Kutsher's Hotel and Country Club in

Thompson Thompson may refer to: People * Thompson (surname) * Thompson M. Scoon (1888–1953), New York politician Places Australia *Thompson Beach, South Australia, a locality Bulgaria * Thompson, Bulgaria, a village in Sofia Province Canada * ...

, Sullivan County, near

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, was the longest running of the

Borscht Belt The Borscht Belt, or Jewish Alps, is a colloquial term for the mostly defunct summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan, Orange, and Ulster counties in the U.S. state of New York, straddling both Upstate New York and the north ...

grand resorts in the

Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...

region of New York State. While the region was open to any and all visitors, the Borscht Belt was so named due to the largely

Jewish-American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...

clientele that made the Catskills the primary vacation destination for Jews in the northeastern United States. Over the decades, performers such as

David Brenner David Norris Brenner (February 4, 1936 – March 15, 2014) was an American stand-up comedian, actor and author. The most frequent guest on '' The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' in the 1970s and 1980s, Brenner "was a pioneer of obser ...

Jerry Seinfeld Jerome Allen Seinfeld ( ; born April 29, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for playing a Jerry Seinfeld (character), semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom ''Seinfeld'', which he ...

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

and

Joan Rivers Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona—heavi ...

appeared here. Rapper Ditch played here in 2012 as the final headlining set of the NY Harvest Festival, which had over 4,000 people watching. In 2013, a woman fell to her death from the hotel rooftop of the hotel preparing for the 2013 NY Harvest Festival, which halted it and anything going forward at the hotel again. The hotel closed in 2013, and some of the buildings were demolished in 2014; only three remained as of early 2020. The site was sold, and a wellness resort was built there, opening in June 2018.

Establishment

Max and Louis Kutsher started the Kutsher's Brothers Farm House in 1907 and began expanding in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1940s, at the request of his aunt Rebecca, Milton Kutsher took over the hotel. He oversaw the hotel's significant expansion from the 1950s to the 1980s, which created a premiere Catskills vacation destination: a " property that included a 400-room resort, condos, two bungalow colonies, two summer camps, an 18-hole golf course and lakefront."From Borscht To Blackjack
, ''

The Jewish Week ''The Jewish Week'' is a weekly independent community newspaper targeted towards the Jewish community of the metropolitan New York City area. ''The Jewish Week'' covers news relating to the Jewish community in NYC. In March 2016, ''The Jewish We ...

'', August 1, 2003 Milton Kutsher and his wife Helen (née Wasser) operated the hotels, with Helen serving as the head of reservations and doyenne of the resort. The two ran the hotel until Milton's death in 1998, at which point his son Mark took over management of the hotel.

Sports

Milton Kutsher was active in sports circles, making the hotel the Catskills home of legendary

Celtics The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of t ...

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

Red Auerbach Arnold Jacob "Red" Auerbach (September 20, 1917 – October 28, 2006) was an American professional basketball coach and executive. He served as a head coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA), most notably with the Boston Celtics. ...

and

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Wilt Chamberlain Wilton Norman Chamberlain (; August 21, 1936 – October 12, 1999) was an American professional basketball player who played as a Center (basketball), center. Standing at tall, he played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 14 yea ...

, who worked as a bellhop there. There was the

Maurice Stokes Maurice Stokes (June 17, 1933 – April 6, 1970) was an American professional basketball player. He played for the Cincinnati/Rochester Royals of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1955 to 1958. Stokes was a three-time NBA All-Star, ...

Benefit All-Star Game, a charity basketball game that once attracted the top pro players.

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...

trained at Kutsher's, as did other world boxing champions, such as

Floyd Patterson Floyd Patterson (January 4, 1935 – May 11, 2006) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1952 to 1972, and twice reigned as the world heavyweight champion between 1956 and 1962. At the age of 21, he became the youngest boxer in his ...

and

Leon Spinks Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

. Kutsher was an avid sports fan, and also saw sports as a way to bring young people to the resort. The Maurice Stokes Game, which raised funds for the injured professional basketball player Maurice Stokes and raised funds for needy former players from the game's earlier days, was sponsored in part, by Kutsher's and played at either the hotel or the Kutsher's Sports Academy. The game is said to have "rivaled the NBA All-Star game in talent." In the 1990s, the basketball exhibition spawned the Maurice Stokes/Wilt Chamberlain Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament. Part of the hotel's empire included the Kutsher's Camp Anawana and Kutsher's Sports Academy. In the 1950s, other hotels were focused on building indoor pools for their guests. Milton Kutsher insisted on building a golf course on the property instead of being part of a group planning on building a course in Loch Sheldrake together. He persevered and the “resort’s 6,843-yard greens became one of the top courses on the East Coast and a major draw for the hotel.”

