image description — Hearth and Hound owner, Alexis Montgomery, left, manager and trainer Michelle Turner and employee Mackenzie Rathbun are ready to welcome dogs to the day care.

Hearth & Hound Dog Day-Care Opens in Lee

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
01:15PM / Sunday, April 06, 2025Print Story | Email Story

Hearth and Hound also offers cat boarding with four indoor catios.

LEE, Mass. — Alexis Montgomery was disappointed on returning to the Berkshires to find the dog day-care she'd used was closing.

So she started her own.

Hearth and Hound opened at 915 Pleasant St., which used to house Love Us and Leave Us.

"My dog was a customer here and so I always thought about like what would it be like to work with animals, too," Montgomery said. "So I saw a Facebook post from the owner of Love Us and Leave Us saying that she was going to be selling the building and I called up Adams Bank."

She decided to take the jump to start her own pet day care, closing on the building on Feb. 13.

Montgomery said she has always had a love for animals and grew up volunteering at the local humane society and worked at a pet store after high school.

"When I was a little girl I always wanted to be a veterinarian. And I've always been obsessed with animals," she said. "I used to carry around books of different dog breeds and I would memorize them and just like tell people about dogs all the time."

Montgomery was a nurse at Berkshire Medical Center from 2008 through 2017 before moving to the state of Florida.

"My thought process is if the community trusted me because I worked at BMC for so long to care for their relatives when they were sick then hopefully they will trust me to care for their animals which are members of our family," she said.

Hearth and Hound held a soft opening on March 24. The building is still getting some minor renovations and painting, but it opened for day care and boarding.

The facility can take up to 20 dogs for overnight boarding and up to five cats unless two cats can stay in one catio with pet owners permission.

It has four big play areas and two small yards so that different dogs can be together or separated if needed when outside.

Hearth and Hound also offers wash and nail trim and Montgomery hopes to add grooming services in May once renovations are complete.

She has put much thought into the space, down to colors of the walls, making sure the animals can see those colors.

"The paint colors and everything that I picked out I put a lot of thought into what the animals like. Even the lighting, see how bright the lighting is, it's because dogs actually find daylight soothing," she explained. "The paint colors, too. We picked paint colors that dogs can see."

She also plans to add dog training and a puppy class and add weekends dedicated to one-on-one enrichment activities for reactive dogs.

"I was thinking of doing things specifically for the reactive dogs that can't be in day care," Montgomery said. "We don't offer day care on weekends, so on weekends, I would be able to have reactive dogs come in and do activities one at a time."

Her future goals are to partner with local businesses for events.

"I know someone else is opening up a Pilates studio and we are talking about doing yoga and puppies in this room," she said.

Pets are required to be up to date on all of their vaccinations, be on heartworm and flea preventatives, as well as a current dog license. Cats and dogs must be spayed/neutered to join day care.

Cats must be indoor only in response to avian flu risk.

Hearth and Hound's day care is open Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and boarding is open seven days a week. More information and to book an appointments here.

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Sheffield Craftsman Offering Workshops on Windsor Chairs

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
10:30AM / Sunday, March 29, 2026

Andrew Jack uses hand tools in his wood working shop.

SHEFFIELD, Mass. — A new workshop is bringing woodworking classes and handmade items.

Andrew Jack specializes in Windsor chairs and has been making them for almost 20 years.

He recently opened a workshop at 292 South Main St. as a space for people to see his work and learn how to do it.

"This is sort of the next, or latest iteration of a business that I've kind of been limping along for a little while," he said. "I make Windsor chairs from scratch, and this is an effort to have a little bit more of a public-facing space, where people can see the chairs, talk about options, talking about commissions.

"I also am using it as a space to teach workshops, which for the last 10 years or so I've been trying to do out of my own personal workshop at home."

Jack graduated in 2008 from State University of New York at Purchase, and later met woodworker Curtis Buchanan, who inspired him.

"Right after I finished there, I was feeling a little lost. I wasn't sure how to make the next steps and afford a workspace. And the machine tooling that I was used to using in school." he said, "Right after I graduated, I crossed paths with a guy named Curtis Buchanan, and he was demonstrating making really refined Windsor chairs with not much more than some some flea market tools, and I saw that as a great, low overhead way to keep working with wood."

Jack moved into his workshop last month with help from his wife. He is renting the space from the owners of Magic Flute, who he says have been wonderful to work with.

"My wife actually noticed the 'for rent' sign out by the road, and she made the initial call to just see if we get some more information," he said. "It wasn't on my radar, because it felt like kind of a big leap, and sometimes that's how it's been in my life, where I just need other people to believe in me more than I do to, you know, really pull the trigger."

Jack does commissions and while most of his work is Windsor chairs, he also builds desks and tables, and does spoon carving.

Windsor chairs are different because of the way their backs are attached into the seat instead of being a continuous leg and back frame.

"A lot of the designs that I make are on the traditional side, but I do some contemporary stuff as well. And so usually the legs are turned on a lathe and they have sort of a fancy baluster look to them, or they could be much more simple," he said. "But the solid seat that separates the undercarriage from the backrest and the arms and stuff is sort of one of the defining characteristics of a Windsor."

He hopes to help people learn the craft and says it's rewarding to see the finished product. In the future, he also hopes to host other instructors and add more designs for the workshop.

"The prime impact for the workshops is to give close instruction to people that are interested in working wood with hand tools or developing a new skill. Or seeing what's possible with proper guidance," Jack said. "Chairs are often considered some of the more difficult or complex woodworking endeavors, and maybe less so Windsor chairs, but there is a lot that goes into them, and being able to kind of demystify that, or guide people through the process is quite rewarding."

People can sign up for classes on his website; some classes are over a couple and others a couple of weekends.

"I offer a three-day class for, a much, much more simple, like perch, kind of stool, where most of the parts are kind of pre-made, and students can focus on the joinery that goes into it and the carving of the seat, again, all with hand tools. And then students will leave with their own chair," he said.

"The longer classes run similarly, although there's quite a bit more labor that goes into those. So I provide all the turned parts, legs and stretchers and posts and things, but students will do all the joinery and all the seat carving the assembly. And they'll split and shave and shape their own spindles, and any of the bent parts that go into the chair."

His gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday 10 a.m to 2 p.m., and Monday and Tuesday by appointment.

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