When you talk with Greg Chorvas, superintendent of the Town of Saugerties’ Department of Parks, Recreation and Buildings, it quickly becomes clear that he was destined to excel at two things: sports, and the development of Cantine Field to make sports more varied and accessible. His latest scheme to maximize use of the 127-acre Cantine Veterans Memorial Complex parcel is to build a splash pad to replace the former Small World Playground. A capital campaign to fund the half-million-dollar project through grants, donations and sponsorships is currently underway. The Community Foundation of Saugerties will host a Brooks BBQ Fundraiser in the Large Pavilion at Cantine Field on Thursday, May 22 from 4 to 7 p.m.
A Saugerties native, Chorvas was a natural athlete who played baseball in the Saugerties Little League and Babe Ruth League as a boy. In the Saugerties Athletic Association Softball League, he played on several league championship teams and twice led his division in RBIs. He also played basketball in the Saugerties Athletic Association Biddy League, the Junior and Half Court Leagues, and became a star player in the Saugerties Dartball League for many years, again on several championship and All-Star teams. Later he took up golf and won eight club championships as a member of the Rip Van Winkle Country Club.
All that active participation led Chorvas to become a serious booster of local sports via various community organizations. He spent decades on the Board of Directors of the Saugerties Athletic Association and served as chair or commissioner of a plethora of golf tournaments, softball leagues, the dartball league and other such entities. He was inducted into the Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame in 2009. Corny and clichéd as it may sound, the cumulative effect of all these experiences as a literal team player has been a deep appreciation for how cooperation makes good things happen. “I’m just a little piece in the puzzle,” he says when asked about his accomplishments in his professional capacity as Parks & Rec superintendent. “Working as a team breeds successful outcomes.”
With help from many partners, Chorvas has been making things happen at Cantine Field for a long time. He began working part-time for the department while still in school, took a full-time assistant position and rose through the ranks very quickly. Within a couple of years, he was tapped to replace the previous superintendent when he retired in 1982. He has been at the helm of the department ever since, overseeing the enormous complex through many changes of use and improvements in facilities. And he’s not ready to retire yet: “I have an exit plan, probably in a couple of years. There are a couple of things I’d like to accomplish beforehand.”
Not long before Chorvas came on board, the expanse of town property familiarly known as Cantine Field had undergone significant expansion. Called the Town Driving Park in the 19th century, the original parcel belonged to the Cantine family, who allowed its use by Saugerties residents for recreational purposes. Besides carriage roads, it contained a combination baseball and football field, one other field and a small amount of open space. In the 1930s, WPA workers built an elevated grandstand with restrooms, showers and storage underneath. By 1937 the baseball and football field were reversed and two additional fields created, and a year later, Martin Cantine donated 31 acres to the Town of Saugerties. Expansion of facilities included a pavilion, tennis courts, a basketball court and two additional fields.
In the early 1970s, the size of Cantine Field more than doubled when the Knaust estate donated 39 acres of adjoining land to the Town of Saugerties, with the stipulation that the park be dedicated to the memory of Saugerties military veterans – whence the current name of Veterans Memorial Complex. A funding effort soon thereafter by the late Jack Keeley secured a $99,000 grant from the Palisades Interstate Park Commission’s Land, Water and Conservation Fund, fortuitously matched by another $99,000 in federal and state Public Works grants. These funds enabled construction of six additional ballfields, a large pavilion with a kitchen, a senior citizens’ center, playgrounds, basketball courts, horseshoe pits, roadways, parking areas and shuffleboard courts, as well as installation of lighting at several fields and tennis courts.
Under Chorvas’ leadership in the 1980s, a coalition of volunteers, civic organizations, businesses and municipal officials pitched in to upgrade the athletic fields and add amenities as demand grew. Users of the complex such as the Little League, Babe Ruth, American Legion, Saugerties Athletic Association teams and others constructed dugouts, bleachers, concession areas and press box buildings, while the Kiwanis Club constructed a bandstand. Driven by the growth in interest in soccer among American sports fans, the first seasonal adaptations of ballfields for soccer got underway.
By the end of the decade, the available space had been fully built out, but the community wanted more. Under the administration of the late supervisor Vernon Benjamin, the Town of Saugerties took advantage of an opportunity to purchase 67 additional acres adjoining the north side of the Complex, bringing it to its current footprint in late 1991. The large annual event most widely associated with Cantine Field, the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival, relocated from Shale Hill Farm to the site the following year. It was also in 1992 that the town hired professional planning consultants Shuster Associates, Inc. to develop a long-term master plan for the site, including several playgrounds and permanent soccer fields.
