Sheffield — On a bitter cold night, the moon nearly full, I find myself on a dark road heading into the woods near the Connecticut border, “down county,” as it were, where a former stagecoach stop still glows and beckons under Mount Race. I feel so far away, a healthy distance from worldly worries. But the Stagecoach Tavern at Race Brook Lodge on Route 41 and its performance venue, Down County Social Club (DCSC), are only about 20 minutes out of Great Barrington, the Southern Berkshire County hub. The Colonial-rustic complex also includes a special event barn venue for things like meditation sessions and regular swing dances (music by One Straw Revolution, The Lucky 5 and others); and the Race Mountain House, where recently, for instance, a traditional Indian Dinner was served. The 200-year-old Lodge and Tavern, with its wooden beams, its crooked Colonial charisma, sparkles with more recent touches from owner — and Vibe Master– Casey Rothstein-Fitzpatrick.
It’s a Thursday night, and the grand reopening of DCSC will feature a performance by local troubadour Heather Fisch & Friends. The basement space under the Stagecoach recently had an overhaul that includes a new bar and small seating area. It’s also Casey’s birthday, so before the show, I find myself swept into a warm family dinner with the extended Fitzpatrick clan, who also pulled LA-based singing duo Calumette — performing the following night — to the table. We’re getting the Rothstein-Fitzpatrick hospitality treatment. It’s warm and unaffected; it runs in the blood. “I’ve been avoiding it all my life,” Casey, 40, says of the family business. “Now I’m really enjoying it. I’m feeling fulfilled and committed.” Watching him move gracefully through a busy night that would fell many of us, one can see this is true. His father, David Rothstein, preceded him here at Race Brook, having bought part of the property in the early 1990s, more of it later. Casey’s mother, Nancy Fitzpatrick, and sister Sarah Eustis, run a company that owns and operates four of the Berkshires most famed hotels, including the Red Lion Inn, which for years was owned by his grandparents.
While Casey says Race Brook does not have a direct business relationship with the family company, Main Street Hospitality, he has access to its vast expertise. “There are just a few of us doing everything at Race Brook,” he said. “The larger hotels have professionals in each field. It’s a huge advantage for us. It gives me hope that Race Brook will be successful.” Casey brings wine and “snacks” into cozy Shays’ Lounge, where David Rothstein tells me he likes to think Shays plotted his 1786 rebellion against high taxes and confiscation of farmers’ land (and the fledgling American government). It happened just down the road. I am soon faced with the most melt-in-your-mouth Idaho brook trout, lightly cooked in a potato, caper, thyme and lemon sauce. While I recall great meals here in the past, it turns out the Tavern has a new chef, Thomas Lee, who previously worked at 40 different county restaurants including Bizen and Inn On The Green. Lee says he learned by working with other cooks, and still learns even from those with less experience. He likes to make the simple, fresh food he calls “Berkshire cuisine.” A foray with Casey into the kitchen illustrates that old maxim about how food that is made with love tastes good. It’s a “happy kitchen,” he says. It’s getting busy. The Tavern bar is full. A man there sips a beer while working on a pencil sketch. Couples are tucked into cozy nooks for dinner, and others are passing through on their way downstairs to see the show.
Heather Fisch says she founded DCSC nine years ago after David Rothstein said to her, “I have a basement,” since previously she and her assorted ensembles worked out of an apartment that had a baby living upstairs. “We called it the Hush and Grumble,” she said of that former space. DCSC is a sort of gypsy-rustic-styled hybrid of speakeasy, salon, and cabaret that holds a variety of performance art, poetry readings and film screenings. It’s dark and lit by fairy lights under a low Colonial ceiling that makes everyone look tall, pulls everyone super close, and has gorgeous acoustics. Casey and Jess Garb, a window display artist, used colors and splashes of gold, and a style that would evoke the roaring twenties, Garb said about the revamp. In the next room, a simple wooden bar and several seating nooks were added. “He gave it a little glitter,” Rothstein says of his son’s touches to the Tavern and Club. And Rothstein says that his son’s consistency in frequent event and music lineups is already making DCSC a heart of live music in our little rural corner. Rothstein knows a thing or two about music; he ran the Music Inn in Lenox in the 1960s and 70s, New England’s counterculture ground zero that hosted some of jazz and rock’s greats.
While ambient voice duo SSss did fascinating things with synthesizers, Calumette’s Hale May and I got wine from the bar then squeezed into armchairs. At some point the enchanting musician and actress Lorena Vindel, who later sang a Spanish duet with Fisch, squished in next to me. Fisch runs the show and leads her musicians –– which that night included local sax legend Charlie Tokarz –– with a humble power. She interacts warmly with her audience, and has a staggering musical versatility and comedic talent. At one moment, Fisch is a wide-eyed innocent playing the ukulele under her chin. The next, she is a sexy chanteuse or circus lady. “If you have cellular reception, you won’t get it,” Fisch says at the start of the show, reminding us that we are, indeed, in the sticks and liking it. “But you should turn it off anyway.” “Where’s my accordion?” Fisch asks the audience between songs. “I think it’s under the table over there.” I look over, and see that several strapping lads with beards and man buns are looking for it. Earlier, she asked if anyone had seen a trombone. The stage and audience are like one at DCSC. At one point the mike was passed over several heads to Calumette’s Antoine Salem, who took on a few verses of a French song to Fisch’s delight. Fisch sings of love, love gone wrong, murder, heartache and jealousy — at least that was last night’s menu. Many songs are not in English, prompting someone to say, after one song, “Hey Heather, I feel like that’s a song it would be good to know what the words meant.” She obliged. Heartbreak, it was. And more heartbreak.
“Where’s the money pot,” someone says. Next thing I know Casey comes round with it. He says he will soon start charging the recommended $10 at the door, however, to help the musicians. “We’re not going to shake anyone down,” he adds. “And we won’t turn anyone away.” He took over operation of the entire property about a year ago, and says while he doesn’t have a “full vision” for all the possibilities yet, “the goal is to gradually refine the atmosphere and business” so it feels community-centered and celebratory. So far, he says, he has “a focus on spiritual practice and personal growth…I want people to come to relax, release anxiety and refresh their inspiration.” The emphasis on music and dancing, he says, is part of this theme because “it is really important for humanity.” He also wants Race Brook Lodge “as a whole to be a place to connect with the earth.” There’s a trail up the mountain to Race Brook Falls. And he plans to begin farming the land next to the property again, and to make the farm part of the experience for guests. He had farmed it for three years, after he moved back, but had to take a break when he began running the property. “We encouraged him,” says his mother, Nancy, sitting on my right. “All his productions have a spiritual quality. He grew up going to Kripalu.” She noted recent drumming and Tibetan bowl music performances at DCSC. He is also planning retreat-type programs at the Lodge. 
“And people follow Casey,” Fitzpatrick adds.
Casey grew up in Stockbridge, later lived in Greece, and was a Brooklyn, New York-based filmmaker before coming back to the Berkshires. While the Tavern and DCSC draw locals from both sides of the state line, Casey has also brought a gentle and creative New York vibe with him, as city friends tell other friends. It’s a place where artists and local tradesmen, along with “a discerning Connecticut group” can sit at the bar together, said his sister, Sarah. Her brother, she added, is “keeping the real Berkshires alive.”
