out. I think there's a lot of opportunities coming up. So challenge yourself to put wellness first and more importantly come visit us. If I bring my kids, can we at night come out and look for scout? Like not actively go out there, but just kind of.

Absolutely. Yeah. I want to see him. Even some stargazing. We've got some stargazing stuff, but yep, Scout does live in the tree line as you drive up. It's absolutely amazing. Skinny Atlas Fields Resort and Spa, a Curio resort and spa.

And in Skinny Atlas, New York, you need to come see this. It's absolutely amazing. Kyle Harris, you are wildly impressive. Well, you were impressive when you told me you were a Bill's fan, automatically points right off the bat. But on top of that, you're obviously very good at what you do. Thank you for your time. I really do appreciate it.

This was great. Thank you so much. It is Mike Brindisi saying goodbye to you on this Wednesday edition of Good News York, sponsored by Ads on the Go. Get Ads on the Goh.com. Follow us on all socials at Good News York. Good NewsYork.com, and I'm on all socials at Mike B TV. We will see you tomorrow.

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