Dirty Dancing at Grand View

As a family, we spent several weeks every summer at Grand View. First,when the "senior" Pivnicks were in charge and later when Seymour and Phyllis Picnick ran the Hotel. Then, when I was old enough, I became a counselor at the hotel. It really was like the movie "Dirty Dancing."
Some of the regular guests included Jonathan Winters wife and Johnny Carson's first wife. Al Jarvis (from Hartford) was the bandleader and in subsequent years we kept in contact with him after he moved to Palm Springs, California and worked at the Canyon Club Resort.
They were among the best years of my life. I have other postcards and lots of photos, as well as a million stories to tell. I also used to take the kids to your chicken farm on field trips. This was in the late 50's, early 60's. Finding your website brought back many, many memories. Thank you!
--Alice Elkins

Sharing cabin leads to marriage

I had been wondering if the resort still existed. I would love to share a story.

In 1958 (age 20) I was at Banner Lodge for a week around July 4th with 3 girlfriends sharing a cabin. Joel Grey was the Saturday evening performer. Torrential rains started and even came into the main rec hall. Some guys who were staying in a cabin a bit down the road complained about having to walk back in the rain. So they all shared the cabin with the 4 of us that night. It was lots of laughs and "clean fun."
One of the boys and I hit it off, started dating when we got back to NYC, ended up getting married the following April. Even though we did divorce after sixteen years, Banner Lodge still holds lots of good memories for me.

--Ellie Miller

Summer crowds in Moodus

I have just spent at least two hours going through page after page of your website, reliving old memories of Moodus.

I am now 79 years old and remember the frequent visits to my grand-parents home located across the street from the Methodist Hill Cemetery and next to the Old St. Bridgets Church. They and my great grand-parents are buried in the southwest corner of the cemetery.

I remember the 1930s and the stream of people who walked back and forth from the camps to the center of town, all summer long. How they mamaged the steep hilll is beyond me. They never walked in the dirt path but chose to walk on the pavement.

My uncle, Raymond Harris, was a good friend of Jack Banner so I remember stopping at the Lodge several times. There was a famous singer named Lanny Ross who would visit us from time to time when he was at the Lodge.

I too am deeply saddened by the destruction of Moodus as I can vividly picture the Town as it was. My great-grandfather, Asa Harris, was a Dancing Master who gave lessons at the Music Hall and the Machamoodus House in the late 1800's. There was an article about him in the Deep River paper back in the 30's, which I gave to the Amasa Day Museum.

Thank you for your fine efforts.

--Richard D. Harris, Avon, CT

Zero Mostel and the Banner family

I just stumbled across the web pages on Banner Lodge. I found it very interesting since Claire and Lou Goldblatt are my great aunt and uncle. Lou's brother Morris Goldblatt is my mother's (Myra) father. My mother spent time there when she was a child.

I spent a few summers at Banner Lodge with my parents and brother when I was a preteen. If I recall family lore correctly, Pop Banner bought the farm from the Mostel family, as in Zero, who were related to the Banners. I recall seeing an old man sweeping the parking lot every morning as we went to breakfast -- I think I was told it was Zero's father, but perhaps it was Pop Banner.

Claire and Lou returned to New York in the off season (Claire ran a dress shop) and remained good friends with Zero -- they would have Zero and his family over for dinner. After Claire and Lou retired to North Miami Beach (where I would visit them as I was in and out of Miami several times in the 1970s and 1980s), I believe Zero would stay with them there.

Just thought you'd like to know that you touched some lives today.

--Bruce Steinberg, Alexandria, VA

Loss of Moodus Center heartbreaking

Your Web site on East Haddam is very interesting.

Having grown up in East Haddam, I remember talk of "redevelopment" in Moodus. It's nice to read a history on what took place. The lost of the Moodus village was a tragedy. I suppose if it had worked out properly the players would be considered visionaries instead of dupes.

Whenever I visit the town and drive through Moodus, I try not to think about what was once there. It's too heartbreaking.

School kids would go to Sam Pear's dry goods store to buy their gym clothes. It was just a short walk from school to the dentist. There was something there and it had character, and the buildings housed characters!

-- Sharon Havranek

Loved working at Banner

I can't believe I am looking at all the pictures and stories on the net. I worked at Banner when I was a kid as a hostess. I have always said it was the most rewarding and growing up experience of my life. I loved it.

--Joan Schur Sommers

Orchard Mansion memories

I was just taking a break at my work station here amidst a row of Herman Miller cubicles in a building leased by the state of Oregon when, reminiscing of summers past, decided to take a stab in the dark to see if the web contained any references to Orchard Mansion, where my Fall River, MA-based family spent a week or two every summer during the early to mid-60's, and ran across your website.

While some memories are truly distinct (lox and bagels; Janice Peck from Longmeadow MA, whom I met when I was 13, and she was probably 10, and whose parents, several years later, would not let her come to my high school prom; the pool; Mark, our college-aged busboy whom my dad graciously tipped as we left for home), others fade with time. After all, we're talking 40 years ago now.

You've brought chills to my spine, a tear to my eye, and a curiosity about whatever happened to Janice Peck. I'm heading back "home" in the Fall - dropping my son off at Princeton where he'll be a junior, and attending my niece's wedding in Newport. I'll try to peruse the family photo album to see if I can find any pictures of the Mansion, where we spent may a happy time during the summers of my youth. Thanks.

--Kenneth Ryder

See also "What I Learned at Orchard Mansion."