MILLBROOK — Not even an overcast day with scattered showers could take away the beauty at the Millbrook Vineyard & Winery. On Saturday evening, June 11, as fog rolled across the vineyard, people from all around the Dutchess County area traveled to get a taste of Millbrook. That night the Millbrook Education Foundation (MEF) hosted its eighth annual A Taste of Millbrook event. The night included performances by the Millbrook High School Jazz ensemble, Madrigal Singers, a silent auction, wine from the vineyard and food from area restaurants. Members of the high school’s National Honor Society chapter volunteered to serve food.John Dux, chair of the MEF, has been on the board for nine years.“What we do is we raise money. Hopefully we will raise $30,000 to $35,000 tonight, and in return we give that as grants for the school,” he said. “It can go for small things, like a trip for the eighth-grade class to go to a museum, to something big like a new computer lab with 26 new computers. So it goes from small grants to very large grants.” Dux said he expected more than 300 people Saturday. “What is really great is all the restaurants give so much food; they have been so nice to us,” said Dux. The variety of food donated to A Taste of Millbrook consisted of restaurants such as China Tokyo, When Pigs Fly South, Slammin Salmon and Rusty Tomato, to name a few. Two restaurants were showcased at the event. One, Bread Alone, a bakery with locations in Boiceville, Woodstock and Rhinebeck, featured homemade baked goods such as crumb cakes and brownies. The other showcased restaurant was Aurelia, a Mediterranean restaurant in Millbrook. Some of the highlighted cuisine consisted of gazpacho soup, watermelon with goat cheese and fresh thyme and homemade hummus with pita. Susan Nestel, owner of Aurelia, explained why she enjoys being a part of A Taste of Millbrook. “It’s a good community event that raises money for a great cause.” she said. “This year we are actually here and we want to meet some people who haven’t been to our restaurant. We have been in the village for four years; this year was the first we were invited to come and have our own table.” Planning to have an event of this size is no easy task, Diane Schnoor, a member of the MEF board of trustees, said. “We start back in January contacting businesses, friends, neighbors, and brainstorming what would be great to have at the event,” she said, adding that between 30 to 40 people work to bring the evening together. “The month of May is crazy getting everything together to publicize the benefit; it’s a team effort.”Eleanor Pelc chairs the A Taste of Millbrook committee.“I just want the community to know how much MEF does to help the schools,” she said. “I often think they don’t realize what we have done to contribute to the schools, so it’s nice they get to come out and talk to us. And we try and hang some signs up to show some of the grants we have approved throughout the years so they realize where their money is going.”At A Taste of Millbrook there were suggestion cards giving donors ideas of what their money might fund. For instance, $2,000 could fund an eighth-grade trip to Washington, D.C., or for $15,000 the school district could finish putting in Smart Boards in the schools. The cards also explain where grant money has gone in the past, like establishing the Model U.N. Club in the high school or creating scholastic magazines for all elementary students. Kyle Goodwill, 17, is a senior at Millbrook High School. He was working as a server at the event and said he is especially thankful for the money donated. “One particular thing that was funded by MEF was Project Lead The Way; I took those courses all the way through high school,” he said. “That influenced what I plan to major in when I go to college.” Goodwill will be attending CUNY Binghamton in the fall, hoping to study digital electronics and architecture. Lloyd Jaeger, superintendent for the Millbrook School District, said he feels blessed to have MEF. “The Millbrook Education Foundation is founded for the sole purpose of funding the Millbrook schools. All of their money comes in one form of donations or another to individual teachers or a schoolwide project,” he said. “This event is their single largest fundraising event annually. Last year they grossed about $35,000 and it is a uniquely Millbrook event at the Millbrook Winery. There are many donations from community people, it turns the community out here and it has become a real joy for everybody. So we are very fortunate to have the strength of a organization like this for our district and that’s why it’s important.”
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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