The former General Electric (GE) educational campus in Ossining known as Crotonville, which closed its gates permanently in April 2024, has reopened under new ownership as Windrose on Hudson, a premier conference center and event venue.
AIG, Citicorp, Pfizer, Regeneron and New York University are some of the big organizations, along with an impressive array of smaller ones, that have already held conferences at Windrose, with 80% of those committed for return visits in 2026 and beyond.
But while with its unparalleled conference and leisure facilities and a number of other key advantages, Windrose on Hudson is now arguably the best facility of its kind in the tristate area and wider Hudson Valley, its presence is still not universally known – and it should be. Windrose is just over an hour’s drive from midtown Manhattan, and a mere 50 minutes by Metro North Railroad express service from Grand Central Terminal. Alternatively, you can helicopter in. The helipad built by GE’s renowned chairman and CEO Jack Welch was left intact at the handover and is very much still in use.
Windrose’s facilities are truly multipurpose, with a host of flexible spaces. The West Point football team had just checked out after a motivational program and a private Sweet Sixteen party was in full swing in the River Fox suite, located in the accommodation and event space wing known as The Village, when I checked in for a recent inspection. Later that evening, delegates were starting to arrive from the Middle East and across the United States for a major, three-day tech conference.
Originally built to accommodate the managers and elite students who were invited to Crotonville to learn and exchange ideas, the well-appointed 248 guest rooms remain unchanged since GE vacated the site 18 months ago. Mine had good lighting, a blissfully firm bed, a generously-sized bathroom and amenities far better than you have any right to expect in what is essentially “conference” accommodation – not luxurious but thoroughly comfortable.
It’s certainly interesting to reflect on the talent that must have stayed here over the decades. At its peak, especially during the now controversial Jack Welch era (1981 to 2001), with its cutthroat focus on profits, Crotonville was nonetheless accorded a preeminent status for churning out a steady stream of highly capable global leaders, leaders who not only helmed GE’s multiple businesses but many of whom would go on to head a clutch of top U.S. corporations.
For any high performing GE manager, it was not just a privilege to be invited to attend a leadership program at Crotonville but an opportunity to engage with the most influential leaders both formally in the classroom and informally over lunch or dinner.
As Douglas McLain, senior director of brand, marketing and sales for Windrose, explained to me over the course of my two-day stay, clusters of intimate, small-group meeting areas, both indoor and outdoor, along with more formal breakout rooms, were very much part of the Crotonville culture, and this approach still holds good at Windrose. In its physical layout as much as its rigorous teaching and training programs, Crotonville was designed to encourage discussion, debate and the exchange of ideas, and those conditions and aims still pertain for conferences meeting under the Windrose flag.
McLain also shared that Pyramid Global Hospitality, whose Benchmark Resorts and Hotels collection actually operates Windrose on Hudson, would probably like to see the facility accommodate independent guests, possibly in upgraded guest rooms, along with its conference attendees. Indeed, nonconference guests are already discovering Windrose and checking in – since anyone can book Windrose rooms independently online – at prices that at this point seem eminently reasonable. (Queen guest rooms run between $250 and $350 in November and December.)
Windrose certainly has the space – 52,000 square feet of flexible indoor event space with guests, whether staying independently or, as is still more likely, as part of a group, able to enjoy more than 60 acres of outdoor gathering spaces. That acreage includes 10 miles of scenic hiking and biking trails; a state-of-the-art, trilevel fitness center spanning more than 10,000 square feet; a spinning studio, racquetball, basketball and volleyball courts; bicycles; and three firepits perfect for evening relaxation. (A swimming pool is top of the list of enhancements McLain is trying to get on the drawing board.)
Croton Hall, Windrose’s nerve center, houses its reception area and front desk and the Windrose dining room. There is no full-service à la carte restaurant on the property as of yet. Group meals are taken in the dining room, but Café 56 – known in the GE years as The White House, a bright and rather charming old building with floor-to-ceiling windows and a stone fireplace with cozy surround – serves beverages and light snacks at different times during the day.
Although the last full makeover was in 2015, Crotonville’s annual operating budget was said to be in excess of $1 billion and, as a consequence, all the areas and buildings I visited at Windrose – the original Learning Lab and Leadership Exchange blocks, the vast barn and carriage house, and The Village complex to name just a few – were in tip-top condition, with state-of-the-art conferencing facilities, meeting and lecture rooms and, of course, the very latest technological equipment throughout.
Indeed, with a sleek, modern, clean, somewhat minimalist design, which runs through all the buildings and public spaces, Windrose feels brand new. So don’t come here expecting towers, turrets, or old architectural features, but if some off-property history or culture appeals to you or your convention, both Phillipsburg Manor (the 18th century milling and trading complex in Sleepy Hollow), and Kykuit, The Rockefeller Estate in Pocantico Hills, are within a 15-minute drive, with the Katonah Museum of Art an easy 13 miles away, to name a few highlights.
Meanwhile, for year-round outdoor pursuits, Croton Gorge Park and the New Croton Dam are six miles away, and the trail head at the entrance to Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park is actually on the Windrose property.
For a campus so centrally located, what is astonishing is how GE kept its presence almost secret for 70 years. The mission of Crotonville, it was said, was to inspire, connect and develop the GE leaders of today and tomorrow, but there was always something a little hush-hush about the facility.
Ossining historian Caroline Ranald Curvan, whom I met during my stay, knew relatively little about Crotonville until Windrose reopened the Crotonville gates, and an Uber driver who picked me up during my stay admitted he had never known what went on behind the barrier despite having lived in the area for 25 years. When McLain recently hosted 25 Westchester mayors and municipal leaders for a Windrose introduction day, only two or three said they were even aware of what had been happening on the site prior to Windrose’s acquisition.
Well, the days of “secrecy” are well over now. Windrose on Hudson is firmly and publicly on the map and quite rightly, it wants the conferencing world – and the wider world – to know about it.
