LIBERTY, N.Y. - While thousands jammed the roads to Woodstockin 1969, Alan Gerry was home about 20 minutes away tending a legbroken in a skiing accident.

He was 39. Divorced. He had just started a small cable TV operation.

But few of the 400,000 were concerned about TV reception as theyarrived for a gathering that still reverberates here, about 100miles north of Manhattan.

Today, Gerry is once again 20 minutes away from the Woodstocksite in Bethel, N.Y., this time sitting in his glass and graniteoffice. He's 68. Remarried. Last year he sold his CablevisionIndustries to Time Warner, Forbes says, for $2.8 billion. Histake was pegged at $795 million.

And now the man who missed Woodstock almost three decades agoowns it. He has big plans for a theme park on the site but won'tsay exactly what they are until fall, when the concept is complete.

Those expecting an ode to the '60s might be surprised. From allhis hints, Gerry (pronounced Gary) sounds like he's planning toturn the one-time cow pasture into a permanent music venue withoutdoor amphitheaters, multimedia exhibits, lodging, schools,maybe even rides. Disneyland meets Opryland.

Subtle changes are already happening. Tuesday, Gerry announcedthat this year, when people make their annual mid-August pilgrimage,they will be allowed on the property during daylight hours only.No camping will be allowed, per a town ordinance.

Abigail Storm, a local resident and head of a group called WoodstockNation, has been vocal for years about pushing to keep the propertyuntouched. "That 38 acres has become like a church to manypeople from around the world," she says.

She and about a dozen others are heading to the site today witha 34-foot Army tent to start their annual prayer vigil. If Gerryattempts to throw them off, she will fight him in court.

Storm says the "entire county has surrendered" to Gerry,because of his power and money. But she intends to show him that"we are in opposition to what he's doing."

She may be a small minority, however.

Lynden Lilley, a Bethel councilman, says "there is a generalfeeling of happiness" that Gerry is finally going to do somethingwith the property. He doesn't know of anyone who hasn't been happywith the land deals they've made with Gerry. And he says, "Ithink it's going to be a fantastic boost to the area."

The Catskills have suffered from a stagnant economy since itsheyday as a resort area in the '50s. Proposals to bring casinogambling in to perk up the economy have been opposed by statelawmakers and local residents. Gerry says he realizes there islittle development here and points out that there are few providersof good jobs aside from the electric company, the phone companyand the half-dozen nearby prisons. Still, he says he has not beenin favor of gambling. "I think it would bring an undesirableelement here."

In Sullivan County, there have been debates through the yearsabout reviving any kind of annual Woodstock rock festival. Annualvisits to the site, a grassy field with a plaque in one corner,have been a headache, with noise, litter and restroom problems.

Gerry says he intends to preserve the plaque and some of the surroundingoriginal 38 acres. It's just a small part of the 2,000 acres thishigh school dropout has quietly acquired by buying out farmersand other landholders, many of whom have lived there since itwas Max Yasgur's farm and the place where peace, love, Jimi Hendrixand everything else happened.

'This is not Orlando'

What Gerry is thinking of is far more than three days of music.He plans to pave paradise and put up a parking lot, but that'sonly because he'll need lots of parking. A dozen people are workingfull-time for him now on permits, zoning and environmental issuesfor 'the project." That's not counting the many outside expertswho have met with Gerry since he went public about the land purchasesin April.

"We are in a very, very intense period of doing an overallconcept plan," he says.

And just what is that plan? Rides? Concert stages? A summer homefor the New York Philharmonic?

"What will the baby look like? Will it have blue eyes? Willit be a 10-pounder?," he counters, sparring playfully.

Small, stern and a little stiff in a monogrammed shirt and hisbulky Marine Corps ring, Gerry will say only, "It's a very,very large project."

And it will be for the masses, he says. He's determined to havesomething for everyone, determined to make it the "No. 1tourist destination in the world." Gerry mentions Tanglewood,the music and arts complex place in the Berkshires that hostseveryone from Yo-Yo Ma to Bob Dylan; he mentions Branson, thetourist town in Missouri that became an overnight country musicmecca; he mentions Disneyland and Disney World, speaking respectfullyof how well-run they are.

