---

Tania Grossinger still curious

February 5, 1999

By RICH NEWMAN
Staff Writer

NEW YORK--Among the approximately 40 people who attended the auction of Grossinger's resort yesterday was a woman who used to call it home.

Tania Grossinger, whose mother, Carla, was the resort's social director for many years, sat quietly as her former home was sold for the third time since 1986.

"I came out of curiosity. I have a deep special interest because I lived there for 15 years," said Grossinger, now a free-lance writer and public relations consultant living in Greenwich Village. She was wearing a black turtleneck sweater bearing a "Grossinger's Country Club and Resort" insignia.

She wrote a book called "Growing Up at Grossinger's," published in 1976, recalling her childhood in the glamorous vacation spot.

She lived in a hotel room with her mother year-round for 15 years, and graduated from Liberty High School.

"Sometimes, when it was busy, they'd put another bed in and bring a guest in," she said yesterday. "It was like living in a fishbowl. There was very little privacy."

She ate in the dining room everyday with all the guests. "I didn't share a meal with my mother until I was 21 years old," she said.

After the auction, she said she felt a "deep sadness, a sadness for the end of an era, which keeps ending every 15 minutes," making a reference to last month's sale of the Concord Resort. "It's an emotional landmark in people's lives."