Help celebrate Ruth Tompkins’ 100th birthday

By Mary Lou Nahas

For Capital Region Independent Media

Since a number of buildings on the main street of Oak Hill are listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, we have a well-researched description of many of them. However, there are details that are not listed there. 

I, of course, like those small, more personal details because they paint a picture of the life lived in them. Today I have attempted to put together more of the story of the DeWitt Hotel, built in 1865 and still functioning in 2024 as the Amaya guest house.

According the National Register listing, the W.F. DeWitt Hotel was built about 1865 and is a 2+¹⁄₂-story, seven bay by three bay, frame building in the Italianate style. It rests on a stone foundation and has a moderately pitched gable roof. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

In a box of old papers, I came across a clipping of a newspaper column (paper and author not specified) which gave some interesting details about the hotel I have not found elsewhere. How accurate the details are I cannot guarantee, but I do believe the writer thought this was the story.

The first part of the description is a bit unclear to me: “To the west of the furnace was a hotel kept by different parties, among whom were Mrs. Slawson, Seymour Frayer, and Barney Mullen. [I wonder if this was the Bernard Mullen property on the 1867 map.]

“The next house was also a hotel built many years back by Horace Hickok. Owen Bell also kept the hotel for a great many years. His health failed him and he hired the hotel to Hiram Hurd, who was there three years. [The Wayside was also called the Hurd Hotel at one time. Was this the same one? Seems not the right location? Perhaps Hurd ran it before he moved to Hamburg?]

“Mr. Bell was for many years constable and was known all over town. He was very much honored and respected. Mr. Bell, when a young man, lost his arm in a tannery. Mr. Bell finally died and the hotel was carried on for a long time by the widow, who had two children, a son and a daughter. Wm. DeWitt, of the firm DeWitt and Russ, merchants, married the daughter after the death of Mrs. Bell. The firm of DeWitt & Russ dissolved. Mr. Russ moved to Worcester, Otsego County, and is now doing business there as a merchant.

“Mr. DeWitt went in the hotel and it was known for a long time as the DeWitt House. Between the two hotels stood a large wagon house, and in the rear of this was a smaller building, near the creek used by James Taylor, as a barn and slaughter house. Fire originated, I think in the wagon house, and the result was the total destruction of the wagon house, the small barn and both hotels. This was a disastrous fire and involved the loss of much property. The lower hotel was never rebuilt. Mr. DeWitt, however, soon rebuilt his hotel and today it is a fine hotel as there is anywhere in this section. Dewitt continued business here for a long time. His health after a while failed him and not long since he died. The hotel is now carried on by Mrs. DeWitt and her son, B.C. DeWitt. There was only one child in Mr. DeWitt’s family, and that is the son just mentioned.”

Note that W.F. DeWitt had a son, B.C. DeWitt, who ran the hotel with his mother after the death of the father. You will notice the names W.F. DeWitt and B.C. DeWitt on hotel signs in different photos. I had never picked up on that point before.

Doing research online, I came across an individual selling an early photo of the hotel that I have never seen before. The seller wrote, “This is an original old vintage 5 x 7 photograph from the late 1800s of DeWitt’s Hotel in Oak Hill, New York (Greene County). Wikipedia says it is located in Durham, but it is pictured in Google Maps in Oak Hill, New York. Built in 1865, it is now on the Historic Register of Places. Outside is probably the owner and staff and their dog sitting on a chair. You can clearly see ‘DeWitt’s Hotel’ sign on the building. This was in the era of dirt roads. I have searched for older photos of this hotel and could find none, only a new photo of what it looks like now. Might be the only photo around of this hotel. Came from a large lot of photographs from a Poughkeepsie estate in NY. The photo is very nice and not a recent copy but an original 1800s photograph. It was mounted on a thick matte board like you normally see but someone cut the matte off around the image.”

The seller has watermarked the photo and I have not tried to share it. Not sure if it sold or to whom. I think it is interesting that Oak Hill residents, including Olive Cheritree and family, went to Poughkeepsie in earlier days, but of course that connection may not in any way be related to Olive and her family. Or it may have.

A well-known photo of the hotel is the one with a band in front of the hotel. You will notice it is not the same building described in the Historical Register listing, but likely the early hotel that burned.  

The unnamed writer of the newspaper article explains it as: “The writer well remembers how the band would come up front of the hotel and play, for at one time Oak Hill could boast the best brass band in the county. There was the Howes and the Pecks and good-natured Ambrose Flower and many others that have passed from my memory. People would come for miles if they heard the band was going to play. This band found much business and were frequently billed to play, not only in neighboring towns but often some distance from home. The members became scattered by moving away and some by death. The members [became] so few the band disbanded. Some of the old instruments are still in town. I think John Cheritree has one or two.  Mr. Cheritree was also a member a fine musician.”

The Dewitt Hotel continued to do business as shown by a receipt, a photo of it next to Ford’s store with unpaved roads, a picture with the state highway widened and paved. The hotel had other owners: I’ve included an advertisement Dottie Jennings shared with me, which advertises when it was the Oak Hill Inn, operated by Mrs. J.W. May after the road was paved and there were telephones.

Donald Lounsbury in “Voices from an American Hamlet” (published in 2007), written by Mike Hayes, remembers: “We lived across the road from DeWitt’s Hotel when we were first married.  Angie and Gertie ran DeWitt’s Hotel. Gertie lived with Herb Palmer without being married.  That was the talk of the town.

“Carol Cooke told Mike Hayes, Dad I would go [to Ford’s store] to pick up mail. Then we would go to Dewitt’s Hotel next door. I had a soda and dad had a beer. People would congregate and talk, play cards, darts and dominoes. The bathroom was at the top of the stairs. The bar was in the first room when you went in the side door by what is now the parking lot. The living quarters were on the other side of the stairs.”

Years passed, and many buildings in town fell into disrepair. Then Sam Stickler of theater fame came to town and bought the Lyman Tremain Opera House to turn into Sam’s Oak Hill Kitchen.  He also purchased the DeWitt Hotel building next door. Sam hired Fran Cox to work on the opera house and do structural work on the hotel. By that time the creamery and Stiefel’s next door were gone. The hotel was boarded up and used for storage. Fran worked on what was to become the DeWitt Hotel Antique Center; he replaced the sills and floors and restored the stairs and newel post in the entrance among other things. Fran recalls how, when he was working on the sills, he found evidence of the fire that had destroyed the original hotel building on that site. 

The DeWitt Hotel became a multi-dealer antique center that was featured in Architectural Digest.  Sadly, Sam died. His sister Sara, along with Beau Queen, ran the center for a number of years.  Later they sold it to Diane Ormrod and Dorothee Walliser, who made it into a bed-and-breakfast, which was advertised online and brought guests from far places, enjoying the warm hospitality, great breakfasts, and the dogs who lived there. 

When Diane and Dorothee sold the property, it was redesigned in 2022 as a luxury guest house and event space called Amaya. The new owners say the home has been completely redesigned with modern touches, while maintaining its grand historic charm.  

I think the building is happy and I certainly hope it continues into another century and more.