V A N D E R K A M P + CORPORATE OFFSITE
Where the Real Work Happens.
A team offsite built on the FIELDWORK method,
designed to get your team clear, present, and curious
01 — The Case for Leaving the Office
The best version of you and your team isn't waiting on more effort. It's waiting on a team that's clear, present, and curious — and that's the one thing the normal routine can't produce.
Why an offsite, and why now
Conversations that need space, time, and presence to actually be had
Strategies for a fast-changing world — the insights that don’t surface by continuing the normal routine
A strengthened team, genuinely aligned
Shared experiences that build memory, loyalty, and retention
02 — THE FIELDWORK METHOD
FIELDWORK comes in two forms: FIELDWORK Team, for offsites like yours — and FIELDWORK Solo, our deep individual offsite for leaders who need time for deep contemplation. Explore FIELDWORK Solo →
Our offsites run on a different equation.
Most offsites run on heavy content, debate, and action items — more agenda, more slides, more activities, and a team that returns as tired as it left. Vanderkamp offsites are built on FIELDWORK, our proprietary method, and it runs the other way.
Your environment shapes your mental and emotional state — and the capacity for productive work — far more than most of us realize.
Most offsites land in a windowless hotel conference room: fluorescent hum and stale air lead to stale outcomes. We help design every offsite with intentional environmental conditions, backed by the latest cognitive and environmental science — until what's left is your team, the question in front of it, and 850 acres doing quiet work on everyone's nervous system.
The pace is deliberate. Slow and productive, built for deep work. Meals that aren't rushed. Forest walks between sessions. Unstructured hours where the real conversations happen. This isn't downtime around the work. In the FIELDWORK model, it is the work.
03 — Your Nature Profile
Nature works on everyone. But not the same way.
Each member of your team arrives in a different mental and emotional state, and each needs different conditions to reach their best state for the work ahead. Some minds open on wide water. Some settle under deep canopy. Some need a long view, some need moving current, some need the sound of the forest, and some need to be entirely alone.
Before arrival, every member of your team can complete a short Nature Profile — a few minutes of questions that map which of eight restorative dimensions their nervous system responds to most. Grounded in decades of research on attention restoration and environmental psychology, the profile tells us — and them — where on the property their mind does its best work.
Each guest receives personal suggestions built from their profile: where to go during unstructured time, when to go, and what to do there. The team works together; each person restores in the way that actually works for them.
04 — The Difference
What makes Vanderkamp different.
Take the whole place. Or take your corner of it.
Full-property buyouts give your team exclusive use of all 850 acres, the private 50-acre lake, and every lodge and meeting space — no other groups, no shared hallways. Smaller teams can book their own lodge and meeting spaces and share the land with, at most, a few quiet others. Either way, the vastness of the forest here shocks the system in a way few places can.
The environment is the instrument.
FIELDWORK isn’t a program we run at a venue — Vanderkamp was shaped for it. Meeting rooms with full A/V open onto forest. Trails, waterfront, and firepits are part of the method, not a break from it.
A half hour from Syracuse. A world from the office.
Close enough for an easy arrival. Far enough that phones go quiet and attention comes back. Reachable from Syracuse, Rochester, Utica, and most of the Northeast within a morning’s drive.
05 — We Design It With You
You bring the goal. We build the retreat around it.
Every offsite starts with a conversation about what you’re actually trying to accomplish — a strategy reset, a leadership team that needs to gel, a year that needs closing. Then we design backward from that, using the FIELDWORK method as the frame.
1 — Discover
We learn your goals, your team, and what success looks like on the drive home.
2 — Design
Your dedicated retreat designer builds the arc with you — working sessions, meals, movement, restoration, and the unstructured time where the real conversations happen — paced the FIELDWORK way: slow enough to think, present enough to matter.
3 — Deliver
On the day, your on-site coordinator handles everything, so the only thing your team manages is the work in front of them. Our chef and the entire on-site team are devoted to your group — a depth of hospitality you won’t find anywhere else.
06 — Your Retreat, Fully Staffed
Whatever your retreat needs, we bring it to you.
Years of hosting offsites have built us a deep bench of facilitators, coaches, and guides — people we know, trust, and have watched work. Tell us what your team needs. We’ll assemble it.
Facilitation & Strategy
Professional facilitators, strategic planning leads, and business coaches who run the room so your leaders can be participants, not moderators.
Leadership & Team Development
Emotional intelligence work, personality and working-style assessments, leadership coaching, and structured team development programs.
Team Building — Indoors & Out
From guided outdoor challenges across 850 acres to indoor workshops built around your team’s actual dynamics.
Equine Experiences
Equine-assisted learning and team sessions — some of the most disarming and memorable leadership work a team can do.
Movement & Restoration
Yoga, breathwork, guided meditation, massage, and mobility sessions woven between working blocks to keep minds sharp.
Wellness
Health coaches, healthy-eating professionals, and wellness program design — for teams who want the offsite to start a habit, not just a memory.
Forest Experiences
Guided forest immersion, naturalist walks, waterfront and kayak sessions, evening fires and burn ceremonies — matched to your team’s Nature Profiles where it fits.
Just for Fun
Irish road bowling through the forest, cornhole tournaments, fishing tournaments, and whatever friendly competition your team runs on. Serious work holds better when the evenings are genuinely fun.
