It’s the early 1900s, and you’ve just arrived at a fabulously grand summer hotel. You’ve saved for the trip, packed the family’s trunks to the brim, and traveled for hours to escape the oppressive heat of New York City. The hotel has gloriously beautiful grounds, a dining room overlooking the mountains, and a staff ready to attend to your every need. There’s just one problem. You’re Jewish, and the hotel has a sign stating it doesn’t accept Jewish guests. Your vacation comes to a screeching halt before it even has a chance to start.
Some places advertised their restrictions openly. Others preferred more demure wording such as “Christian clientele” or “selected patronage.” Even wealthy Jewish families could find themselves very unwelcome at fashionable resorts, country clubs, and private beaches. Money could buy a train ticket and an expensive wardrobe, but it couldn’t always buy a hotel room.
Jewish immigrants began opening places where their families and neighbors could vacation without worrying about any of that. In the Catskill Mountains of New York, struggling farms became summer boardinghouses, and boardinghouses became hotels. A spare bedroom, a good cook, and a reputation for treating guests well could be enough to get started. The proprietors often had little formal hospitality experience, but they knew their customers because they came from the same neighborhoods, attended the same synagogues, and understood what a Jewish family wanted from a summer away.
Within a few decades, some of those modest establishments had become sprawling resorts with swimming pools, golf courses, nightclubs, theaters, and hundreds of guest rooms. They employed entertainers who would go on to become household names, hosted professional athletes, and attracted visitors from across the country. One had its own airstrip. Another became famous for basketball games featuring NBA stars. Families booked their vacations months in advance, often returning to the same hotel for generations.
The story eventually moves well beyond the Catskills. It hits the road to the glittering hotels of Miami Beach, over to a tent village on a Mediterranean island, and finally to an aging ocean liner. Along the way are a former garment worker, an architect who loved theatrical staircases, two Jewish resistance veterans, and an Israeli businessman who thought ordinary Americans might enjoy cruising as much as wealthy travelers did.
Jennie Grossinger was born in Galicia in 1892, back when the region was part of Austria-Hungary. Her family immigrated to New York, where she went to school until she was old enough to help earn money. She found work in a garment factory, making buttonholes for two dollars a week. The family was trying to establish itself in America, and everyone was expected to contribute.
In 1914 her father, Asher Selig Grossinger, bought a farm near Ferndale, New York. The family hoped agriculture would provide a better way of life, but farming proved difficult, and the income wasn’t nearly enough to justify it, let alone to survive. They began taking in summer boarders from New York City, offering rooms and meals to people looking for a few weeks of fresh mountain air. Jennie’s mother, Malka, handled the cooking, while Jennie helped with the guests, housekeeping, and the endless chores that came with running a boardinghouse.
Malka’s food was a major attraction. Visitors could enjoy familiar kosher meals, and the Grossingers made people feel comfortable enough to return the following summer. Guests told friends and relatives about the place, and the family gradually expanded its business. Jennie discovered she had a knack for remembering people. She knew which families preferred certain rooms, remembered anniversaries, and took an interest in the children who came back with their families, year after year.
The Grossinger family eventually moved the business to a larger property, and Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel began its transformation into one of America’s most famous vacation destinations. By the middle of the twentieth century, it had hundreds of guest rooms, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, golf, skiing, shops, and opulent evening entertainment. The resort eventually took up more than 800 acres, complete with its own post office and airstrip. At its heyday, Grossinger’s reportedly welcomed around 300,000 visitors per year…quite an impressive achievement for a business that started by renting rooms in a farmhouse.
A family arriving at Grossinger’s in the 1950s could unpack its luggage and settle in for a week without needing to make many more arrangements. Children had supervised activities, swimming lessons, and games, while their parents played golf, attended exercise classes, or relaxed beside the pool. Meals were served in large dining rooms. And the evenings…that brought dancing, music, and performances by entertainers whose names appeared on theater marquees across the country. Guests dressed to the nines for dinner, visited friends, and made plans for the next day’s activities. The hotel had become a vacation community with a schedule full enough to keep everyone busy.
Jennie was often at the center of it all, greeting visitors and making sure they were enjoying themselves. She became friends with entertainers, politicians, and business leaders who visited the property. But ordinary guests received plenty of her attention as well. Eddie Fisher, who worked at Grossinger’s early in his career, became one of the resort’s most famous musical connections. The hotel also attracted other well-known performers who enjoyed the Catskills' reliable audiences and lively atmosphere.
Grossinger’s continued finding ways to keep guests coming back. In 1952, it introduced commercial snowmaking for its ski operation, helping turn what had once been a summer business into a year-round destination. Golf attracted visitors during the warmer months, skiing brought them in winter, and the hotel’s entertainment program provided a reason to visit in almost any season. Jennie lived to see the family business become a nationally recognized resort before her death in 1972. Her daughter Elaine Grossinger Etess carried on the family’s hospitality legacy and later became the first woman president of the American Hotel and Motel Association.
