Ski the Nevele while it lasts!

Last night we stumbled upon a documentary about the Nevele ski and summer resort near Ellenville, New York, that opened in 1901 and closed in 2009.

The Nevele dated back to the days of the “Borscht Belt”, a name given to mostly defunct resorts of the Catskill Mountains, located about 90 miles northwest of New York City. These resorts were a popular vacation spot for New York City Jews from the 1920s through the 1960s.

While it sounds as if the name was related to snow, “Nevele” is “Eleven” spelled backwards — according to lore, after the eleven nineteenth-century schoolteachers who discovered a waterfall within its present-day property.

My wife asked me if I ever heard of that resort, and me, the know-it-all, had to reluctantly admit that I didn’t.

Not only is the resort equipped with a Poma double-chair, fixed grip, 1240 feet long, serving a whopping 151 feet vertical with an 800 people per hour capacity, but its property also includes a once highly regarded 18-hole golf course and a 9-hole golf course have now fallen into disrepair.

The whole place reminded me of Tamarack that partially-completed Idaho ski resort, but it mostly of a Chernobyl version of a dead ski resort. Nothing appears to be salvageable except for an impressive ski rental section complete with thin-style Elan skis and rear-entry boots.

After decades of failed attempts to sell and resurrect the place, it is once more for sale. If you badly want to own a ski resort, here is your opportunity!