Brown's Hotel (Catskills)
Brown's Hotel was a nationally known resort complex located in the Borscht Belt area of upstate New York, in the Catskill Mountains.
Jewish-American families were welcomed and even catered to specifically by the hotels in the Borscht Belt during a time period when anti-semitism was prevalent in the hospitality industry.
[3] The hotel's Brown Derby night club would book big names like comedians Bob Hope, Buddy Hackett.
[6] Jackie Mason,[7] Woody Allen,[8] and George Burns and musicians Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Bennett,[9] Harry Belafonte,[10] and Liberace.
[11] As with modern-day cruise lines, tourists were enticed by unlimited food and entertainment at these establishments and Brown's Hotel lured their guests with the slogan “There’s More of Everything”[11] and “A bit of California at your doorstep.
[14] In the summer of 1954, Jerry Lewis arranged for Brown's Hotel to host the world premiere of his Hollywood film Living It Up without telling co-star Dean Martin.
[9] The three resorts began constructing residences for families seeking second homes in the mountains, living on the grounds of once great hotels and, for an additional fee, enjoying their athletic and entertainment amenities.
[21] The film's script was inspired by screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's childhood during which she spent summers with her parents in the Catskills, but Patrick Swayze's character Johnny Castle was based on dance instructor Michael Terrace who worked at nearby Grossinger's Resort.
[22] The Catskills resorts in general influenced the atmosphere of the motion picture, but as film production began in 1986 Grossinger's Hotel had just closed its doors for the last time.
Another key figure in the film, the character of Penny Johnson, was loosely based on entertainment icon Jackie Horner who was also a dance instructor at Grossinger's.
Prior to owning Brown's, Charles and Lillian ran the 38-room Hotel Arthur where Jerry Lewis worked as an emcee and a tea boy,[6] returning to perform even after achieving Hollywood fame.
Billboards along the highway encouraged motorists to “Do a Jerry Lewis - Come to Brown’s”[11] as the celebrity was featured heavily[11] in an advertising campaign that would contribute to the success of the resort.
[10] For years during his famous telethon, Lewis would appeal to viewers to ask “Uncle Charles and Aunt Lillian” to donate to the fight against muscular dystrophy and would give out the number to Brown's Hotel.
Brown's Hotel was an official location where people in the Catskill region would call to make donations, and on the network feed of the Telethon, the phone number would be inserted on the screen, only to be seen in the New York market.
The Times Herald-Record, a local newspaper in the Tri-State area, gave an optimistic report in early September 1988 heralding the Catskills’ best summer in years.
Eighteen days later, all buildings on the property were sold at a foreclosure auction with 160 acres of land for US $5.3 million [26] to Brooklyn-based Vista Environments Inc. President Rubin Margules, a real-estate developer, had planned to continue operating the facility as a hotel.
The property attracted a diverse crowd of inhabitants, some seeking weekend residences and others moving in for good as the renovation seemed promising with nearly 75% of the units being sold in the first few years.
Over 100 residents were evacuated with no one seriously injured,[10] many victims being relocated to the sports complex at Sullivan County Community College[19] less than two miles southeast of the property.
Fallsburg town supervisor Steven Vegliante believed that all fire code violations had been resolved before the blaze[10] but insurance companies disagreed.
[36] On May 24, it was confirmed by officials that the fire began in the condominium's main building that had completely collapsed, initiating in a boiler room no longer in use in what was once the basement of the Brown's Hotel.
[33] The damage was so severe that the county's public safety commissioner Dick Martinkovic stated “We’ll never be able to go in there and put our finger on one specific thing and say that’s what it is.” In July 2011, Grandview Palace had obtained fire insurance, in addition to another existing policy, through Hartford Insurance Company, but the well-known financial group dropped its coverage less than two months later[36] due to fire code violations.
Several abandoned resorts have burned in the vicinity under suspicious circumstances, including the former Heiden Hotel[37] in May, 2008 and the former Tamarack Lodge in April, 2012: just one week prior to the Grandview Palace fire.
[12] So many former residents of the Grandview Palace attended the subsequent Town Board session seeking answers that the meeting had to be adjourned and relocated down the street to a community center.
[42] In February 2022, the town canceled the scheduled public hearing on the matter because there was no developer and the costs of asbestos abatement and demolition would have had to be borne by the local taxpayers.
