the bug

My (infamous) red Volkswagen, parked by the Castle in the late spring of 1973. The other vehicle was the ubiquitous Volkwagen microbus driven everywhere by the late Leon Van Heusen.

from the Castle porch: storm brewing

Last night there were threats of a major thunderstorm - and warnings of hail and even tornados - but the Big One never materialized. I was at the Castle at 6:30 PM for a special dinner we'd arranged with a few camper parents who were picking up their kids the next day (today). I walked out to the newly renovated large porch of the Castle and shot this video of the threatening sky over Wildcat Mountain. Take a look at the new deck. It's very excited. It had been around 10 years since the Castle porch was safe at all. Now not only is it safe; it provides a spectacular view whether the day is sunny or cloudy.

Castle chefs and service staff, early 1960s

Jim Wilkes sent me this photograph of the Castle chefs and service staff - taken during a summer in the early 1960s or possibly 1959.

Dave King writes: This picture is of the Boy's camp kitchen staff of 1962 and '63. In front left is Fritz and Vilja Kohtz. The chief cook, Albert Fey, and his wife are center and right. They lived in the 2 back rooms at Pigeon Lodge, second floor. We [Dave and Shirley King] and Kathy [then a baby] were in the front room and closet over the stairwell. The male staff members are familiar, but I can't remember the names. Back left, is the incredible Calvin Brown who also worked in the kitchen. It should be noted that Shirley, along with Sal Senatore, and a Mrs. King from Pennsylvania and her sister cooked at the Castle from 1958 through 1968.

now the music room

all around the Castle

Here's an almost 360-degree photo of the Castle main floor, taken by Ken Nathanson this weekend. Click on the image for a larger view. Below is a similar shot of the Castle office--Mr. Forstmann's old card room.

a secret of the Castle

Mac Boys go in search of Forstmann's once-secret service button.

Shirley King remembers

As Dave and Shirley King prepare to celebrate (in July) their 50th wedding anniversary, Shirley took a few minutes to remember her experience as one of the few spouses at camp in the pre-Girls' Camp days. This is partly in response to Bill Hawkins' recollections (recently posted here).

I guess Dave [King] was one who had the first shot of bringing a wife to camp. He was Village Chief of Lenape in l958 and '59, and had talked to Dick Carey about my coming along when we married in April of l960., and what job Dave might have. (I always teased that he brought me along in l960 as "excess Baggage") There were few women at camp at that time: Dottie, wife of Ray Grant, Mrs. Cole, Jean, wife of Dick Carey, and Marian Schreck, Secretary, Gerry Lester, Camp Nurse, and Dottie Parsons, Al's wife.

Dave became Program director, and I was hired as a "Castle Hostess" ( with Joan Grant) in l960, and in '6l, ( for awhile with Dorie Masemore, who had married Jerry) and In l96l, I also did some of the cooking at the Castle during the week, toted luggage for guests, etc.

Living quarters: In the early years, staff Living in the Castle would not have been considered; the Castle was strictly off limits to staff from l958 on, and crossing the bridge from the Office was considered grounds for dismissal, so that staff never even went into Pidgeon and Biscuit Creek lodges. In '60 and '6l the Grants were bringing people to the Castle who might contribute to the "Y", and the Castle was used as a Guest House.

When Dave and I married in l960, we had one rm. in the top of Biscuit Lodge ( with the old garage underneath.) Dottie and Al had 2 children at the time, and they had a couple of rooms beside us in Biscuit. In l962, [our daughter] Kathy was born in March, and renovations to Biscuit had begun. We had 1 rm. at the top front of Pigeon, with a windowed closet, and it was there that we put a bassinette for Kathy. Another staff member with a child had a rm. in Pigeon, and in the top back of Pidgeon were 2 rms. for the cooks: Dottie and Bill Van Zandt, Vilja Kohtz [cook], and the next year, the cook and his wife, Albert Fey and Inga. (It was their daughter Inga, who later met and married Bill Van Zandt Jr., the son of Dottie and Bill.)

I spent many evenings visiting the cooks with Kathy, watching Vilja braid a rug, and those were special times, lovely people. During these 2 yrs. at Pidgeon, during the day, I did Staff Laundry at the little Fisherman's shack beside the Infirmary, and in the evening I served snacks in the Staff Lounge at Pigeon Brook Lodge (during Staff time-off, for those did not have CQ.)

We think we lived 3 summers in the old house across from the old horse barn. It had a washing machine, so "Hambone" ... Ken Hamlin...would come down sometimes to wash his clothes, and play with Kathy and Dave, and then he would babysit once in a while, and Dave and I would go into Liberty to a movie. What a great guy.

