AT THE NEVELE — Sharon Mark Cohen

When our days at the bungalows unhappily dried up in the 1960s, we occasionally drove back to the Catskills in New York State for nostalgia. After my husband and I married in 1975, we infrequently stayed at one of the famous resorts still hanging on for dear life, namely The Nevele in Ellenville. Kutsher’s in Monticello was the other option, and we took advantage of it when the Nevele closed.

One day earlier this year, someone posted a photo of a matchbook cover from The Nevele, the defunct Borscht Belt hotel, on a Facebook group page. I ran and took a picture of our identical souvenir from that favored hotel, which hangs framed in our family room with other vintage matchbooks from various places we’ve patronized. You could say I matched her memory.

Then, on a day not long after the matching matchbook posts, as I was cleaning the floor in our laundry room, I decided as a fluke to open an old souvenir can from Charles Chips®. Inside the tin, I found some of my late aunt’s costume jewelry and various sundries. On top of the burgeoning blob of goodies was a bar of soap from none other than The Nevele.

Covered in its original personalized wrapper, I could hardly wait to take a picture of the packaged soap to post on the Facebook group page for other mountain revelers to view. I figured the comments would be exciting to read, and I was correct.

Some members of the popular Facebook group remarked that they remembered the scent of the soap! Others spoke of the jingle we often heard on tv... "At The Nevele there’s so much to do…” That tune plays in my head, much like the phonograph needle that would regularly skip, endlessly repeating one line.

Many commenters remembered honeymooning at the Nevele in the 1950s. Boy, if the walls of The Nevele could talk!

Roughly counting the number of honeymooners from The Nevele on the list of replies on that posting was impressive, making me wonder if the hotel kept an accurate count. Then, there were the sad comments from those who honeymooned there so many moons ago and, over the years, lost their spouses. Those responses required the tap of an emoji showing a caring hug.

In June 1975, as newlyweds, my husband and I passed up a drive to the mountains for a first-time airline flight for both of us. We ventured outside the 50 states and honeymooned at the exotic islands of the Netherland Antilles, Curaçao, and Aruba, wading in the blue and green-hued waters of the Caribbean. While the Catskills had begun to lose the allure, my husband and I returned to spend a weekend of our early married days at the famed Nevele.

We returned to the funny-named resort, notably with the word eleven spelled backward, for my mother’s 70th birthday celebration in 1985. My three older brothers joined with my sister-in-law and nieces. My husband’s parents, one of many couples who honeymooned there in 1938, joined our celebratory family weekend.

When our children were young, we took them for weekend stays at Kutsher’s and brought my mother and brothers along. The glory of the Catskills hotels was dwindling, but we willingly paid for a boost of nostalgia and some fun activities for the children. Ice skating and tobogganing, Simon Says, and aging artists gave them a hint of the glory of the Jewish Alps. The overabundance of food stayed the course.

We also brought our children “up the mountains” for a yearly overnight or longer during their youth. Once, we stayed in the last of the traditional bungalow colonies where they could sleep without a lock on the door. Situated next door to our unlocked bungalow meant the freedom for the children to roll around in the green grass from morning to night. That was when we attended a Catskills reunion run by Professor Phil Brown, President of the Catskills Institute.

Over the years, we stayed at roadside hotels until gambling came to the Catskills, and Resorts World, a posh hotel and casino, opened. The upscale hotel, and its runoff hotel, The Alder, were built on the grounds of the once-fancy golf course at the richly famous Concord Hotel. Today, comfortable Bed and Breakfasts and Airbnbs are starting to repopulate the once dreary remnants of the towns and hamlets in Sullivan, Ulster, and Orange Counties in New York.

The Catskills will always be my happy place. After a scenic two-hour drive from our home, we can head up anytime to relive the days gone by. New establishments are popping up all the time. Bethel Woods, the Museum of the ‘60s, located in Bethel, the sight of the Woodstock Festival, as opposed to Woodstock, New York, another cool town, has enchanting grounds with trees, shrubs, seasonal flowers, and mountain vistas of true grandeur. We enjoy strolling the perimeters outside the fun modern building.

Scenic walking paths outside Resorts World include a chance to stop at a funky shop selling unique clothing and gifts gathered from around the globe. New shops are constantly filling old, vacant stores in a once-thriving Livingston Manor, where I got my colorful inner tubes in the 1950s. I vividly remember the excitement of trying them out at the bungalow swimming pool, situated in the view from DeBruce Road.

While the Catskills enjoys a slow, hopeful renaissance, numerous others and I hold on to our memories of the Catskills’ past. That’s why so many who shared the glory of the Catskills heydays are thrilled beyond belief with the 2025 scheduled opening of The Catskills Borscht Belt Museum in Ellenville https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2023/04/28/new-borscht-belt-museum-coming-to-ellenville/.

I’m excited for our children to have the opportunity to share their Catskills memories with their children. My husband and I would be happy to go along for the ride.