Catskill Mountain House
Encyclopedia
Palenville, New York
Palenville is a hamlet in Greene County, New York, United States. The population was 1,037 at the 2010 census.Palenville is in the southwest part of the Town of Catskill, located at the junction of Routes 23A and 32A. It lies at the foot of Kaaterskill Clove, nestled against the base of the...
in the Catskill Mountains
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
overlooking the Hudson River Valley, built in 1824. In its prime, from the 1850s to the turn of the century, it was visited by three U.S. presidents (U.S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur
Chester A. Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur was the 21st President of the United States . Becoming President after the assassination of President James A. Garfield, Arthur struggled to overcome suspicions of his beginnings as a politician from the New York City Republican machine, succeeding at that task by embracing...
and Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
) and the power elite of the day.
Construction
The Mountain House's site, the "Pine Orchard," had long been famous for its panoramic views up and down the Hudson Valley and even beyond to the east. John BartramJohn Bartram
*Hoffmann, Nancy E. and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 243. ....
and James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
had both written about it in different contexts.
Artists and writers had discovered the Catskills some time earlier. Shortly after it was constructed, the Mountain House and its surroundings became a favorite subject for Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...
and artists of the new Hudson River School
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
, most notably Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
. Cooper advised his European audience, "If you want to see the sights of America, go to see Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
, Lake George
Lake George (New York)
Lake George, nicknamed the Queen of American Lakes, is a long, narrow oligotrophic lake draining northwards into Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River Drainage basin located at the southeast base of the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York, U.S.A.. It lies within the upper region of the...
and the Catskill Mountain House."
The hotel was built in 1823 and opened a year later by a group of merchants from nearby Catskill
Catskill (village), New York
Catskill is a village in Greene County, New York, USA. The population was 4,081 at the 2010 census.The Village of Catskill is in the northeast part of the Town of Catskill. Catskill is the county seat of Greene County.-History:...
on a plateau with sweeping views of the Hudson Valley on one side and two lakes on the other side that provided water and recreation.
In 1839, Charles Beach, whose father ran a stage coach line from the town of Catskill to the Mountain House, leased the hotel from the owners for six years and then bought it outright. Beach rebuilt the Mountain House, changing the original Federalist
Federalist
The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world. Also, it may refer to the concept of federalism or the type of government called a federation...
design into a neo-classical structure.
The Fried Chicken War
One summer day in 1880, a prominent Philadelphia businessman and longtime Mountain House guest named George Harding asked a waiter to bring some fried chicken to his daughter Emily instead of the hotel's usual dinner fare of roast beef, as she had been prescribed a diet which excluded red meat. The ensuing argument went all the way to Beach, who refused to budge despite Harding's history with the hotel.In exasperation, Beach suggested that Harding should perhaps build his own hotel. Harding called the bluff, checking his family out that very day and beginning plans for his own hotel, to be located atop neighboring South Mountain and utterly dwarf Beach's. He kept his word, opening the Kaaterskill Hotel next year and offering the Mountain House its first real competition.
The rivalry between the two hotels and their proprietors came to be known in the region as the "Fried Chicken War." It actually benefited both, since guests at one would often stroll to the other for lunch.
The view that made the Mountain House famous came at a cost— getting up the 1,600-foot (487.6 m) climb from the valley required a five-hour stagecoach ride. As more competing hotels that were easier to reach began to be developed, the Mountain House built the cable-operated Otis Elevating Railway
Otis Elevating Railway
The Otis Elevating Railway was a cable funicular railroad to the Catskill Mountain House in Palenville, New York. For the first 64 years of its existence, the Catskill Mountain House was accessible only by a long stage coach from Catskill Landing on the Hudson...
to bring its guests directly from the Hudson to the hotelhttp://hamiltonauctiongalleries.com/USGS1903-Kaaterskill.jpg. But the railway proved to be expensive to operate, and was finally sold for scrap in 1918 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Decline
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
geologist
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
Arnold Henry Guyot
Arnold Henry Guyot
Arnold Henry Guyot was a Swiss-American geologist and geographer.-Biography:...
undertook the first-ever comprehensive survey of the Catskills and found that the highest peak in the region was not Kaaterskill High Peak
Kaaterskill High Peak
Kaaterskill High Peak is one of the Catskill Mountains, located in the Town of Hunter in Greene County, New York, USA. It was once believed to be the highest peak in the entire range, but its summit, at 3,655 feet in elevation, places it only 23rd among the Catskill High Peaks. It is, however,...
, which dominates the view south from higher mountains in the area, but Slide Mountain
Slide Mountain (New York)
Slide Mountain is the highest peak in the Catskills. It is located in the Town of Shandaken in Ulster County, in southern New York. While the contour line on topographic maps is generally accepted as its height, the exact elevation of the summit has never been officially determined by the U.S...
, many miles to the southwest in the Ulster County
Ulster County, New York
Ulster County is a county located in the state of New York, USA. It sits in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 182,493. Recent population estimates completed by the United States Census Bureau for the 12-month period ending July 1 are at...
town of Shandaken
Shandaken, New York
Shandaken is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. United States. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 3,235. The name is from a native phrase for "land of rapid waters."...
.
Beach, who had long claimed that the Pine Orchard was at 3,000 feet (914.4 m) above sea level, 750 feet (228.6 m) higher than its actual elevation (a fib perpetuated even today by the state historical marker at the site), joined forces with his rivals to cast doubt on Guyot's claim, and even questioned his scientific credentials. But by 1886 other surveyors
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
had confirmed Guyot's results, and the North-South Lake area was no longer the heart of the Catskills.
Fall
Beach and Harding both died in 1902. Just as the fame of the Mountain House was to be eclipsed by other area hotels, so were the Catskills eclipsed by the Adirondacks as the fashionable playground of the wealthy. The Mountain House continued to operate until the start of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
— 1941 was its last season.
In 1962, the State of New York acquired the property. Preservationists pointed to the hotel's historic value, but were ultimately unsuccessful when it was burned by the state Conservation Department
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for the conservation, improvement, and protection of natural resources within the U.S. state of New York. It was founded in 1970, replacing the previous Conservation Department...
on January 25, 1963 in accordance with Forest Preserve
Forest Preserve (New York)
New York's Forest Preserve is all the land owned by the state within the Adirondack and Catskill parks, managed by its Department of Environmental Conservation. These properties are required to be kept "forever wild" by Article 14 of the state constitution, and thus enjoy the highest degree of...
management policies forbidding most structures on "forever wild" land.
Today
North-South Lake
North-South Lake is an 1,100-acre state campground in the Catskill Forest Preserve near Palenville, New York operated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation near the site of the historic Catskill Mountain House overlooking the Hudson River...
, near the site of the hotel. The Mountain House site is an easy walk from it along the popular Escarpment Trail.
All that remains of what was once America's most fashionable resort is the gateposts and the sweeping views from the cleared site.
External links
- Catskill Mountain House Archive
- "A visit to the Mountain House" from the Boston Recorder And Telegraph Oct. 6, 1826
- History of the Otis Elevating Railway
- Catskill Mountain House
- A history of the Town of Hunter
The Catskill Mountain House and The World Around movie