The Parsons family lived in the old house behind what was Devlin's home and then Chuck and Joy White's home (now called "the group home"), and l year our family lived there in the old house.

In l967 and 68, Halbe Brown had asked me to run the Castle, do reservations, etc. and we lived in the 2 rooms on the 3rd floor overlooking the circular drive. These were the rooms which had originally been used as a Forstmann nursery and a room for the Nanny. When the children were in camp, Dave and I lived for a short period 2 yrs. in Rm. 32, and once, for a short period we lived in Rm. 22. We went where we were directed, and tried to do the jobs asked of us.

Wonderful memories of beautiful Frost Valley, and of all the special people we have lived and worked with over the years!!!! We always enjoy coming back to see the valley, and meet again all of those wonderful people.

fish-eye gazebo

Above is a photograph (with a fish-eye lens) taken from inside the Forstmann gazebo atop the Castle lawn. The photographer is our own Ken Nathanson (long-time camper, staff, active alum and now proud father of a summer 2010 CIT).

Castle in winter

My daughter and I xc-skiied by this lovely scene on Saturday, along "the Castle loop" trail.

fall getaway

In Hudson Valley Magazine there's a feature on Frost Valley under the heading "fall getaways." Here's your link to the article.

amazing maple

The music room in the Castle is vaneered in Birds'-Eye Maple.

come dine with Julius

Early photo of the Castle dining room.

Castle c. 1916

Photograph of the Castle looked at from the east-side garden. The rose gardens have just been put in. The picture was made not long after the building was completed in 1916. Today those gardens are gone (others--on Memorial Island--remain, though) and the spot is now a soft lawn of green grass, bordered on the back by perennial flowering bushes put in by Diana Larison and others in recent years.

weddings, yes

Frost Valley couples...have you considered having your wedding at Frost Valley? FV is now really set up to make this possible. Click on this PDF and see the details.

mowing the Castle Hill

Doug Kerr, now of Lewis, NY, was a camper in '68 and '69, then CIT, LIT, Counselor and then joined the maintenance staff. Eventually he worked year-round on the maintenance staff. Doug writes: "Did you know I had the record time for mowing the Castle Hill with a hand mower solo? Carl [Hess] trained us well!"

In those days the Castle Hill was mown by hand. I suppose that's because tractor mowers in those days were not built flexibly enough to handle riding sideways at such a steep angle. For whatever reason it was done by hand - tiring, hard work, and terrible on the ankles! Andy Kremer, I recall, wore spikes (like soccer shoes, or baseball cletes) when mowing it, to keep himself from falling over and tumbling down the hill.
Doug is our source for the spectacular photograph below. Top row, left to right: Bill Van Zandt, Carl Hess, Morris Slater, John Kremer, Norm Gurfinkel; bottom row, left to right: Mike Schiffer, Dave McBride, Andrew Schiffer, Doug Kerr.


John Kremer writes: "This would have been my first summer on the Maintenance staff - Norm and I lived in one of the dorm rooms in Hayden - I think the younger Schiffer is actually John, who would have been my age. Andrew is the youngest and he did not join the staff until years later when Chuck had the crew."

man with a cleaver

In this photo you'll see the camp food service staff, the Castle food service staff and the maintenance staff - for 1960. Vilja and Fritz Kohtz, Albert and Mrs. Fay, and Paul Cypert - they were the leaders of the group. Wanda Cypert still lives in the Cypert house a few miles down the road from Frost Valley's east end. What I personally remember about Albert Fay was that he was - or was said to be - legally blind, couldn't see very well. And yet when he got mad he'd come at you with a cleaver, all in jest, to be sure, but just imagine what it felt like to be mockingly chased around by a man with bad eyesight waving a cleaver. I remember Bill Van Zandt once telling me about being chased all the way around the kitchen by Albert. What I remember about eating meals prepared by Vilja and Fritz...was that they served, more frequently than I ever liked, Hungarian goulash, served in these large low flat brown bowls that didn't make the dish any more appetizing.

Photo courtesy of Jim Wilkes.

Castle tour to end all Castle tours

It was billed as the Castle tour to end all Castle tours. It might well have been the greatest Castle tour-giving talent assembled in the old mansion's living room at one time. The featured tellers were Dave King (not pictured here), Chuck White, Bill Devlin, Dave Haight, Dave Gold, and Bud Cox. This (again) was Labor Day 2001, the Wawayanda Centennial (1901-2001) reunion. In this picture you see Bill Devlin (white beard), Chuck White (wearing sweater), Dave Haight (next to Bill), and Dave Gold. Bud and Dave King were on the other side of the room.

