Let's be a fading upper-class American summer resort!

I'm the shocking lack of surviving boy's clubs on Lake Winnipesaukee.

I’m Shutters at the beach.

I’m the flood of new money which has made those places obsolete. And air travel - ditto.

I'm 99% of the posts in this thread. I will be written by people who have never been to a fading upper-class American summer resort.

But once saw a movie about one.

Or maybe that was "Dirty Dancing"?

I'm gin, vodka, whisky, cognac, Pimm's No. 1, bitters, vermouth, olives, cherries, bourbon, coke, ginger ale and ice.

I am known as "lunch".

I am the shapeless but venerable hotel that was an inn where General Washington did not actually stay but we named it after him anyway.

I am the lone level sands of the Maidstone Club.

I'm the 90-room robber baron mansion now open to a thoroughly cowed public.

I loom over the magnificent cliffs like the tomb of Nero.

I am brilliant tablecloths and dull food.

I am cholera. I am why most of these places existed in the first place.

I am raw oysters. I come 12 to a plate with lemon, vinegar and cocktail sauce. And ptomaine.

I am mildewed wicker.

I am Lloyd, the bartender.

Thank you for saying so, sir.

I'm the chintzy pattern on the curtains and bedspreads

I’m the plaid and floral upholstered furniture from the late 80s

I'm vinyl siding--I never would have been permitted in the old days.

[quote]Or maybe that was "Dirty Dancing"?

assuming this is snark, since the Catskills would be the antithesis of an "upper-class american resort". The Mrs. Maisel fantasy notwithstanding.

Some of the Catskills resorts were tacky but others were upscale

Places like Wyndham in the Catskills are still very beautiful. And Mohonk, of course, although that's more a view of the Catskills than the Catskills.

Not sure if Tuxedo Park still counts as a resort. The architecture is gorgeous.

I'm drawn butter.

I'm the Tollinger girl who went missing up on Mount Mardham during a bird-watching tour, oh, fifty years ago it was if it was a day. Lovely girl, simply lovely. The men were looking for her for weeks.

Never found anything but her binoculars.

I'm weathered pastels.

I am the wisteria that has consumed the boathouse.

I'm Port Jefferson.

People come into me for a hangtown fry and a shuffle.

I’m the Chatham bars inn.

I'm Newport, and I do miss Sunny and Claus.

I'm the hedge funders who have decided to buy me and turn me into a private home.

I’m the Basin Harbor Club on Lake Champlain.

I like the Basin Harbor Club

What are you talking about, OP? Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the Hamptons aren't fading.

R30, You're dumber than a box of rocks. Go home.

The Point in the Adirondacks isn't fading either.

[quote]R30 You're dumber than a box of rocks. Go home.

I'm sure you've never been to a luxury summer resort of any kind, even a fading one.

I'm the faded red whale shorts.

[R30] That's probably why no one has mentioned Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the Hamptons.

Although, in terms of the original culture, they faded a long time ago.

Click on your posts again to feel relevant. Try all of them. We know what you've posted, R33 et al.

[quote] R30 You're dumber than a box of rocks. Go home.

Name the fading luxury summer resorts you've been to, R31 the expert. I'm waiting.

[quote]Click on your posts again to feel relevant. Try all of them. We know what you've posted, [R33] et al.

Don't you have something more important to get upset about? I guess not.

I am confused by this thread. Didn’t most of the upper class summer resorts complete their fading a generation ago? What’s an example of a resort that is still in the fading (not closed or complete unrecognizable) stage?

I’m the chilled glass salad plate, with a fresh iceberg wedge and the legendary 1000 Island dressing. Bon appetite!

R39 see R4

not "fading", just finding the right patina

we'd rather call it "weathering"

I am The Concord in Kiamescha Lake NY.... it is the Hairdressers Weekend so we've turned the class down a few notches

we ain't fucking "fading" we won't go down without a fight

better to be a faded beauty than the tarted-up whore of Wall St.

fading isn't the only alternative, one can always sell out to the barbarians

fading isn't the only alternative, one can always sell out to the barbarians

I'm the self-appointed "Grande Dame" who thinks the only POC who should be allowed at the third rate country club are those who bus tables or park my 1998 Mercedes.

What are the luxury resorts on the West Coast -- Santa Barbara? Maybe Palm Springs decades ago.

We don't really have them here the way they do/did on the East Coast, R50.

How about the Midwest? Can anyone weigh in on that? The South?

The south had numerous places, particularly in Georgia, and Florida was the capital of southern resorts, such as Winter Park.

The west coast had fewer because the overall climate and scenery were always selling points for even the bigger cities, so resorts tended to be relatively isolated luxury hotels such as Mount Hood and Glacier Park.

