By Mary Lou Nahas
For Capital Region Independent Media
I love the stories of the boarding houses in Oak Hill and Vicinity. I’ve told many of them, but there are always more to learn and write about.
Some have totally vanished and others live on in various ways. Today I want to share the story of Seibert’s Fair View Farm
Fair View Farm was a boarding house in the Catskill Mountains. According to a current owner of part of the farm, Sherry Wilson-Karpowicz: “My family (the Wilsons) went there from sometime in the 1950’s until its closing in 1974. Owned at that time by Bertha and Joe Seibert, the farm consisted of 200 acres just outside the village of Medusa.”
The original boarding house is one side of the road and the barns and the empty swimming pool are across the road. This part is today owned by Sherry and her husband. The house across the road has other owners. Many of the outbuildings shown in the early post card pictures are gone.
Interestingly, what catches the attention of newcomers today is often the empty fenced-in pool. In fact, that pool caught the attention of author Chin-Sun Lee, who spent several summers in Oak Hill.
The pool, now long empty of water, inspired part of the story in her novel “Upcountry.” A review of the book explains: “A middle-class ex-Manhattanite, a cash-strapped single mother, and a young member of an obscure religious ‘sect’ become entangled in a Catskills town. Claire Pedersen and her husband are relocating from New York City to the Catskills―they have found a terrific deal on a property in foreclosure. The house has been in April Ives’ family for three generations.” This is all fiction, not intended to be real.
Lee was not aware the pool had been on the property of a boarding house at one time. You almost have to be from this area to think “boarding house” when you see an empty pool today. However, almost no private home here in the past would have had a swimming pool. But this novel is not talking about boarding houses.
For the actual story you can go to Sherry Wilson-Karpowicz’s Seibert’s Fair View Farm Facebook page, which shares many pictures of the boarding house, the people who vacationed there, the surrounding places they visited. I suggest you look there for more information and share pictures and stories you may have.
How many of you worked there at one time? I am sure many of you did. Share your memories there.
Wilson-Karpowicz has been on a hunt trying to track down the farm’s history. In the barn they found written on a board likely from a wooden packing crate: Fair View Farm, W.H. Goff & Son Prop., Medusa, NY 1909.
“We were told, due to square blacksmith nails and numbered beams, that the barn was likely built in the 1800s at another location and moved to its current spot,” she said.
Typically, the boarding house guests visited area swimming holes, bars, country stores, and attractions. Since many of the guests were of German origin, one of their favorite trips was to Joseph’s Farm on Wright Street.
As Sherry Wilson-Karpowicz says: “A couple of summers when my family vacationed at a boarding house in Medusa, we’d take a ride with other guests (I distinctly remember Mrs. McNee) to Joseph’s Farm—the grownups referred to him as ‘St. Joseph’ as he carved small religious statues that our moms would buy from him, then we would walk through the cow field(s) to visit the chapel—I believe it was all stone and I recall many, many handwritten notes placed on the altar. One that I distinctly remember said ‘God, may I please have a horse.’ (I’m sure that resonated with me for I too, of course, wanted a pony!) I remember all the cows had different bells around their necks that clanged like beautiful music and Joseph told me that it was so he could find them. He seemed like a very kind and gentle man, but I felt very sorry for him thinking he must be very poor as one visit he wore on his feet one rubber and one shoe. I treasure this memory.”
“This postcard has a photo of the beautiful little chapel that the man we only knew as ‘St. Joseph’ built at the edge of a ravine behind his farmhouse in East Durham. We visited him every summer to buy religious statues that he carved.”
Interesting to note, Werner W. Rentsch, well-known for his painting of horses and president of the American Academy of Equine Art from 1994 through 2008, started coming up to East Durham when he was about 10 years old and continued coming every summer for 10 years or more; most of those summers he stayed at Joseph’s Farm. Rentsch, who now lives in Jefferson, painted Joseph and his horses.
What a wonderful, far-reaching story Seibert’s Fair View Farm has. And it is wonderful to see how it is continuing today.
