Read an excerpt from
My View From the Mountains

Prologue

Memories come rushing in as I drive through South Fallsburg. I pass my old school, Fallsburg Elementary, now sadly boarded up and sagging with years of disuse. But, at least for now, the Pines Hotel remains open, a fraying string of buildings connecting to a storied tradition of hospitality that once saw as many as 500 resorts breathing life into the fabled Catskill Mountains. I drive by Skopps Bungalow Colony, a once busy summer family getaway now just a shadow of its former self. My heart begins to beat harder now; I’m getting nearer to the Brickman.

As I approach the driveway leading onto the grounds, I’m quickly reminded that this is no longer the hotel my family once owned. The Hotel Brickman sign has been removed, as have the tennis courts off to my left.

The stable still stands, though there is no sign (or smell) of horses. To the right is the Ranch House, a long motel-style building with 20 rooms (funny how I still remember the room count), but now lounge chairs no longer dot the lush green lawn with its two stone patios. The Ranch House had been my favorite of our various guest accommodations and the one I would have chosen had I been a guest and not the daughter of Ben Posner, one of the owners of the hotel.

And it’s so quiet.

The buildings look the same but now serve as an ashram run by the SYDA Foundation, to whom we sold the Brickman at the end of 1986 after a long and eventful 74-year run. Instead of driving through to the main entrance and into the heart of the complex, I turn right, up the dirt road snaking behind the Ranch House to the back end of the property, the same route once taken by “bungalow people'' who snuck in on foot. Many were inevitably discovered and asked to leave.

I drive by my former home, the one I shared with my second husband, then pass what had been the day camp where I spent my childhood years. Then I go down the hill toward the parking lot. I park just outside the back door to the kitchen. I try the door, which opens with the same creak of springs that began so many of my mornings, seemingly a lifetime ago.

The kitchen had been my domain for the last ten years of the hotel’s existence, a noisy, bustling nexus of waiters coming and going, trays clattering, lots of shouting, all with the mission of feeding 600 ravenous guests three meals a day. I would orchestrate this mayhem from my station at a table the color of a pink flamingo, the air fragrant with pastrami and roast beef, Danish, and challah straight from the oven. Now the table is gone, and the vast space seems eerily hollow in the tranquil service of the ashram.

After I visit the kitchen, I walk over to the terraced area where our Olympic-sized outdoor pool once reigned as the focal point for our guest's busy day. But the grounds of what had been the Hotel Brickman have been transformed to reflect the austerity of the SYDA Foundation, and I am struck speechless: When my family owned the hotel, the terraces were lined with colorful chaise lounges: and now the terraces are empty. The pool has been filled in and turned into a lawn. Nothing feels familiar. I do not feel at home.

A few years later, I returned with my two cousins. As we approached the outdoor pool, a devotee of the ashram came up and asked us what we were doing there. We told him we were part of the Posner family that used to own this property, and we just wanted to look around. We were asked to leave, just like we used to tell the bungalow people.

The hotel was much more than the family business. It was my home, and I loved it. But on this day, I soaked up what vestiges of the past I could and moved on.