I'm the fortune in original rustic Limbert Old Hickory furniture the owners replaced with 2nd hand crap they bought when a Holiday Inn redecorated about 10 years ago. I wound up in a landfill. Had they known what they had I could have paid off their mortgage.

The Jekyll Island Club on the GA coast was built for rich northerners.

There really wasn't much of an upper class in the south, and those that were set there sights on Europe as a destination. Who wants to swelter in the southern heat in the summer.

Most of the "grande dame" hotels in the northeast were summer resorts

The West had places with summer homes like Pasadena and a few resorts like the Del Coronado which probably was never "exclusive" put is certainly upscale.

The Biltmore in Santa Barbara certainly counts, as does most of the area itself.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

In your dreams, Donny Two-Scoops.

Of course, Palm Beach in the South (for winter). Coral Gables, Florida (or was that just a wealthy residential area)? Maybe the area around Lake Tahoe in the western U.S.

Lake Tahoe is a great example - now seen as kind of campy and tacky but originally a very austere, beautiful place in a magnificent location.

I'm reminded of Lake Tahoe because of Godfather Part II.

the are worst fates than merely fading, like being Overlooked

Who goes to the Greenbrier nowadays?

rich racist deplorables

I'm Baby, never put in a corner.

R51 In the Midwest, I would nominate The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island.

I’m one of the last 3 ping pong balls that Bunny Bixler and Muriel Puce haven’t either stepped on or strung together as clutch necklaces.

I'm aspic salad. So light and refreshing!

I guess places like Bar Harbor, Maine and Saratoga Springs, NY are long past their glory days.

I’m Christmas in Stockbridge.

"I am confused by this thread. Didn’t most of the upper class summer resorts complete their fading a generation ago? "

I thought these places started fading when air conditioning became common, and women started getting full-time jobs? Because back before either was common, the prosperous middle-class wife-and-kiddies would leave the big steamy Eastern Seaboard cities for the summer, and stay in places where the climate was bearable. Dad would join them for weekends, or the duration of the summer, or all summer, if he was rich and didn't have to work.

I bet the big drop-off was between 1950 and 1980, when air conditioning, real jobs for women, cheap air travel, the fitness boom, faster-paced life, population shifts, and changing tastes too people away from these places.

Well, San Diego has the massive Hotel Coronado, if you want an old-fashioned West Coast fading resort.

Most people who go to Coronado seem to visit its excellent beach and gawk at the huge old pile, but I don't know anyone who actually stays there.

I'm the antiquated well and septic system the serves the resort. My leach field stopped functioning years ago and the only thing that keeps the toilets flushing is the pump truck that comes in every Fall and empties the tank. My well is also at least 200 feet closer to the septic system than it should be. If anyone ever sent a water sample in for testing we would be red tagged immediately.

Why no one's died of cholera yet is a mystery.

R60, I looked up the most expensive homes in Nevada on zillow. There are still luxury homes on Lake Tahoe between $10 million and $40 million in places like Incline Village, Crystal Bay and Glenbrook. Looks like beautiful countryside.

Also affordable air travel, R71. I think this hit the English beach resorts and Italian lake areas hard.

What are the upscale resorts in the U.S. that are doing well? Internationally there's St. Barthélemy in the Caribbean, St. Tropez in France, maybe Portofino in Italy and the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia but what are the U.S. equivalents, other than those that have been mentioned?

I've only stayed in an all-inclusive resort once, and that was on a SCUBA diving vacation to Mexico.

I don't understand resort vacations, what the hell is the appeal of going on vacation and doing nothing but hanging around the hotel? Okay, maybe if it's a swinger's hotel and you're getting laid, that I could understand, or if you're a serious alcoholic and your idea of heaven is getting hammered on the beach for a solid week. But why would someone with all their marbles want to just stay in a resort?

[R76] Palm beach, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Shelter Island, the Hamptons, Santa Barbara, Cape May and Saratoga (these two are more middle class, but still popular and well-preserved), The Florida Keys, St. Augustine, Long Lake, the Finger Lakes and Cooperstown, the Berkshires, Cape Cod, Aspen, Sedona, La Jolla (although that's more a suburb now), Catalina (The west coast Cape May), the Napa Valley, Millbrook (horse country), etc. - it's a fairly long list and those are just the ones that come immediately to mind.

We’re the Jews. Even we would rather go to Boca.

I'm that day's dinner menu in the Dining Room of the Club with the evening's events and tomorrow's events printed opposite.

Yes but Cape May doesn't seem that expensive. The more expensive houses for sale are in the $1 - $2 million range. It's definitely not Palm Beach.

