Actor Walton Goggins and his wife, writer-director Nadia Conners, want to make one thing very clear about their decision to quit the West Coast and plant their family flag in the Hudson Valley. "We weren't running away from Los Angeles. We were running toward something," insists Goggins, a standout player in the third season of HBO's The White Lotus and an actor renowned for portraying villains and antiheroes with a certain sinister silkiness. "We loved our home in LA. It's the city where our son, Augustus, was born and raised, the city where I became the person I always wanted to be, culturally, spiritually, not just career-wise," the Georgia-bred talent adds. Nevertheless, the siren call of the Hudson Valley would not be denied. Goggins and Conners had visited the area for years, renting homes and flirting with real estate listings, but it was the COVID pandemic that finally propelled them eastward in 2021. "The pandemic opened windows of self-perception and possibility. It was an opportunity to do something different, not to start over from scratch but to change, to evolve," the actor explains.

Conners seconds the notion. "We marinated on this decision for years, but the pandemic was the real reckoning.