Asher Selig Grossinger: Founder of Grossingers Hotel
Asher Selig Grossinger was the son of Mordechai and Leah Grossinger. He had two brothers named Isser and Shlomo Grossinger. Asher Selig was born in Galatia, a part of Austria in Eastern Europe. The Grossinger story in America started with Asher Selig Grossinger, Aka Selig Grossinger. He started his career as a land overseer in Galatia. Selig emigrated to America in 1897. His first job was as a pants presser on the Lower East Side of New York where he worked for three years. Selig sent his wife Malke, and their two young daughters named Jennie and Lottie steerage-class tickets in order for them to join him. The family had been poor although Selig first worked in a family butcher shop and then a restaurant. In the restaurant, the teenaged Jennie was able to hone her skills as a hostess and waitress on guests whose names she impressively always seemed to remember. Ultimately, both businesses failed. In 1914, the restaurant was shuttered as a result of Selig’s mental and physical breakdown.
Selig’s health was failing due to years of pants pressing over hot coals which took their toll. A neighbor mentioned to Selig that buying land in the Catskills was fairly cheap. In 1896, a sanitarium for treating tuberculosis had opened in the town of Liberty, New York. Tuberculosis, at the time, was a constant threat on the Lower East Side and in the nicer neighborhoods of the city. The existence of a sanitarium sent the wealthy people who had long vacationed in the region fleeing. At the same time, real estate prices plummeted.
Selig located a farm with a house on the outskirts of Liberty, in the Sullivan County town of Ferndale. The farm, similar to most in the Catskills, sat on soil that was too rocky to produce crops. Their new house was ramshackle, despite the best efforts to by Malke and Jennie to patch up the holes. Since 1912, Jennie had been married to her cousin, Harry Grossinger, who was a salesman in the garment district.
In 1914, the Grossinger house took in its first guest. Mrs. Carolyn Brown. Mrs. Brown and her husband had been dissatisfied with their current accommodations in the Catskills and asked Selig if she and her husband might board with them. The Grossingers agreed. That summer, Selig and Malke hosted nine guests who paid a total of $81. The following year, they renovated the hotel by adding six rooms and building a new wing which could accommodate 20 guests. The hotel soon became well-known for its food and reasonable rates.
Most of the Grossinger’s summer guests were single Jewish workers who were searching for inexpensive vacations. Soon, the Grossingers started calling their guesthouse “Long brook House”, where Jennie Grossinger wore three different hats: that of the bookkeeper, the chambermaid, and the host, while her mother oversaw the kosher kitchen.
The Grossinger family welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests over the years. What began under Selig’s direction as a small boarding house in 1914 became so popular despite its lack of plumbing and electricity that in 1919 Selig and Malke had to expand which led to the purchase of the land where the hotel stood throughout its existence.
While Jennie was in elementary school, Malke gave birth to a son who was diagnosed as profoundly deaf and mute. When no American doctors were able to help him, Malke decided to go back to Austria and consult with doctors and rabbis there. Malke took Lottie as well since she was very young. Selig and Malke had to borrow money for the tickets from friends and neighbors. Jennie remained in New York with Selig.
Owning the hotel put a strain on the family finances, and Jennie and her father moved to a smaller apartment. At 13 years old, Jennie quietly dropped out of school without telling Selig and found a job sewing buttonholes at a factory, working 11 hours a day, and earning a starting salary of $1.50. Jennie also assisted Selig at home, and they sent some of Jennie’s income to Malke in Europe.
When Malke was back in New York, Selig and Malke sold their farmhouse and purchased a larger property nearby. The new property had a bigger and better-prepared building for the guests. They also purchased 63 acres of land of woods and a lake in order to provide the guests with fishing and room for various sports.
There was an economic boom soon after World War I, and the resort thrived throughout the 1920s. Selig and Malke developed Grossingers into an opulent compound with tennis courts, a bridle path, a children’s camp, and a seventeen-hundred-seat auditorium with first-rate entertainers sporting facilities.
Over the next decade, Selig and Malke’s inn business gradually expanded, and by 1929 the hotel had a guest limit of 500. That year, they hired musician Milton Blackstone to promote their business. He recommended that Selig and Malke offer a free vacation to couples who met at the resort, which they did. Blackstone also thought up the motto "Grossinger's has everything."
On December 8, 1931, Selig Grossinger passed away at age 64. He was buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens. Jennie was then tasked with managing the Grossinger Hotel.
After the end of World War II, Jennie continued directing the development of the hotel and she worked to expand its client base. In 1948, guests who were not Orthodox Jews began to get special provisions on Shabbos. Grossinger’s captured the atmosphere of a country club at a time when Jews were restricted elsewhere due to antisemitism. At Grossingers, anyone could play golf or tennis without any discrimination. Making people feel welcome was very important. Jennie used to greet guests by name in the dining room every night.
The Grossingers lived nearby in a cottage. Jennie worked 20 hours a day in season, but she always came home for family dinners and then went back.
By the mid 1960’s Jennie became the sole owner of the resort when her husband Harry died in 1964 Fortunately, the rest of her family helped Jennie run the resort. When Jennie got older and she could no longer run Grossingers, she turned the business over to her children Elaine and Paul who were already involved in the management.
Grossinger’s was hit hard by the Depression, but it managed to stay open. Always innovative, the Grossinger family not only provided entertainers but brought in well-known boxers to train on their premises before their big fights. Grossinger’s was a place where you might meet Rocky Marciano, the boxer, or Nelson Rockefeller, the governor. Eddie Fisher got his start at Grossinger’s when he was spotted by Eddie Cantor, who was a guest. By the 1940s, Grossinger’s fame had spread so that it began to attract a non-Jewish clientele as well. Its palatial grounds and splendid service brought celebrities from all over. It was very almost “a social experiment”: Jews had long been banned from the most prestigious resorts; now Grossinger’s had become so prestigious that gentiles flocked to it. In the years that followed, such prominent people as Eleanor Roosevelt, Bobby Fischer, and Senator Robert Kennedy came to visit. All were made at home by the Grossinger family.
