Hillside Acres

By April 11th the following year, as the USA headed into a depression, a reporter noted, A.J. Thomas "has his house nearly completed and it will be a great asset to Milanville." The 1930 U.S. census listed Lithuanian-born Anthony J. Thomas, a self-employed poultry farmer, 40 years of age, with his native New Yorker wife of ten years, Anna, 31, and their children, Alfred and Vivian, 11 and 6. Unlike the Hocker family up River Road toward Narrowsburg, the Thomas family did not own a radio, according to the 1930 census. But both Thomas parents could read and write English, they told the enumerator. They worked hard with their hands in the brooder house and in the fields and expanding and constructing guest buildings on the farm.

The Thomases continued raising chickens and possibly other livestock at Hill Side Farm and boarded summer visitors in their resort near Skinners Falls, yielding a seasonal income for the Thomas family. A recreation building in the northeast corner of the property (which still stands) contained a dance hall, a day room in the front, and a two-bedroom apartment upstairs. Visitors danced to 78-rpm polka records in the recreation hall on a large Victrola jukebox, played shuffleboard across the street, and swam in the river.

There were many small resorts and boarding houses in the area on both sides of the river during the golden age of hospitality in Catskills, which extended across the river into northeastern Poconos. One example of an in some ways similar, larger, such local resort (though without the social nonprofit social programs that came during Innisfree's era on the property) was the former Peggy Runway Lodge, across the river from Narrowsburg on Route 652 in Damascus Township. They ranged from small up to the immense "fortress hotels" like Grossinger's in Liberty and the Concord Resort Hotel in Kiamesha Lake. Many (including the last two just named) started during the same era that Hillside Acres operated as farms and small boarding houses.

A.J. and Alfred continued to labor building and extending the Annex and improving the property, eventually reaching a sleeping capacity of 60 when all the beds in the dorm, rec hall, cottage, and main house were full, until finally selling the heart of the former Thomas farm to a group of New Jersey teachers looking for space to hold educational programs for teenagers and adults. 

According to oral accounts related by Vivian Ropke, an earlier residence stood on the property on the site of the later more ornate main house. Vivian said her father rolled the older farmhouse on logs up the hill 25 to 50 yards from its original site with a team of horses. The move did not go smoothly, and a piece of the structure broke off. Mrs. Ropke recalled that the "broken off" part of the original dwelling was dragged further up the hill and was reshaped into a cottage. The front end of the old building was shaped into a boarding house, which the Thomas family called "the Annex", providing additional space to house guests. It was extended more than once.

A sufficient reservoir of fresh well-water, from a depth of 300' with submersible pump, for the sanitation and safety of the premises below was a large concrete and stone cistern or concrete buried on the hill which was designed to hold 18,000 gallons, was constructed by A.J. Thomas at the top of the meadow below the woods. A.J. engineered and personally constructed the property in a manner which his family maintained for the generations that followed him. 

Sadly, the August 8, 1961 edition of the Wayne Independent carried a page-one story about a farmer's suicide in Milanville. The report began: "Anthony J. Thomas, 71, and in recent years an owner of a guest house and cottages along the Delaware River was found dead Monday morning at 6:25, by his son, Alfred J. Thomas, also of Milanville. The body was found hanging from a tree in a patch of woods about a half mile from their home."

A.J. Thomas left a will which he signed on February 10, 1950 (probated August 4, 1961) which bequeathed $4,500 to his son Alfred J. Thomas. To his daughter Vivian, A.J. declared: "The property on which I now reside and which was purchased by me from George B. Knapp, et ux, by deed dated April 4, 1921, and recorded in Wayne County in Deed Book 115, page 497, together with the boarding house business, all furniture, machinery and personal property of every description except money, stocks and bonds, I give and bequeath to my daughter, Vivian A. Rupke, to have and to hold the same to herself, her heirs and assigns forever. This devise, however, is made under and subject to the right of my wife, Anna M. Thomas, to live on the said premises and make a home thereon for and during the term of her natural life. In the event, however, of any disagreement between my daughter, Vivian A. Rupke, and my wife, Anna M. Thomas, then in that event, I direct that my daughter, Vivian A. Rupke, shall remove from the main house and reside in the annex for and during the term of the natural life of my said wife, Anna M. Thomas."

What the news article about A.J.'s suicide did not note was that his wife, Anna, age 64, died the previous March 16, 1961, "at her home after a long illness." The early sixties were a tragic period for the Thomas family of Milanville. Anna's death was followed in less than five months by A.J.'s suicide. Less than a year after A.J.'s will was probated, Alfred passed away on July 3, 1962.

After nine more years of hosting summer guests at Hillside Acres, the Ropkes were near what they hoped would be an eventual retirement, or at least a major change in the type of work they did. Finally, after listing the property with the Davis Chant Agency, and showing it for some time, they found a buyer in a still unincorporated group of teachers from Montclair, New Jersey.

Once the property was identified (and the choice unanimous), Innisfree's organizers recognized that to open a program by June, time was of the essence. Because the corporate charter had not yet been filed with the Secretary of State, and they did not have the backing of a bank, Bud Rue signed a mortgage with the Ropkes, signing as an individual. He and Ann Rue put their house in Montclair as collateral in the event of a default. Innisfree's corporate status (also an essential element to opening in June) was not official until May 10, 1970. An Application for Recognition of Tax Exemption (IRS Form 1023) was thereafter completed by attorney Sid McKenzie of Montclair. These and other professional services and skills were either done pro bono or paid for by charitable contributions of parents, community members, and a few small foundation grants. Students who could not afford the $650 tuition were given scholarships from donated funds.

After selling a 13.7-acre subdivision consisting most of the land they operated as Hillside Acres to Bud Rue (who later passed ownership to the newly formed "Innisfree Corporation") in a mortgage held by Vivian and Oscar Ropke). For two full generations, Vivian's family had operated their hillside resort. After the sale, she went on to work at local hospitals while Mr. Ropke farmed locally on the flats above Calkins Creek on the road to Damascus and in Callicoon. One summer in the 1980s, I had the opportunity to work for Mr. Ropke loading hay as he mowed it and stacking bales in his barn. We were not close friends with the Ropkes, but over the years at Innisfree there was always a respect and appreciation for their labor and lifestyle which had built and maintained such a beautiful property, and we remained in contact. Oscar, in particular, continued to make himself available to the new owners for such tasks as annual mowing of the hill at no cost out of a love for the place, and provided valuable advice on managing the buildings and infrastructure from "going back to the earth".

Vivian Thomas Ropke died February 6, 2009 in Florida and is buried beside in Glen Cove Cemetery, Narrowsburg , her husband of 60 years, Oscar, who died May 23, 2008 in Homosassa, Florida at 85 ; and by her brother Alfred . Oscar was a native of Lava (Town of Tusten), New York, and Vivian of Milanville (Damascus Township) where her obituary noted: "She helped her parents manage a boarding house, Hillside Acres, and in 1960 the couple bought a dairy farm on the Pennsylvania side of Callicoon, NY. She was employed as head of housekeeping at the former Grover M. Hermann Hospital, Callicoon, New York." [It is my recollection that Vivian also worked at Wayne Memorial Hospital in 1971. I was an overnight patient at WMH that summer and was surprised to see Vivian there working. The Wayne Independent and two Scranton outlets on July 22, 1971 reported my overnight admission in the newspapers!]