Closed for The Season Resort

  Lets take a tour of the 355-room resort that was being renovated in Upstate NY. The lobby, nearly finished, boasts a series of crystal chandeliers the size of four-door Hyundais. The centerpiece is a five-ton dragon boat sculpture of hand-carved jade from China. Boarded up for six years with a badly leaking roof, the former Hotel was in rough shape. 

In the banquet hall the mold was this thick. The main kitchen where the roof had collapsed has been completely rebuilt and they had a crew of workers come in and acid wash the spray-painted graffiti from walls of the indoor swimming pool. 

The New Owners say they've sunk $1.7 million of their own money into the property and they've applied for a $4.5 million mortgage to finish the job. They recently bought most of the nearly new furniture from the Pines Hotel in South Fallsburg. They bought furniture for 170 hotel rooms and convention seating for 4,000. 

The New Owners are among the new investors in the changing Catskill resort industry. Once world-renowned as a luxurious getaway for Jewish vacationers from New York City, the region is slowly transforming into a more multi-cultural vacation spot. While the resorts are not abandoning their kosher clientele, many are reaching for new niches in the competitive resort and travel industry. 

The new investors are hoping to recapture the allure of the "place in the country" where Eddie Fisher and Buddy Hackett once shared a stage at the Tamarack Lodge, where Muhammad Ali trained for legendary bouts with Joe Frazier at the Concord and where Lou Goldstein led thousands in wacky rounds of "Simon Sez" at Grossinger's.

But the changes are coming after some painful losses. The so-called "Borscht Belt" landmarks like the Browns, Grossinger's, and The Pines are closed and Abandoned. 

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Brunswick Resort

The Brunswick Resort in Upstate N.Y., Like many other Borscht Belt Hotel/Resorts was converted into a summer camp for Hassidic girls. Officials of the state Department of Health ordered the property evacuated in July 2009, citing health and safety violations.

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Hotel Levbourne

Carrie Komito ran the Hotel Aladdin until 1998. Then in Her Nineties, She recalls that her parents after 10 years as guests at the Hotel Levbourne, Bought the Resort. In the 1950's, to make the hotel seem fresher, the family changed the hotel's name to the Aladdin. When they built a nightclub, they named it the Ali Baba Room, Naturally. The international-style facade transformed the appearance of the 1st floor of the building on the left. The upper floors were not change at all. As the Hotel Business soured, Carrie Komito moved many bungalows onto her property and rented them to "Snowbirds" or Floridians . The Hotel later was transformed into an Orthodox Jewish Resort Cooperative. Between May of 2009 and June of 2012 the Aladdin suffered from a few Fires.

 

The Tamarack Lodge

The Tamarack Lodge, located in Greenfield Park, New York, was one of the many Catskill resorts in Ulster and Sullivan Counties popular for decades with tourists from New York City.  Sadly, the Tamarack, like so many of the other Catskill destinations, is an abandoned shell of what it once was.

 The Tamarack in Better Days

 The Tamarack was a boarding house from 1927 to 1947, after which it became the Tamarack Lodge. It was one of the many resorts considered part of the borscht belt and was a popular destination for Jewish vacationers. Pulitzer Prize winning author Herman Wouk waited tables in the children's dining room during the 1930s.

Many popular entertainers appeared at the Tamarack, including Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, Cream, The Who, and Janis Joplin.  During Passover in 1994 a large fire wiped out part of the building and displaced guests.
dining room during the 1930s.

In  April 2012 

The smoke billowing high above Route 52 just outside the Village of Ellenville late Saturday afternoon can be seen for miles. According to Ulster County fire officials 30 buildings on the former Tamarack Lodge property catch fire. To make matters worse, two separate brush fires break out. It's a scene that draws hundreds of firefighters from neighboring counties of Orange, Dutchess and Sullivan Counties to try and keep this fire from getting out of control.

Dave Meade, a NYS Forest Ranger said, “All the shingles and stuff were carried by the high-winds and it dumped a whole bunch of spot fires here all the way across at several locations. We didn't even know this one until we flew over and spotted it. This one looks like maybe it's 10 acres." While state forest rangers work the woods… 

Park Ranger, Greg Tyrrell said, “Right now it's a good time to get a handle on this thing. You know we got a lot of personnel from all over, so we should get a handle on it pretty quickly."Back at the Ellenville Fire House firefighters continue to return from fighting the lodge fire. They get some much needed nourishment, and then they're out the door to get back to work.Charles Mutz, Ulster County Chief Fire Coordinator said, “The main part of the facility is on the ground. I've sent an excavator up to the sight to my deputy and the incident commander up there. We have two aerial operations going at this point just to cool it down."

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