Once again deploying a team of public, private and institutional stakeholders in the site, Parks & Rec brought the planners’ vision to life. “I’m very happy to say that the master plan was followed almost to a T,” Chorvas says today. In addition to the Small World Playground, those improvements included five soccer fields, basketball courts and a large parking area for special events, constructed with help from the US Army Reserves. An intended gymnasium soon became home to an Olympic-sized rink for ice skating and hockey. Chorvas gives all the credit to the Kiwanis Club of Saugerties for donating the equipment needed to make today’s Kiwanis Ice Arena a reality.
Later additions to the Cantine Veterans Memorial Complex on Chorvas’ watch include a skate park, walking trails and pickleball courts, in many cases funded by donations from users. While his department supplied the heavy equipment and labor needed to dig trenches, lay cable and replace aging towers to install new LED lighting for the ballfields, it was the Saugerties Athletic Association and the Little League who fundraised to purchase the materials.
“The other thing that has changed drastically is that every sport used to have its season,” he notes. “Soccer used to start in the fall. Now it’s basically year-round, with play from March through November. Softball used to go from April through August; now there’s a fall league. When the ice arena was first built, it was only used in the winter. Now it doesn’t close until the week before Memorial Day, and it only closes for two months.”
Major renovations over the past several years have turned the ice arena into a state-of-the-art facility, and along with the expansive ballfields, these improvements have made the Cantine complex attractive to sports clubs and fans from far beyond the immediate Saugerties community. Numerous high school and college sectional, regional and state tournaments, as well as Little League, Babe Ruth and other All-Star games and tournaments, the New York State and Ulster County Special Olympics are regularly held there.
All these visiting teams and sports camps have to pay fees for use of the facilities, which helps sustain Chorvas’ dream of keeping Cantine Field viable without significant influx of taxpayer dollars. Coming to Saugerties ultimately saves these tournament organizers money because they can hold all their games at a single complex instead of busing the teams to various different locations, he points out.
It was the arrival of the Kiwanis Club as a major player and donor in the development of the complex that inspired this approach of seeking usage from beyond the town’s borders, he says. “When Kiwanis approached us in the late ‘90s, the idea was that it would be self-sustaining. Now it makes money for the town.” For 2023, the last year on which the town has closed the books, total revenues to Parks & Rec were up to $627,000 (counting fees from cell tower providers).
Chorvas credits the energetic coalition of volunteers, local sports and other community organizations, businesses and municipal agencies for making the Cantine complex a cash cow for Saugerties, thanks to the “amenities that have now been established and improvements that have taken place with no tax monies involved.” Among the draws to outsiders, including fairs and other large public events, are the “high-quality fields where we provide services and amenities such as ticket booths and pedestrian barriers.” The most recent such improvement was installation of electrical pods for vendors at such events as the Food Truck Festival to plug in.
While Chorvas is quick to deflect credit for Saugerties’ successful transformation of the Cantine Veterans Memorial Complex into a major asset for the town, it takes a leader with a broad vision and a long view to pull together the diverse team that makes such a sustained, coordinated effort possible. He’s going to be a tough act to follow. And before he goes off to enjoy a well-earned retirement, he wants to see that splash pad built.
It’s a project that the Community Foundation of Saugerties has been backing since the Small World Playground became unsafe and had to be dismantled. Community input was solicited, and the consensus was that local families were more interested in a place for their kids to cool down on hot summer days than in another playground. Splash pads are cheaper to build and maintain than pools, can be kept open without a lifeguard on duty and have the added advantage of handicapped accessibility. “The water comes from the ground up. Visualize a fountain,” Chorvas says.
The preliminary design for the 40-by-67-foot splash pad has been completed and a potential main funding source identified. Last week the grantwriting firm Choice Words submitted a proposal for a $461,900 grant from the New York State Municipal Parks and Recreation program. If awarded, it will require a ten-percent local match. The Community Foundation has been organizing events such as annual Touch-a-Truck activities for kids to help raise the $50,000 still needed.
Here’s how you can help: Admission to the Brooks BBQ Fundraiser on Thursday, May 22, taking place from 4 to 7 p.m. in the Large Pavilion at Cantine Field, costs $16 in advance, $18 at the door. Tickets are available from the Saugerties Town and Village clerks, Town & Country Liquors and Sawyer Motors, or by calling (845) 430-4673 or (845) 246-5652. For updates on the fundraising campaign, visit www.facebook.com/communityfoundationofsaugerties. To learn more about the history and facilities of the Cantine Veterans Memorial Complex, including a detailed map of the site, visit https://saugerties.ny.us/community/attractions/cantine-field.
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