40 ROUND KITCHEN TABLE

Mohonk Mountain House
1000 Mountain Rest Road
New Paltz, NY 12561

Corner table in the spectacular dining room.
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The Early Years.

On a beautiful fall day in 1869, Alfred Homans Smiley, with family and friends, took an excursion to Paltz Point (now known as Sky Top.) On this mountainside outside of New Paltz, they discovered 280 acres of rugged terrain, a lake, and a small tavern owned and operated by John F. Stokes. It was the kind of place Alfred's twin brother Albert Keith Smiley had always dreamed of for a summer retreat. Within weeks, Albert bought the property for $28,000 and with the help of Alfred began transforming and expanding the original tavern into Mohonk Mountain House. Albert's first guests were so enchanted with the natural surroundings and hospitality that they wanted to spend the entire "season" at Mohonk Mountain House.

Mohonk is a corruption of the Delaware Indian word Mogonck, which some believe to mean "lake in the sky."

This was a Quaker hotel upon opening, and temperance was observed. Dancing and public card playing was prohibited. Instead, the lodge offered nature walks, lectures, evening concerts, boating, fishing, bowling and a ten-minute prayer service every morning after breakfast.

The founder of Mohonk, Albert Smiley, was born in Kennebec Country, Maine with his identical twin brother Alfred, to Quaker parents with Scottish and English ancestors. The Smiley twins became ardent scholars, dedicated Quakers, and nature lovers, and graduated from Haverford College to become teachers and then principals at the Friends School in Providence, Rhode Island. Alfred later moved to Poughkeepsie, New York with the intention of farming - until he made his fortuitous outing to Paltz Point in 1869. Albert served as owner and host of the Mountain House and Alfred as on-site manager in the early years. After Alfred left to start his own Mountain Houses on Minnewaska Lake, the twins' half-brother David jointed Albert in the managing of Mohonk Mountain House.

David Smiley (1855-1930), the twins' half-brother and Philadelphia schoolteacher, joined Albert in 1881 as General Manager with his wife Effie. He made Mohonk almost self-sufficient in its ability to provide electrical and heating power, along with some fresh vegetables and meat. He was responsible for constructing several buildings and for road and trail designs.

From 1879 to 1910, the once small lakeside inn grew to its present architectural form. Albert Smiley gradually bought the surrounding land and farms to create a 7,500-acre estate. He said, "I have treated this property, the result of seventy-six purchases, as a landscape artist does his canvas, only my canvas covers seven square miles." With the help of architects, stonemasons, carpenters, gardeners, and local laborers, Albert and Alfred (and later Daniel Smiley) designed and constructed Mohonk Mountain House along with its gardens, gazebos, landscape, and more than 60 miles of carriage roads, trails, and paths.

During the decade of the 1870's, building improvements were a priority, and Mohonk was enlarged to include an addition housing the Dining Room and the Rock Building, a frame structure built on rock. In the 1880's and into the early 1900s, Daniel Smiley, with the help of noted architects Napoleon LeBrun and James E. Ware, fashioned the Mountain House into a Victorian and Edwardian architectural delight.

A wealth of activities and events make up Mohonk's history. As a mostly self-sufficient Mountain House well into the twentieth century, Mohonk had its own farms, dairies, sawmill carriages and driving roads, boys' school, icehouse and ice harvest, telegraph office, and powerhouse.

In Mohonk's earliest years, guests had to call for room service by using speaking tubes installed in the hallways. In 1883, an electric call bell system was installed in 165 guest rooms. Keep in mind electric lights were not introduced until ten years later in 1893.

The Bell Board, located in the Lake Lounge, registered signals from guest rooms requesting room service. It operated on its own low-voltage, battery powered electric supply system using "bell wire" to connect guest rooms with the Bell Board. Each room was provided with a little card that indicated how many times to push the 'bell Button' for each service provided: for example, two times for ice water, or three times to request a porter. The signal would activate a mechanical indicator on the board, alerting the bellman to which room was calling. After reviewing the type of request displayed in the round, wooden box on their desk, the bellman performed the task and pushed a button to learn the request from the board. Eventually telephones were installed in the guest rooms, and this bell system became obsolete.

The Architects.

The principal architects were Napoleon LeBrun who designed most of the frame section of the 1/8 mile long hotel and James Edward Ware who

somebody please help me find a good roomate. I just put a post up on craigslist and so far I've been bombarded with inquiries from 20-year-old musicians. ugh! if you know of anyone looking or are looking for yourself to move, let me know...

here's some details about my place in greenpoint:

rent is $900
this includes a large bedroom and an office space off of that with two huge closets (but no windows). There's a cable hookup in there but I don't want cable so that bill would be entirely the responsibility of the other person if they want it.

security deposit
$900 to the landlord

bedroom
is pretty big with a view of the empire state building. very sexy. light pours in there in the afternoon so if you're not a morning person it's good

kitchen
is small but nice and clean with a view of the empire state building. I have a tall round table in there now, don't think anything else can squeeze in there really. there's lots of room for pots and pans and things like that

bathroom
is also clean and is next to the kitchen. the layout of the apartment is good because it's like having two separate apartments that share a bath and kitchen. gas and electric bills come to about $40 per person a month.

I have two cats
serge and rodge, who have a brokeback mountain dynamic. they don't bite or scratch people, but one of them used to scratch wooden objects. so I got those
cat claw condoms and they seem to be doing the job. I'd like to be able to let them roam the apartment but if they person doesn't like that idea, I could keep them in my two rooms. the landlord will only allow two pets per apartment so unfortunately the person wouldn't be able to bring their pet if they have one.

random other details
I work as an instructional designer and do some costume design and construction on the side. I'm planning to move sometime during the course of next year-a rough guess would be half a year from now but there are some variables. there's usually no struggle for the bathroom because I don't have to be at work at 9 o'clock. I'm hardly home, but when I am, I like to entertain friends and relatives who are pretty considerate. the street has an american flag in front of every house, which could be annoying but which I find oddly compelling. it's a quiet and safe neighborhood. the laundromat is around the block, and so are two buses that go to the Lorimer or Graham Ave. L stop. these get there in about ten minutes and from there it's a quick ride into the city. mccarren park is close by and so is palace-$1.50 drafts and probably one of the only places in nyc you can still smoke. if you have a car, parking's pretty good.