Throughout the decades, the Grossingers hosted the many celebrities at their resort. They included: Barney Ross, a Jewish boxer from Chicago who came to train at Grossingers because he kept kosher. There were sports people, politicians and ambassadors. Top singers and comedians who headlined the entertainment included Tony Bennett, Alan King, Milton Berle, Red Buttons and many more. The Eddie Fisher-Debbie Reynolds wedding at Grossingers in 1955 brought a lot of publicity. Israeli President Chaim Weizmann spent six weeks in the hotel to recuperate from an eye operation and became good friends with Jennie. Weizmann’s photo hangs in Elaine Grossinger’s house. Other Grossinger guests included: Eleanor Roosevelt, Judy Garland, Jayne Mansfield, and Milton Berle. Debbie Reynolds married Eddie Fisher at the hotel in 1955 after Eddie Fisher had been discovered there.
The Grossinger family felt that every sport of leisure needed its own arena, with state-of-the-art facilities for handball, tennis, skiing, ice skating, barrel jumping, and tobogganing, along with a championship golf course. In 1952, the resort earned a place in history by being the first to use artificial snow. Its famous training establishment for boxers hosted seven world champions. In its day spas and beauty salons, its ballrooms and auditoriums, guests were offered a level of luxury that even the wealthiest individuals couldn’t enjoy at home.
A daily missive called The Tattler identified notable guests and the business that made their respective fortunes. Weekly tabloids published on the grounds boasted the presence of celebrity athletes and entertainers. But for all the emphasis on earthly pleasures and material wealth, Jennie ensured that the Grossinger’s experience was warm and personal, always greeting guests like one of the family, even when visitors reached well over 1,000 per week. At its height, Grossinger’s featured 35 buildings on 1200 acres that served 150,000 guests a year. It reportedly had its own power plant as well as its own airstrip.
During the 1950’s and 60’s, Grossinger’s was considered the crowning jewel compared to the other resorts within the Borscht Belt of the Catskills at the time. Grossinger’s Resort became famous around the country for not only the resort but also their home-made kosher cuisine among many other things. Grossinger’s famous training establishment for boxers hosted seven world champions. At Grossinger Hotel, guests were offered a level of luxury that even the wealthiest individuals couldn’t enjoy at home, earning Grossinger’s the nickname, “Waldorf in the Catskills.”
Despite the resort becoming well-known all over the country, Jennie always kept true to her family’s business philosophy: "A resort isn't buildings and kitchens and lakes or nightclubs. The real hotel is the people who work here.".
The vast campus consisted of 20 buildings, a 600-room resort, post office and zip code. Guests also enjoyed a large golf course, skating rink, horse trails and ski facilities. During the years that the resort was operated by Jennie, it expanded to over 35 buildings. The main building contained an enormous dining room capable of seating 1,300 guests; under the dining room there was a vast, cavernous night club called the “Terrace Room”.
The resort was given its own city designation upon request when the owners wanted to separate the resort from its current city of Liberty NY. Reportedly, the Grossinger family offered a million dollars to rename the local New York, Ontario and Western Railway train station at Ferndale to "Grossingers", but were rebuffed by competing hoteliers.
During its 72-year existence, the Grossinger’s family boarding house and resort had many names, including long brook House, Grossinger's Terrace Hill House, Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel (which built upon the original framework of the Terrace Hill House), and then finally, at the peak of its grandeur, just plain Grossinger’s (or, even better, simply the G).
After Jennie’s death in 1972, Grossinger's Resort had two new owners, Elaine and Paul. The brother and sister duo who previously just managed the resort were counted on to keep it going with their own children there to help. Unfortunately, the resort experienced a decline in guests in the late 1970’s and 1980’s due to young people wanting to go to more exotic places for their vacations. The resort tried to attract this demographic by hosting a Woodstock Weekend event in 1984 but there weren’t enough attendees. The resort continued to stay afloat but Jennie death ultimately led to its closure seeing as she was the heart of the resort treating every guest like family.
In 1972, the hotel had grown to 35 buildings on 1,200 acres that served 150,000 guests a year. It had its own airstrip and post office. Unfortunately, in the late 1970s and 1980s, resorts like Grossinger’s could no longer attract younger guests. Grossinger’s main hotel and main resort areas closed in 1986, after 67 years of operations, Grossinger’s ended its 70-year legacy. For over 30 years, the once famous Grossinger’s Resort sat abandoned at its original site as squatters, vandalism, and the natural elements welcomed themselves into the structure.
The most notable representation of this place and time is the movie Dirty Dancing, which was supposedly inspired by a summer at Grossinger’s. The unexpected success of its film adaptation had little effect on the long-struggling resort—in 1986, a year before the film was released, Grossinger’s Resort went out of business and the Grossinger family sold the property for $9 million. The company who bought the property tried reviving the resort but became short on funding.
After decades of slowly rotting away, Grossinger’s Resort was torn down in 2018 as the golf course nearby stayed open for a little longer until that closed too. Nearly all of those buildings were toppled in 2018, 30 years after the resort shuttered. The demolition cost Sullivan Resorts about $6.5 million over the course of a year, according to a 2019 report about the project in the Times Herald-Record. As of 2022, the site where the resort used to be was empty. The few buildings that remained standing were in decrepit condition, and were destroyed in a fire in 2022.
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