Sharon Springs New York - Renovation of Spas - Increase Tourism
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Like the Water, Grand Plans Buoy Spirits at a Vacation Spot From a Bygone Era
The Vanderbilts and the Macys were regulars. Oscar Wilde held readings of his latest works here. Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt came for brief respites.
For more than a century, vacationers from around the globe converged on this tiny village for its grand hotels and its unmatched view of the Mohawk Valley, as well as for its bubbling mineral springs. As crowds swelled from 600 people to 40,000 each summer, Sharon Springs became a backdrop to American history. But as interest in mineral baths faded, Sharon Springs - where large Victorian homes are tucked in the rolling countryside - threatened to become yet another forgotten upstate destination.
Today, however, a group of Korean businessmen say they are working on a $350 million plan to erect two 11-story hotels - including one with a helipad - a golf course, condominiums and a spa with a bathhouse and a day care center. If the plans come to fruition, Sharon Springs, which has a population of 548 and which only recently acquired cellphone service, would have to overhaul its tired infrastructure to keep pace with a modern, sprawling resort.
“Sharon Springs has to change,” said George Denning, the spokesman for the Korean investors. “Nothing has been happening in that town for years.”
But village officials have been working with the businessmen since 2006, listening to one majestic plan after another, and the officials appear to be caught among optimism, disbelief and some trepidation.
“We took it with a load of salt,” said Doug Plummer, co-owner of the American, a hotel built in 1847, who is a member of a village task force that for months held weekly meetings with the three businessmen. Although not one spade has been turned, Mr. Plummer said, “I’m very excited about the possibilities of this project. It’s positive for us and it’s positive for them.”
Sharon Springs, in Schoharie County about 20 miles northeast of Cooperstown, has long been known for its magnesium water, iron-rich water, sulfur water and “bluestone” water for healing the eyes. After a surge in interest in mineral baths in the early 1800s, the village bustled for more than a century. By the 1950s, the clientele was made up largely of middle-class Jewish families. Bingo games were called in English and Yiddish, and some hotels served kosher food.
David S. Wieder, 65, of Miami Beach, who was a boy when his father bought the Adler Hotel in 1951, remembered that Holocaust survivors would come for mineral bath treatments, sitting in tubs blackened by the sulfur water. “They said it helped,” he said, referring to the springs’ apparent medicinal qualities, which people sought for physical and spiritual healing.
But by 1971, the spa business had declined sharply, and Mr. Wieder said his father sold the Adler for $70,000 - less than a third of what it cost. Like many of the hotels here, it fell into disrepair, and by the 1990s the visitors who trickled in stayed primarily in small boardinghouses or were clustered on a few floors of the decaying properties.
Then in 2005, a local real estate agent sold three of the hotels, two bathhouses and the only village access to the mineral springs to an initial group of Korean investors for $750,000. The new owners, who were affiliated with Dongbu Travel and Tour, a company based in Flushing, Queens, which specializes in bringing Asian tourists to the United States, kept up the spa business for the 2005 season.
But Mr. Denning said that while they made some structural improvements, they ultimately decided that the buildings were beyond repair. When the hotels did not open in 2006, it was the first time since the early 1800s that the village did not have a mineral bath tourist trade.
But the owners promised to come back with a bigger plan.
Mayor Omer Cousineau said that over several months, the plans shown to officials changed from a $17 million historic renovation to a $34 million outline for new construction, and then to a $100 million resort.
“There were these big, grandiose buildings, and that changed the whole aspect of what we were seeing,” Mr. Cousineau said.
In the meantime, Dongbu brought in more investors, both Mr. Denning and village officials said, and more people wanted to weigh in on the future of Sharon Springs. After more than a year of weekly meetings with no clear blueprint, the village task force formed in response to these proposals disbanded last October. “I don’t think they knew what they wanted,” Mr. Cousineau said.
Since then, village officials have been awaiting word from the businessmen. “I’m still an optimist,” Mr. Cousineau said. “I think they’re going to do something.”
For his part, Mr. Denning said the group sees much potential in Sharon Springs, and hopes to complete construction in five to seven years.
“The Asian culture very much believes in spas,” Mr. Denning said, “and we’re trying to bring a whole new concept there.”
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