In 1923, when I was about 6 years old, we went on
vacation to the Catskills for the first time . My father sent my mother, my
three brothers and I up for the summer, and he joined us on weekends.
Six summers of vacationing later, my father decided
to invest in the Catskills and bought The West Shore Country Club in
Kauneonga Lake. I was 12, and I was no longer allowed to vacation – I was
put to work. I became a caddy on the golf course that summer - a job I
held proudly for several years before I was able to work in the dining room.
Around the time I turned 16, I felt I was old enough
to get off of caddy duty and waiter in the dining room. My brother Ben,
however, refused to let me waiter because he was afraid that the clientele
wouldn’t tip a waiter who was the owner’s son. And in those days we pooled
our tips. So in an act of great defiance, I left West Shore and took a job
as a busboy at Hotel Glass in Fallsburg.
One
Memorial Day weekend after the last meal, the waiters all walked out in
protest. They refused to clear the tables because they didn’t like the
way they were being treated. I didn’t join their protest. I
didn’t feel I was being treated unfairly. It was normal for me.
We were being treated the same way my father treated his staff. When
they walked out, only another young man and I were left. We stayed and
cleaned up the entire dining room. Mr. Glass was so happy, he called my
father and said, “What a fine young man you have here.” I think he even gave
me $5 extra. When I came home that night my father said, “If you
are such a fine boy, you work here. I need you.”
So, that was my entrée into the dining room. My
brother Ben couldn’t argue with my father. And I worked there successfully
until 1941 when I went into the service. When the war was over in 1946, I
returned to the Catskills and was the head waiter at West Shore until 1948.
When I returned to West Shore, it was at a time when
most of the hotels were doing only 3 weeks of capacity – the 3rd
& 4th
wk of July and 1st
wk in August. They were the only three weeks the hotels could count on to
make money.
Now by this point I had a wife and child, and I
couldn’t understand how young men back from the service with families
wouldn’t want to spend the entire summer away from the city. Not just 3
weeks, but full 8 week vacations.
So I sat down with my father and proposed an idea.
“Suppose I could sell 8 week vacation packages, Pa. How would you price
them?” “Give ‘em last week free,” he answered. So, at end of summer 1947 I
took my pop’s mailing list and started making phone calls. I advertised 8
week vacations where the kids could go to a day camp right at the hotel. I
guess I was onto something because when my father came back from Florida
after the winter, I handed him a bank book with $11,000 in deposits from all
the vacations I had sold!
That summer went well. People were happy with the
vacations and the camp, but people weren’t happy with the rooms – they were
old. So I asked my pop if he would build new rooms so we could improve
business. He agreed. Unfortunately, when he built the rooms, he built 6
room bungalows with toil
ets at the back of the bungalows. All 6 families
had to use the same facilities. Pop didn’t realize that with the birth of
air conditioning, people no longer had to go away. If they chose to go away,
it would be to a place that had nicer amenities.
The following summer, 1949, I left West Shore and
bought into another neighboring hotel, Luxor Manor. Doris, my wife, was in
charge of the linens, and I did whatever else had to be done. That’s what
happens when you are the owner. If the chef got sick – I cooked. If the MC
was hoarse – I announced. I was quite literally the Jack of all trades.
Although I was breaking my back trying to keep this hotel on its legs, the
Catskill gods had another fate in mind for me.
As luck would have it, Kutsher’s Country Club, a
resort in Monticello, had just fired their maitre d’ and was looking for a
replacement. I met Milton Kutsher at his home in Monticello, and it was an
instant kinship. With a mere handshake, I began a relationship with
Kutsher’s Country Club that would last for 58 years – a Catskills record I
am told.
In the summer of 1950, I began work as the maitre d’
of Kutsher’s main dining room. But I was an athlete and a teacher, and I
longed to use those skills. Fortunately for me, in the summer of 1952,
activity director Red Auerbach, also the coach of the Boston Celtics,
decided to write a book and needed time away from the hotel to do that. I
saw my opening…and I grabbed it. I proudly held the job of activity
director at Kutsher’s from 1952 – 2008.
During my tenure at KCC, I wore many hats. As
activity director I taught Line Dancing, and ran Simon Sez, “Can You Top
This?” and current events lectures. As emcee in the night club I got to
introduce acts from Freddie Roman to Mal Z, Duke Ellington to Jackie Mason.
As announcer of the Maurice Stokes Game, I had the pleasure of calling the
plays of future basketball legends Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar,
and Larry Bird, among others. As athletic instructor I enjoyed the
opportunity of teaching athletic skills to women guaranteeing their success
in softball, basketball and golf putting. I wrote the hotel newspaper
“Kutsher’s Kapers” and even contributed to a column in the
Sullivan County
Jewish Star. In the early days I could even be
seen in the musicals featuring members of the staff. (My tour de force
performance was as Sky Masterson in “Guys
and Dolls”.)
In 1960, I began another partnership with the Kutsher
family. This one involved the ownership of Camp Anawana. I remained a
partner until the camp closed in the late ’90s.
For over 58 years I have been a part of Kutsher’s
Country Club; and for over 84 years a part of the Catskills. This summer
marks a new milestone for me – a summer without the Catskills. As Kutsher’s
has been sold and many of the surrounding resorts have closed their doors,
it is truly the end of an era. This summer, like so many of you, I will
have only my memories to keep me company.
