Grossinger’s Famed Resort to Be Sold for $9 Million

Grossinger’s, the Borscht Belt resort where Rocky Marciano trained, Eddie Fisher launched his career and Eleanor Roosevelt enjoyed the legendary hospitality of the Grossinger family, will be sold soon for $9 million, an official announced today.

Purchase of the internationally known Catskill Mountain retreat by a group of investors would end a family dynasty begun 71 years ago by Austrian immigrants Selig and Mahlke Grossinger.

Grossinger’s sale should be completed by month’s end, said Ronald Samuel, vice president of the Island Planning Corp. of America, a brokerage firm representing the investors.

The New York investors, whose names were not made public, reached an agreement in principle with owner Paul Grossinger to buy the 600-room Tudor-style facility for $9 million, Samuel said. They plan to contract with a major hotel chain to renovate and operate the hotel, he said.

The sprawling 812-acre resort, 100 miles north of New York City, started as a farmhouse hotel in 1914.

Still a favorite stop for New York entertainers, vacationers and conventioneers, its lobby walls are lined with photographs of fighters who boxed there and entertainers who advanced their careers there: Marciano, Jack Dempsey, Ken Norton, Michael Spinks, Joel Grey, Leslie Uggams and Eddie Fisher.

Attracting about 300,000 guests a year, it has a 27-hole golf course, ski slope, indoor and outdoor pools and tennis courts, post office, shopping arcade, nightclub, two kosher kitchens and a 1,500-seat dining room.

Selig and Mahlke’s daughter, Jennie, developed a worldwide reputation during the 1940s and ‘50s as a hostess, businesswoman and philanthropist. One of her sons, Paul, and a daughter, Elaine Grossinger Etess, took over operation of the hotel after her death in 1971.