But he says firmly, "This is not Orlando, Florida."

He can't even say what the complex will be named, although onething it cannot be called is Woodstock because that word, alongwith the dove and guitar logo, is owned by the original concertplanners.

Gerry's base of operations is in Liberty, the heart of the oldBorscht Belt. He vividly remembers caddying on the golf courseat Grossinger's, the once-grand hotel. People would drive up intheir big fancy Buicks. He rode his bike to work. His family,he says, was "poor." So as he saw Jimmy Durante, EddieFisher, Eddie Cantor and "all the greats" roll in, hevowed he would not be poor all his life.

Surrounded by farmers, he thought he would grow up to be one,then he thought about being a veterinarian. But then the lureof the Marines proved too strong. After two years he got out andspent the next year digging ditches, driving a coal truck, workingon a chicken farm and pumping gas. He eventually enrolled in electronicsschool, learning to build and service TVs.

Wanting better reception, he put up an antenna. The business grew,until he was providing cable TV service to 1.3 million subscribersin 18 states. Since the Time deal, he has been focusing on venturecapitalism and Woodstock.

Hal Krisbergh, CEO of WorldGate Communications in Bensalem, Pa.,has known Gerry for 13 years through cable TV connections. "He'sthe quintessential entrepreneur," says Krisberg. "He'sintense. He's a visionary. He's certainly hard-working."Krisberg says he doesn't know much about the Woodstock project,but, "if anyone will be successful, it's Alan."

Gerry is a man for whom success - and control - is everything.He orchestrates where people sit in his office, decorated witha mix of cowboy busts and Tiffany lamps. He checks on the guysworking on the building's walls outside.

While he would much rather talk buyouts and leverages, he admitswith a sweet shyness at one point: "People tell me I don'tsmile enough."

The dealmaker

Stephen Davis is a White Plains, N.Y., lawyer who brokered thedeal to sell the Woodstock site, which was owned by a woman namedJune Gelish, who inherited the property from a man who boughtit from Yasgur. She died last year.

Did Gerry drive a tough bargain? "Mr. Gerry did not becomea super-wealthy person by failing to drive tough bargains,"says Davis. The property is said to have changed hands for roughly$1 million.

He's not just a tough bargainer. He's involved in everything,including placing bronzed notes on employees' desks that said,"Follow through."

Business aside, his own personal interests are little clue asto what he'll put on the sacred ground. "I've been to concerts.I've been to Carnegie Hall. I've been to Lincoln Center. I'vesat on a field and listened to fiddle players. It's all good."

He describes himself as a "middle-of-the-road person"who loves his cable radio, which lets him "pop around"to 50 different channels.

Can't he name one favorite singer?

"Oh that little gal? That little 14-year-old gal."

LeAnn Rimes? Yes, he says.

It's not the music part of his new Woodstock project that interestshim anyway. It's the land around here. Walk with him out on thepatio just off his office in the afternoon sun and he points outWalnut Mountain. He lives on the other side, he says. "Seethat road? I just zoom down that and I'm at work!"

He says the money isn't that important, but he has a home in Naples,Fla., and he does have a fondness for cars. In his collection:a Range Rover, a Mercedes, a Jaguar and a Lincoln Town Car fortrips to Manhattan. He also owns an airplane. But he doesn't liketo travel a lot, he says. Mostly he just goes to London to visithis wife's family. And he could easily have moved his whole operationto the city years ago, but, "The best view of Manahattanis the one in the rear-view mirror."

He likes to grow his own corn. His wife makes jams out of berriesthey grow. Talking about vegetables as he sips ice coffee througha straw, Gerry seems more vulnerable. The mogul mask drops fora second. He wants to make sure you see a Japanese maple treethat he transplanted.

So the legacy he'll leave behind at Woodstock once the projectis done in the 1999 must be heady stuff? "What's importantfor me," he says, "is for it to be successful."