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Catskills Resort That Inspired <em>Dirty Dancing</em> Burns To The Ground
By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 18, 2012
Modified Apr 18, 2012
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 18, 2012
Modified Apr 18, 2012
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Ever dream of recreating the summer of 1963, when 17-year-old New Yorker Frances "Baby" Houseman took a family vacation to Kellerman's Resort in the Catskills? Well, now you'll never have the opportunity to awkwardly carry a watermelon into an after-hours staff party, because over the weekend the place was destroyed by a fire. Formerly the Brown's Hotel, it later became a 396-unit condominium complex, but as its former incarnation it served as (at least one of) the Catskills resorts that inspired the film. The fire was called the "largest fire in Catskills history," and in the end burned down 7 of the 9 buildings on the grounds.
According to reports "the condo complex in Loch Sheldrake, 85 miles northwest of New York City, was featured in the movie Dirty Dancing." However, the movie was chiefly filmed at the Mountain Lake Resort near Roanoke, Virginia (so your reenactment dreams are still sort of alive). The production actually never found anything suitable in the Catskills, since many of the Borscht Belt hotels had been abandoned by the time the movie was filming in the mid-1980s (check out an amazing slide show of the old resorts here). In 2009, a small group of residents at the condo complex, which still contained the old Jerry Lewis Theatre, were fighting for historic status.
SIGH. Jennifer Grey just turned 52. Patrick Swayze is dead. Kellerman's has burned to the ground. We're going to go weep for a while, away from the corner.
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brown's hotel
catskills
dirty dancing
fire
kellermans
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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