Don’t see it? Ask. If a partner exists, we either have them or we’ll find them.
07 — The Spaces
Meet in rooms built for focus. Or hold the session under the trees.
Full-technology meeting rooms for groups up to 150 for day gatherings, with on-site lodging for overnight stays. And because the environment is the instrument, some of our best meeting spaces have no walls at all.
Indoors
Kempwick Lounge. A warm, comfortable room for working sessions, breakouts, and the conversations in between.
Kempwick Hall. Our largest indoor gathering space — full A/V, room for the whole group, built for the main event.
Kempwick Bar. A relaxed space to gather after the working day, where the real conversations often carry on.
Frank Soule Lodge. A lodge meeting space with a projection screen and fireplace — focused by day, easy by evening.
Grace Manor. Gather around the projection TV and fireplace in a room that feels more like a home than a venue.
White Pine Spa. A dedicated space for restoration — movement, treatments, and quiet between the working blocks.
Under the trees
The Forest Venue. A gathering space in the trees for sessions, workshops, and moments that deserve more than a conference room.
The Sunken Firepit. A huge, sunken fire circle built for the end-of-day conversations that teams remember longest.
The Waterfront. Lakeside spaces for morning sessions, quiet breaks, and evening gatherings at the shore.
Six distinct lodges — from the gathering spaces of Frank Soule Lodge to the quiet of Wohlleben Cabin — let you match the accommodation to the team.
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER
Photo grid: the spaces
Indoors, 6 photos (4:5): Kempwick Lounge, Kempwick Hall, Kempwick Bar, Frank Soule Lodge meeting room, Grace Manor meeting room, White Pine Spa.
Under the trees, 3 photos (4:5): The Forest Venue, the Sunken Firepit at dusk, the Waterfront dock in the morning.
08 — Accommodations
Six intentionally designed lodges. One for every kind of team.
From a nine-bedroom manor to a single remote cabin, each place is designed to keep working on your team long after the session ends — with private lodging for up to 25 on the property.
Frank Soule Lodge — 7 bedrooms · 5 baths
Grace Manor — 9 bedrooms · 9 baths
The Suites — 7 unique suites
The Boathouse — 2 bedrooms · 1 bath
Langston Cabin — 1 king bed · 1 bath · remote
Wohlleben Cabin — 1 bedroom · 1 bath
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER
Photo grid: the six lodges
6 photos (3:2), each captioned with name and specs: Frank Soule Lodge, Grace Manor, The Suites, The Boathouse, Langston Cabin, Wohlleben Cabin.
09 — Dining
Elevated Dining
Meals at Vanderkamp are part of the method, not a pause in it. In the FIELDWORK model, the table is where a team becomes a team — so nothing about it is rushed.
Our standard menu makes planning easy — and every part of it can be customized. Tell us what your group loves, and we’ll craft the menus and the level of service to match.
Signature dining experiences
Family-Style Dinners & Fireside Cocktail Hours — the classics, done properly
The Long Table — an outdoor long-table dinner under the trees or by the water
Beach BBQ — a lakeside cookout as the sun goes down
Custom Cocktails — a drink designed for your team, your offsite, or the occasion
Everything matters, and everything is an ingredient.
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER
Photo: The Long Table under the trees
Tall image (3:4) beside the dining copy.
10 — Simple, Per-Person Pricing
One price per person. Everything included.
Every package includes your meeting spaces, full A/V, all meals and snacks, coffee and tea service, Nature Profiles for every guest, and a dedicated on-site event coordinator.
The Day Session — from $XXX per person
One full day. Meeting rooms, breakfast and lunch, and the property to work with. Explore Vanderkamp after your session, or gather around the sunken firepit.
The Overnight — from $XXX per person
Two days, one night. Day 1: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Day 2: breakfast and lunch. Arrive, work, share a family-style dinner and a fire, wake up on the lake, and finish strong.
Weekdays, Sunday–Thursday.
The Deep Work Retreat (Recommended) — from $XXX per person
Studies show a team needs at least three days in the natural world to fully align with a new rhythm. Three days, two nights. Day 1: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Day 2: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Day 3: breakfast and lunch. Enough time for the agenda and the conversations around it — the full FIELDWORK arc.
Our most impactful option.
The Extended Stay — custom quote
Stay as long as your work requires — for leadership programs, planning intensives, and teams doing genuinely deep work. Tell us the goal and the time you have; we’ll build the rest.
Facilitators, coaches, and experiences from our partner network are quoted per program. Full-property buyouts quoted on request.
11 — Proof
“The team left Vanderkamp having made decisions we’d been circling for two quarters. Something about being on the land let people say the things they’d been holding back.”
Ralph Simone, Executive Coach
“I’ve planned dozens of offsites. This is the first one people were still talking about a year later — and the first where the quiet hours did as much work as the sessions.”
Cathy Gaynor, Head of People
FIELDWORK Solo
Solo contemplation is just as important.
FIELDWORK Solo is our deep individual offsite — several days alone on the land, built on the same method, designed for the decision, strategy, or question only you can resolve.
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: background photo of the 850 acres from above (Edit Section, then Background)
850 acres of forest, a private lake, and a method built for the work that matters most.
Tell us what you’re trying to accomplish. We’ll design the retreat around it.