A SUMMER RETREAT PRESERVED in the Catskill Mountains

Theatrical and yet as cozy as a camp, the Victorian house that sat vacant for a decade was remarkably intact.

- BRIAN D. COLEMAN

They'd been looking for a weekend house for over a year, viewing everything from old barns to bungalows, in three states. Lewis Remele and his husband James Danner wanted something uncommon, unique-and they wouldn't mind doing some work. Still, nothing fit the bill, until they heard about a vacant Victorian summer camp in Elka Park.

AT elka park Manhattan summers are hot and humid. During the 19th century, before air conditioning, those who could escaped the city. In 1889, several wealthy German immigrants formed a summer colony in the cool forest of New York's northern Catskill Mountains. They called it Elka Park, based on the letters L and K derived from their Liederkranz social club, a group supporting music and the arts that remains active today.

They purchased 115 acres of cleared land and between 1889 and 1896 built 22 Victorian summer homes. An elaborate Clubhouse was built for communal dining and events, with rooms for visitors; it was lost in a fire in 1949. The building that replaced it is still the social center today.

Elka Park's holdings grew to 1,100 acres, preserving its viewscapes, yet no additional houses were built for the next century, preserving it as a tucked-away summer colony in the mountains.