Forstmann family tree

There's so much well-intentioned but nonetheless loose talk about the Forstmann family and their summer home (our "Castle") that it seemed apt here in this blog to set at least the lineage straight.

Julius Forstmann, born 1871, died 1939, married Adolfine Lynen (1979-1953). The two had five children:

Reinhold 1908-1940
Carl 1904-1922
Curt 1907-1950
Julius G. 1911-1962
Louise 1915-1983

Louise married Kenneth Wilson and they had at least two children, Stephen (b. 1939) and Cecily.

Curt married Elizabeth Allen in 1931 and later was remarried to Seabury Marsh. Curt and Elizabeth had three children: Peter, Annie and Richard.

Julius the younger lived in Greenwich CT and married Dorothy and was later re-married to Mrs. Sammis. Julius had three children, Anthony, Theodore and Nicholas. Theodore is known as Ted or sometimes Teddy.

A few more words about Ted. Theodore J. Forstmann (born 1940) is one of the founding partners of Forstmann Little & Company, a private equity firm. He is unmarried and has no children. Forstmann is a graduate of Greenwich Country Day School, Phillips Academy, Yale University and Columbia Law School. At Yale he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He is usually known as "Ted" (occasionally "Teddy" to friends and family). Ted Forstmann, an attorney, founded Forstmann Little in 1978 with his brother Nicholas C. Forstmann, who later died of lung cancer, and William Brian Little. Ted Forstmann's second brother, J. Anthony Forstmann, founded ForstmannLeff. He was featured prominently in the book Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, as he and his company attempted to acquire RJR Nabisco. In the subsequent film adaptation, he was portrayed by actor David Rasche. The book portrayed Forstmann as a critic of KKR's Henry Kravis and his investment methods. Forstmann's criticism of Kravis (and much of the rest of the financial industry during the 1980s) centered around the use of junk bond (high-yield) investments to raise large amounts of capital. When the junk bond market later fell into disfavor as a result of scandal, Forstmann's criticism was seen as prescient, as his more conventional investment strategy had been able to maintain nearly the same level of profitability as companies such as KKR and Revlon that built their strategy around high-yield debt.

The photo above was probably taken in the 1910s, perhaps the mid-10s. Here is Adolfine and two of the Forstmann sons.

spring finally

Spring has come to Frost Valley! Happy, happy, happy spring.

Daffodils fully in bloom in the grassy lawn just to the east of the Castle. There's the Castle tower in the background.

This great photograph was taken by Sara Munoz (formerly Sara Alexander, daughter of Stu and Valerie) this past Saturday.

Castle hostesses on final day of summer '67

On the final day of the summer of '67, the Castle "hostess" staff were literally leaving the old stone mansion through the basement door when this snapshot was taken. From left to right, they are Kathy Ketcham* (sister of Billie Jean and Mike and John--of Westfield, NJ), Shirley King, head of the Castle staff (long-time camp partner and of course wife of Dave King**), and Linda Gridley (of Grahamsville, NY). The Kodacolor Print was given to Shirley who gave it to me. On the reverse, in Shirley's handwriting: "Castle Goodbye, Aug 1967 - notice the tears?" She also notes: "(missing Carol ________ from Westfield.)"*** FV folks who came along later might not know that in the late 50s and 60s the Castle was run like an inn, with rooms for rent (for visiting parents and others), 3 meals a day served in the dining room and (I think I'm remembering rightly) men's jackets required at dinner. I believe tea was served on the veranda in the afternoon. My own memory: summers '67 and possibly '68, during "holdover" weekends, my parents took a room in the second floor (probably #24) and we had a heavenly two days away from the cabin mattresses and mildew and lived in luxury on what truly seemed the other side of the Wawayanda tracks. This otherness was surely emphasized by the rule against any camper crossing the Biscuit Creek bridge near the Ad Office. No campers lived in Pigeon or Biscuit Lodges in those days and only for special programs and events did we visit Reflection Pond. There were certainly no "Castle tours." The Castle, by the way, functioned as a quiet/alternative staff lounge (with snacks served) every evening well into the 80s. I'll leave it to others--perhaps Shirley herself--to write me with more details about this extraordinary and mostly forgotten history of our use of the Castle as an inn, after which I'll add it to this entry.

* Kathy is listed on the staff list as "Hostess--Housekeeper."
** Shirley is listed as "Castle Director." By the way, in '66 Shirley's position was "Staff Lounge Hostess."
*** According to the '67 staff list, she was Carole Plenty, indeed of Westfield.