Summer, like the air in the autumn, always makes me nostalgic. For what, though, I’m not entirely sure. A few years back, I spent the summer in the Catskills at the Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts as an artist assistant and instructor. It was a beautiful time and every year, I miss those days.
Seventy-five years prior to my tenure there, Sugar Maples opened as a small hotel which soon turned into a comprehensive resort accommodating up to 700 guests. For about 50 years, the resort grew as families spent summer vacations enjoying the activities offered (horseback riding, pool fun, various contests, the like). In the 1980s, however, popularity began to decline and in the 90s, the entire plot of land was sold to a developer who never touched the place. The buildings, stocked with the hotel’s ephemera and objects, decayed. Twenty-five years later, I totally raided those buildings.
It’s unclear why popularity of the resort, and the industry, faded. Perhaps it was the change in guests’ expectations or the prohibition of alcohol at Sugar Maples. Whatever the case, buildings were hastily abandoned and years later, donated to the Catskill Mountain Foundation.
When I arrived – in a rainstorm, parking in a puddle of mud – the buildings were off limits to the public. Along with my friend Roberta , we explored every abandoned space we could find, collecting the probably asbestos-laden things. As I’m going through my old things, I thought some of this stuff is worth sharing from both a design and nostalgia-loving point of view.
I spent this past weekend near Sugar Maples, at the Washington Irving Inn in Hunter. One thing I love about the area, Tannersville specifically, is the handmade quality of many of the signs and buildings. Here are a few pictures from the weekend, including a shot of the new Sugar Maples. And, yes, I went to the Zoom Flume.
[In order from top to bottom, the photographs: Sugar Maples; Washington Irving Inn (sign); the Library at the Inn; Zoom Flume; Last Chance Cheese Shop (sign); Colgate Lake.] Sigh.
