Fatal accident claims the life of Peter Wing

 STANFORD — It took only moments for police to respond to a 911 call following a one-car accident on Bulls Head Road near Shelley Hill Road in the town of Stanford on Sunday, Sept. 28, at around 3:15 p.m. When they did they found 67-year-old Peter J. Wing of the town of Washington badly injured; he was taken by ambulance to Northern Dutchess Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Wing is locally famous for creating Wing’s Castle in Millbrook, a bona fide castle which opened as a bed-and-breakfast in 2011,  and Frankenstein’s Fortress in Stanfordville, a Halloween theme park. 

Wing was reportedly operating a 1936 Morgan Supersport three-wheeled vehicle when “failure of the back tire caused [him] to lose control of the vehicle and overturn,” according to Capt. John Watterson of the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office. Wing was the only occupant of the vehicle, which rolled over and ejected him roadside. 

According to Watterson, the vehicle itself did little to protect Wing.

“One of the interesting things about those vehicles is there are no seat belts in them,” he said. “This [vehicle] was not legally required to have seat belts … so if it overturns or flips over there is nothing at all preventing the occupants from being ejected, which is exactly what happened here.”

The vintage vehicle Wing was driving was shaped like a triangle, with two wheels in the front and one wheel in the rear. Watterson said they are an extremely rare sight on the roads.

“You hardly ever see them. They’re vintage, antique — certainly not vehicles that everyone has,” he said. “They’re rarely seen out and about. I have never seen one. I’ve seen pictures of them but I’ve never seen one actually being used.”

The news was hard to take for those who knew Wing personally.

“We grew up together; we’re both Millbrook natives, and his family owned the dairy farm where Millbrook Winery is now,” said Washington town Supervisor Gary Ciferri. “I can remember going up as a kid and hanging out with him.”

Both men fought in Vietnam and returned home to Millbrook in the 1960s. Ciferri said he was always impressed with Wing’s abilities.

“He was a very unique individual in so many ways, and he had a brilliant mind — he had a vision for everything and everything he did just came naturally to him,” Ciferri said, adding a lot of what Wing did was volunteer work for the community. “And he was a good friend. So when I heard about this I was just devastated, as I knew everybody was. He was like an icon in Millbrook, and he’s going to be sorely missed.”

Jimmy Crisp, of Crisp Architects, knew Wing and the endless work he did on his castle — which Wing not only designed but built stone-by-stone. It remained an ongoing project throughout Wing’s life and was a source of pride not only to the architectural enthusiast but to the surrounding Millbrook community as well.

“He was a brilliant artist and a self-taught architect who created wonderful work that inspired us all,” said Crisp. “I always admired his work. I visited the castle — my children just love the place — and I’ve  gone over and visited him as he worked on parts of his home. I’m just a big admirer of his work and very sad to hear of this.”

Watterson said he, too, knew of Wing, as did many of those at the sheriff’s office.

“The family is well known throughout that area and Dutchess County as a whole,” he said, adding Wing’s death will undoubtedly impact many lives.  The accident, he added, was no one’s fault. “It was kind of a freak accident — just an unfortunate accident — and there doesn’t appear to be any fault on the part of the driver here.”

The investigation is ongoing, but currently the Sheriff’s Office Crash Investigation Unit believes rear tire failure was the contributing factor.

The sheriff’s office was assisted at the scene of the accident by the New York State Police, the Stanford Fire Department and the Milan Fire Department.