Tiffany-style lamp at Great Pines resort, photograph courtesy of Meyda Lighting
Combining mini-putt and stained glass sounds like a recipe for disaster, not a winning business strategy, but making a living in the North Country has always required a bit of creative thinking. In the early 1960s Meyer Cohen, a butcher from Utica, and his entrepreneurial wife, Ida, had a problem: two kids bound for college and little money to send them with. What the Cohens did have was a patch of heaven: some land along Old Forge’s then-wooded Main Street. Ida decided it was the perfect place for a miniature golf course; Meyer was less sure. In “Miniature Golf in the Kingdom,” from our 2003 Guide to the Great Outdoors, John Margolies wrote, “Mrs. Cohen reports that her husband pooh-poohed the idea at first, thinking that it would never succeed.” Still, after Ida sketched out her vision on a piece of cardboard, Meyer dutifully went to work on the colorful obstacles that would decorate Old Forge’s iconic Nutty Putty Miniature Golf (now run by the couple’s grandson Benny).
A decade later, the Cohens had another problem. Meyer, who was a master tinkerer, according to his son Bob, liked to rehab vintage cars. But when his collection of classics-in-waiting became too much of an eyesore for Ida, she asked him to make a stained-glass window for her kitchen, to obscure her view of his projects. The couple took a local how-to class—and a hobby was born.
The Cohens bought the house next to Nutty Putty and, when they weren’t handing out putters and tiny pencils, they pieced together stained-glass windows and ornaments on their porch to sell to tourists. They called their new enterprise Meyda, a combination of Meyer and Ida. (Eighteen-year-old Bob pitched in on production; the two older kids had already flown the nest.)
The Cohens’ attention soon shifted to crafting lamps, using the delicate copper-foil construction popularized by Louis Comfort Tiffany at the turn of the 20th century. By the late 1970s the operation had expanded enough for them to buy a shop and showroom in Utica for part-time winter work—though in the summer they always moved back to Old Forge to oversee their Nutty Putty empire. “That was really our breadwinner,” said Bob.
That wouldn’t be the case for long. A commission of four sizable stained-glass windows for a local church pushed Meyda into full-time mode and from there it grew and grew. In the 1990s the company moved to Yorkville, near Utica, where its headquarters has expanded to 180,000 square feet, with a workforce of 65 employees.
Bob now helms Meyda Lighting with his wife, Ellie, and sons Chet, Max and Benny, once Nutty Putty closes for the season. They still produce stained-glass decor and Tiffany-style lamps, as well as bent-glass and contemporary designs, massive statement pieces and just about anything else a client can dream up. Meyda has big-league customers all over the country, but it hasn’t lost its Adirondack vibe—Bob said that about half of their business comes from rustic-style orders, including pieces crafted from driftwood or beams salvaged from old barns.
Meyda’s showroom, about 25 miles from the Blue Line, is a wonderland of color and light that Bob said keeps people coming back and browsing for hours. His point was proven by a woman who walked in and gasped, “I always forget how magical it is in here.”
Find Meyda Lighting (www.meyda.com) at 55 Oriskany Boulevard, in Yorkville.
