Saugerties, N.Y.: A Congenial Place With a Colorful History
For 51 years, Johanna Hall has been living in Saugerties, a Hudson River town 100 miles north of New York City brushed with forests, dotted with hamlets and cradling a quaint village with shoulder-to-shoulder Victorians. She calls her home on four acres in West Saugerties “the house that Janis built,” because she and her then-partner, John Hall, bought it with money earned from writing a song for Janis Joplin (“Half Moon,” the B-side of 1971’s “Me and Bobby McGee”). It was one of those watershed moments. Ms. Hall, now 75, went from being an urban rock critic for The Village Voice to gardening and co-writing hits like “Dance With Me” and “Still the One,” which Mr. Hall recorded with his band Orleans…