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Date: 2/1/2022
WESTHAMPTON – With February now upon New Englanders, what better way to sweeten the bitterness of winter than fresh-tapped maple syrup from local maple sugaring houses?
In honor of the coming maple sugaring season, the Westhampton Library is hosting Steven Holt’s – owner of Steve’s Sugar Shack’s – collection of Westhampton’s Sugarhouses paintings by local artist Mary Montague. They will be on display until Feb. 26, then they will be displayed inside Steve’s Sugar Shack business for the seven weeks it is open for the season. After that, the collection will return to the Holt’s home for them to continue to enjoy.
A long-standing New England tradition and custom beginning with Native American culture and passed on to European settlers, sugaring farms date back centuries, with many carrying the tradition and passing it along to family members generation after generation, or by sharing the skill with neighbors like in the case of Stephen Holt, owner of Steve’s Sugar Shack in Westhampton, who learned the craft at 12 years of age from his neighbors and mentors Harley Lemery and Murray Clapp.
According to Steve’s Sugar Shack’s website, “He always loved the tradition of sugaring in New England, and he loved doing his part to keep that alive here in Westhampton. Massachusetts. Years later, Steve is fulfilling that dream through Steve’s Sugar Shack.”
Mary Montague, the artist behind the sugar shack collection, also lives in Westhampton and has her own art studio at Bridgmont Farm, which is a CSA farm owned and operated with her husband, children and grandchildren. There they raise and sell their own grass-fed beef and also do maple sugaring, and as for her art, she said, “I’ve been like an artist since I was a kid, but when I got ready to get out of high school in ‘67 my parents weren’t going to have any starving artist, So, I went to nursing school.”
She said she later became a surgical nurse and a school nurse for 40 years, and during her college years, she took some art classes because that’s what she loves to do. Her medium is pastels, and her muses are old buildings like old sugar houses, portraits and animals.
Speaking about her collection of sugar house paintings, she shared that “some of the houses are old sugar houses that old farmers or old gentlemen – you know, usually it was gentlemen back then that ran – or their families ran. I think in Westhampton, there was a lot of sugaring going on because we have a lot of sugar maples, and that’s what the farmers did – used it for sugar.”
She added that some of those farms are no longer open because they’ve moved on or the family has moved away from the business. Montague also noted that some of them are family farms like hers and her husband’s farm, which dates back to when his ancestors bought it and settled in Westhampton in 1786. Regarding this she said, “I think as far as I know, they’ve been sugaring ever since – it might have been a few years in between where generations change then, they didn’t. My husband has been since he was a little kid, just like Steve was, out there with a homemade little fireplace and boiling sap, yes, that’s what they did.”
Now making maple syrup has found new technologies even though the basic procedure for sugaring has remained the same said Julie Holt, Steve Holt’s wife who helps him run the marketing side of the business and restaurant – “just boil the water out of sap until it’s the consistency of syrup, but a lot of work goes into getting that done. In recent years Steve, Montague (Bridgmont Farm), and Parsons (Mayval Farm) have upgraded to a highly energy-efficient evaporator, thanks to a fully-funded MDAR (Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources) grant. As these guys continue to age, using buckets takes more and more time and energy. And in our case, we don’t have a lot of maple trees on our own land, and we tap various neighbors’ trees all over town. So ... Steve has transitioned one area to a pipeline [on the land of the old Norris Sugar House thanks to a deal struck with the owners], and last year he also invested in reverse osmosis technology which creates more concentrated sap before you start boiling it, reducing the amount of hours it takes to make syrup. Parsons have decided to set up some pipeline this year as well. These updates are helpful to cut down on the time and energy involved, but the basic operation remains unchanged – sap just gets boiled down into syrup with nothing added – it’s 100 percent maple, and it’s a tradition that dates back to the indigenous people that first discovered it,” she explained.
In a statement written by Julie that sits beside the library exhibition, it gives the background of how Steve Holt obtained his first sugar shack painting from Montague, thus, starting his collection – “Stephen [Holt] saw a painting of Leo Aloisi’s Hanging Mountain Sugar House by local Westhampton artist Mary Montague hanging in an exhibit in Worthington and asked if he could purchase it. Then Steve asked Mary if he could commission her to paint his own sugar house, Steve’s Sugar Shack, and if she was interested in a trade. Mary needed some landscaping done, and Steve wanted the painting for his birthday. Steve got his birthday wish, and the Westhampton Sugar Houses Mary Montague collection was born. After that, Steve commissioned and bought a new sugar house painting from Mary every year on his birthday for a number of years. His collection is almost complete, representing almost every operating sugar house in town.”
Now Steve has added one more painting to his beloved collection by another Westhampton artist Jacqueline Brodeur, who gave Steve a painting of his original sugar house, the one he built behind his mother Mary Holt’s house when he was 15 years old.
Julie added, “Sugaring is a town pride thing here in Westhampton, and I love watching Steve fulfill his dream. It’s a family enterprise that is so much fun and fills us all with joy.”
The exhibit at the Westhampton Library will be up until Steve Sugar Shack opens for breakfast on Feb. 26 through April 10 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Opening day is always a benefit for Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity with the exception of last year due to the pandemic. The final Saturday, April 9, is a benefit for the Westhampton Fire Department volunteers.
Steve’s Sugar Shack is located at 34 North Rd. and they can be reached at 527-0294 or by email at julieholt@comcast.net.