The Most Beautiful Spot In The World?
File photo from Laura Fritz
By Steve Winston
For Men's Traveler
James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain all considered it one of the most beautiful spots in the world.
On the map, it’s only two hours north of Manhattan. But, in reality, it’s a world away. The Kaaterskill Clove is a mountain ravine of picture-postcard beauty, dotted with forests and waterfalls. And the biggest of those waterfalls – Kaaterskill – is higher than Niagara.
This is a place of warm surprises at every bend in the road, with quaint villages and friendly people and hidden swimming holes. It’s a place of country-craft shops and antique stores and fruit stands and old bookshops, with little bells that ring when you walk inside. It’s a place of small towns where everybody still knows one another and where some folks still make things the old-fashioned way…where time, if it hasn’t quite stood still, at least seems to have gone by a lot more slowly. It’s a place filled with colorful folklore and historical significance. And it hasn’t yet been discovered by the crowds.
“This area of the Catskill Mountains attracted Thomas Cole, the first of the so-called Hudson River School of Painters,” says Bob Malkin, a local historian. Malkin owns a Victorian vacation rental house called the Waterfall House, with an extraordinary view of Niobe Falls, a continuation of Kaaterskill Falls (http://www.waterfallrental.com). “In 1825, Thomas Cole completed one of three known paintings he did of the Kaaterskill Falls.”
Malkin has an interesting history himself. On Sept. 11, 2001, he was jogging with a friend near the World Trade Center when the first plane flew into one of the towers. Running for shelter toward the second tower, they watched in horror as another plane flew into that one. They ended up in Battery Park at the lower tip of Manhattan, covered in dust and gasping for air. He and his wife decided that day to leave New York City.
They began a search for the right country home, a place that they could rent out until they decided to move in permanently. They fell in love with this beautiful old house, and the waterfall on which it sits. Now, they live in nearby Saugerties. And lucky visitors can experience the million-dollar views from this house.
Once here, Malkin began perusing hundreds of old postcards and vintage copies of “Harper’s Weekly,” along with numerous books and publications from the 1800’s.
“When the Catskill Mountain House opened in 1824,” he says, “it put this place on the map. It became the world’s most exclusive mountain resort. And its clientele included the cream of American and European society, as well as two U.S. presidents.”
After arriving by steamboat in nearby Catskill, guests were taken up the mountain by an incline-railroad built by Otis. The Catskill Mountain House became the first stop on the “Grand Tour,” beginning with the views from the hamlet of Palenville to the mountain top and on to Kaaterskill Falls. Word spread of this isolated place filled with natural wonders and a million breathtaking vistas. Yet, these weren’t the first visitors to be enchanted with this area. And this wasn’t the first time that word had spread.
“In James Fenimore Cooper’s ‘The Pioneers,’” Malkin says, “Leatherstocking remarked that you could ‘see all of creation’ from the top of the falls.”
Artists and writers made the pilgrimage here, to try and capture, on canvas or on paper, the magic of this setting. Winslow Homer was inspired to paint the Kaaterskill Falls for “Harper’s Weekly.” And the sleepy little hamlet of Palenville became the setting for Washington Irving’s classic, “Rip Van Winkle.”
The days when the elite of international society flocked here are gone now…along with the golden patina of a non-native wealth that never really felt natural here, anyway. And the locals are just as happy to keep it that way – because what remains, they realize, is even better.
What remains are hiking trails on which you’ll see more wild turkeys and deer and rabbits than people…and vistas of “all of creation.” There are quiet little coves where the only sounds you’ll hear are the breezes running through the trees. In the fall, the area turns into a palette of brilliant colors, almost as if they’re each trying to outdo the others. And, if you listen hard enough, you’ll hear the footsteps – or the hoof-steps – of the legendary settlers and legends who swept through here, on their way to immortality either in the history books or in the famous fictional novels of another day.
The area’s now filled with charming B&B's and historic inns. And it’s filled, as well, with the type of wonderful woodsy restaurant where you can linger for hours over authentic country-cooking and brass antiques and candlelight. This, truly, is a place for walking and exploration – whether you find yourself on a road, in the woods, or in the middle of a town square. It’s the type of place where you can spend an hour in a single store…and go back home with something you never expected to find (and probably never even thought about before).
And, of course, there’s Bob Malkin’s Waterfall House – perhaps the only vacation rental in the continental U.S. known to have a major waterfall in its backyard.
The Waterfall House is a Victorian country home, at the end of a picturesque, leafy road. It’s charming on the inside and blessed with strikingly-beautiful views on the outside. The house has been furnished with authentic country antiques and crafts, along with eclectic items from the collection of Malkin, founder of New York’s prestigious ThinkBig! gallery. And there’s a wraparound outdoor deck right over the river, where guests can watch - and listen to – the falls.
