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Elaine grossinger etess biography

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American View
Personality

Elaine Grossinger Etess’s maidenname evokes the landmark resort where heimishe hospitality flourished amid the pine-paneled rusticity of the Catskill Mountains. The story began in the early 1900s, when her grandparents, Asher Selig and Malke Grossinger, bought farmland in Liberty, N.Y., and began renting rooms to visitors from New York City. By 1919, their daughter Jennie Grossinger—Etess’s mother—was running the hotel. After her mother’s death in 1972, Etess and her brother, Paul Grossinger, were left in charge. Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel grew into a 35-building resort that had its own airport and post office until it closed in 1986. Today, Etess, 91, lives in Boca Raton, Fla., and last visited the Catskills in 2017. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What made the hotel so special?

It was a fun place to enjoy many activities plus incredible food and entertainment, all in one package. I think Grossinger’s captured the atmosphere of a country club at a time when Jews were restricted elsewhere. Here anyon

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Elain Grossinger Etess

When I was in college, I made a vow: I would NEVER move back to the Catskills and I was NEVER going into the hotel business. I also learned an important lesson: Never say never!

As luck would have it, I married my high school sweetheart David Etess, an internist, who decided that the Catskills was the perfect place to set up his private practice. Of course, the fact that his parents and mine were nearby was a major factor in the decision.

I had grown up in the Catskills, daughter of the famous hotelier, Jennie Grossinger. My grandparents, Selig and Malke, had left New York City’s Lower Eastside in the 1920s when my grandfather became ill. His choice was to relocate to Connecticut and grow tobacco or live in Sullivan County, New York, as a farmer. He chose the agricultural route, but the land was not fertile.

Thankfully, my grandmother was a fabulous cook and they decided to take in boarders. Their business was so successful that, by the second summer, they needed to pitch two additional tents in order to house all the guests. The Grossinger’s

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Jennie Grossinger & Elaine Grossinger Etess

Owners of Grossinger’s

In 1914, Harry and Jennie Grossinger founded Harry Grossinger’s Resort and Country Club in the scenic Catskill Mountains. Grossinger’s started as a summer boardinghouse that featured kosher cuisine, but by the end of World War II, it had become a 600-room, 812-acre facility that attracted approximately 300,000 guests each year. The facilities included a 27-hole golf course, a shopping arcade, a ski slope, indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts, a post office, two kosher kitchens and a nightclub. Grossinger’s was a favorite of celebrities, as well—Eddie Fisher’s rise to stardom began at the resort. Today, Grossinger’s may be most widely recognized as the inspiration for Kellerman’s Mountain Resort in the 1987 film “Dirty Dancing.”

Jennie Grossinger was instrumental in the development and day-to-day operations of the resort and continued to manage it as she raised her two children. She also was heavily involved in charities, and received many h

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