I'm not sure the North Shore of Long Island was actually a resort but many of the wealthiest families in America had their country mansions there in the late 19th and early 20th century. Since then, many of these grand houses have fallen into disrepair, been bought by institutions or have been demolished. There are still some houses in the $5 - $10 million range but chances are that if you're super rich and live in the Northeast, you'll build a house in the Hamptons, Greenwich CT or Nantucket.

As mentioned before, Newport RI was a resort for the wealthy but is now past its prime.

The Pines on Fire Island. I don't think it's past its prime.

neither Palm Beach nor anything in FL would qualified as a "summer resort" as OP specified. FL is summer is unbearable

R78

Although Bar Harbor and Kennebunkport stand out, there are various Maine locations where WASPs summer

[quote]neither Palm Beach nor anything in FL would qualified as a "summer resort" as OP specified. FL is summer is unbearable

Yes, we know Palm Beach is a winter resort but it is a popular place for very rich people to own a second home.

Naples is the new Palm Beach

Yeah but Bar Harbor, Maine only has 10 houses currently for sale that cost more than a $1 million. It doesn't seem that upscale.

There's Spring Lake, New Jersey.

I'm Mrs Preminger who has been coming here since 1962...a faded beauty, who is now a widow and lives most of her life in the past as she slowly sips on a bottomless gin fizz

Bar Harbor Maine is... upscale-tourist, R87. More summer homes and twee little shops than resorts or hotels, at least where I looked.

Yeah, Bar Harbor doesn't seem like the kind of place people actually summer. Maybe swing by on their way to somewhere less common.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, of course. You get your balls wet with Jude Law.

Bar Harbor, Seal Harbor, Northeast Harbor etc., are all on Mount Desert Island and certainly are upscale Summer places, not necessarily fading, however remote. Martha Stewart still has a place there, and David Rockefeller’s place was recently sold for 19 million.

I’m Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. I once was home to the richest people in town, but now? Feh!

Rittenhouse Square is a summer resort? That's news to me.

You wouldn’t think Northern cities got that hot in summertime compared to the South.

[quote]I’m Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. I once was home to the richest people in town, but now? Feh!

Townhouses near Rittenhouse Square are still some of the most expensive in the city but Philadelphia's real estate prices are considerably cheaper than NY, LA, Boston, San Francisco, etc.

I'm the mansard roofs

I'm the mulberry sucker growing out of the corner of the guard station hut

[quote]You wouldn’t think Northern cities got that hot in summertime compared to the South.

That's why wealthy plantation owners from the South started going to Newport R.I. in the 19th century --- because summers weren't as oppressively hot as the South.

sR80, Lake Placid Club was an amazing place in it's heyday- blatantly anti Semitic (the club rules and bylaws are astounding and sometimes laugh out loud funny)- had it's own dairy, winter and summer sports, gold and tennis, Mirror Lake and Lake Placid, summer cottages, a huge main clubhouse etc etc. The cottages are now private summer homes and the Club long gone as it should be- The Whiteface Club nearby, smaller, but elegant was the Jewish version. And of course many of the huge lake cottages are still there and thriving. But the town is surprisingly unfussy- if a bit "incestuous". Beautiful place in the Winter and Summer and not expensive like many places like the Hamptons and the Cape and Islands. Well worth a long weekend or week visit.

The Greenbriar in West Virginia (had the bombshelter for senior govt officials).

A lot of places declined from the mid-50s/early 60s through the 70s. Jet ailriners, increasingly affordable airfares, and interstate highways made distant places more accessible.

Many places have bounced back--usually a little more middle class: Saugatuck, Chautauqua, Rehoboth. The places that really have struggled are the old Catskill resorts and the more lower middle brow places, which were more local in their draws---Great Lakes resorts like Port Clinton and Geneva-on-the Lake.

Sun Valley would qualify, yes? Along with the aforementioned Reno and Atlantic City (neither ever quite became Vegas) and Tahoe. The tourist scene in Niagara Falls, NY has also taken a real beating in recent decades.

For specific properties, I'm thinking of Shawnee Inn in PA.

Quite a few of these resorts had onsite summer stock playhouses with resident companies from Memorial Day to Labor Day. This is when TV in the summertime was nearly all reruns, reception in rural and resort areas was patchy (particularly the mountains), well before the rise of cable when you could just stay in your room and watch tv, and also well before streaming any show you want at any time.

I was surprised at how architecturally rich the Finger Lakes region was. Geneva has one of the last Georgian squares ever built. Cazenovia was delightful, like a gingerbread version of a classic New England village.