Accommodations and entertainment

In its heyday, the Borscht Belt resorts were home to premiere entertainment. Performers such as

Dean Martin Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor and comedian. One of the most popular and enduring American entertainers of the mid-20th century, Martin was nicknamed "The King of Cool". M ...

, and

all spent their early career at Kutsher's. The hotel offered an all-inclusive vacation: meals (all

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

) were included, as well as entertainment and activities. Activities available at the hotel included golf, tennis, indoor ice skating, indoor and outdoor pools, a health club, and various kids and teen programs. There were also winter sports such as snow tubing and downhill skiing.Borscht Belt's Last Hurrah

Decline

For many years there had been negotiations, which broke off in 2005, with the St. Regis Mohawks and

Park Place Entertainment Park Place Entertainment, later named Caesars Entertainment, Inc., was a casino company based in Paradise, Nevada. For a time it was the largest casino operator in the world. It was formed in 1998 as a corporate spin-off of the gaming division of ...

to develop an on-site casino. Kutsher's sent a letter to its long-time guests in November 2007 informing them there would be no availability for the coming summer, and Kutsher's would be closed for renovations. In late winter, early spring 2008, the Kutsher family entered into an option agreement with Louis Cappelli of Westchester County, New York to bring management changes and ownership of the hotel. The sale was not finalized, but renovations were carried out, and the establishment was re-opened as 'The New Kutsher's Resort & Spa' . Kutsher's hosted the 2008, 2009 and 2010 U.S. edition of the

All Tomorrow's Parties "All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released on the group's 1967 debut studio album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''. Inspiration for the song came from Reed's observation of Andy Warh ...

festival. It also served as the location for the annual district convention for New York's

Kiwanis International Kiwanis International ( ) is an international service club founded in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, and is found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas. Since 1987, the organizatio ...

and associated organizations. Helen Kutsher died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 19, 2013. Kutsher's closed in 2013. The property was sold to Veria Lifestyle, a company owned by Indian billionaire

Subhash Chandra Subhash Chandra Goenka (born 30 November 1950) is an Indian billionaire media baron. He is the chairman of the Essel Group, an Indian media conglomerate and founded Zee TV in 1992. He was also the chairman of Zee Media but resigned as Directo ...

, for $8.8million. The new owners demolished the hotel and constructed a health and wellness destination based on the Indian discipline of

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

. The resort was to include 131 rooms. In June 2018, the YO1 Luxury Nature Cure, a six-story wellness resort, opened on the site.

Legacy

A documentary about Kutsher's Country Club involving three generations of the Kutsher family titled ''Welcome to Kutsher's: The Last Catskills Resort'' was released in 2012.

In popular culture

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Kutsher's served as an inspiration for the 1987 movie ''

Dirty Dancing ''Dirty Dancing'' is a 1987 American romantic drama dance film written by Eleanor Bergstein, produced by Linda Gottlieb, and directed by Emile Ardolino. Starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, it tells the story of Frances "Baby" Houseman ...

''.Music and Movies in the Catskill Mountains
/ref> In the film ''

Wet Hot American Summer ''Wet Hot American Summer'' is a 2001 American teen comedy film directed by David Wain from a screenplay written by Wain and Michael Showalter. The film features an ensemble cast, including Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Molly Shannon, Pau ...

'', the M.C. of the talent show worked at Kutsher's. Kutsher's also appeared in the second season of ''

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ''The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel'' is an American period comedy-drama television series, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, that premiered on March 17, 2017, on Amazon Prime Video. Set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it stars Rachel Brosnahan as ...

''.

References

External links

Kutsher's remnants auctioned
(archived)
Ruffle
is required to view the flash player) {{commonscat, Kutsher's Hotel Defunct hotels in New York (state) Catskills Borscht Belt Golf clubs and courses in New York (state) Resorts in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Sullivan County, New York Tourist attractions in Sullivan County, New York Demolished buildings and structures in New York (state) Buildings and structures demolished in 2014