I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I went from Hartford, Connecticut right up to the top of the Mountain and stayed there for over sixty years. So you could say I’ve seen a lot of change over the years. On the other hand, some things always stay the same.

I arrived at the Mountain Top Inn as a young bride in 1887, and immediately got to work running what came to be known as Mead’s Mountain House along with my new husband George and his brother William. Of course, Woodstock was a very different place then. Sure, a lot of the farmers rented out rooms to summer visitors to make ends meet. But we were always a respectable community. Didn’t have any police here: the Elders of the Dutch Reformed Church were the only law we needed. But everything changed when those artists showed up in 1903 – chasing the light that they said was just like Provence. Let me tell you, light wasn’t the only thing they chased. Those artists were theosophists and free-thinkers. Free-lovers too. Actors and actresses, dancers like Isadora Duncan. All of them carrying on so wildly, people travelled up from New York City just to watch the goings-on.

They could do what they liked down at the arts colonies like Byrdcliffe and the Maverick – and take my word, they did. But the Mead’s Mountain House remained dedicated to offering “simplicity consistent with moderate charges, not, however, at the expense of thoroughness or promptness commends itself as a reasonable inducement for refined patronage.” To that end, the Mead’s Mountain House had no bar and was run on the temperance plan. But we always kept a fine table. Milk, poultry, eggs, and fresh vegetables were available all summer long, and we spared no expense making sure we always had fresh spring water. In fact, my George devised a series of galvanized steel pipe coils by which guests might have pure ice cooled spring water at all times without its direct contact with the ice.

We always kept a fine stable as well, with suitable mounts for both hacking and driving, as well as accommodations for private horses. When it came to our own horses, my George had a team that he’d drive down to the West Hurley Train Station to meet our guests arriving on the three o’clock train. He often didn’t get back until six at night, and sometimes we had to send other horses down to help with the guest’s luggage. But we didn’t have to send drivers; our horses knew their own way up and down Mead’s Mountain Road.

Once they were here, our guests didn’t lack for entertainment. Tramping, driving, mountain climbing, a tennis double court and lawn croquet all provided healthy exercise. And children didn’t lack for amusement either, to the relief of tired mothers – although we did request that families with small children bring maids. In the evenings, we offered card parties and charades. My George loved to lead charades. Of course, we made it clear up front there was no room for carousing. We had separate rooms for games, and guests were asked not to use the piazza. Needless to say, gambling was strictly forbidden as well.

My George was always a tinkerer. In addition to the spring-cooled water, the House was fully equipped with modern conveniences in the form of baths and inside toilets, and we were among the first to also introduce a separate building devoted to shower baths. Then, in the summer of 1908, my George, at the earnest solicitation of guests, erected several large water and weatherproof tents, distributing them in delightful locations convenient to the main building yet giving the occupants the opportunity of living an open air, camp life.

I’m an old woman now, living with my daughter and son-in-law, the Huttys, in Bearsville. Captain Sava Milo, a Yugoslavian refugee, who served honorably in the U.S. Air Force, runs the House now. But when I miss the good times we once had, all I have to do is pull out the old guest registers and spend the evening thumbing through them, remembering the names of visitors like Ulysses S. Grant, Stanford White, and Robert E. Lee.

Mrs. Annie D. Mead (1868-1958) was the proprietor of Mead’s Mountain House for sixty years, and is one of the several historical figures featured in Dazzlepaint.

Dazzlepaint, Romantic Mystery of Hudson River Valley
Genre: Historical 
Release: February 2021
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Gavin Fellowes, a damaged WWI veteran turned cynical psychic investigator, arrives in Ker-Ys, a Utopian art colony in Woodstock, NY, to investigate a series of purported fairy kidnappings of Communist garment workers who have taken over the failed Overlook Mountain House above the village. He is rapidly confronted with the willful blind spots of the well-meaning artists and the burgeoning anti-Semitism of the Catskills. With the help of Kate Ames, an illustrator and dazzlepaint designer who once might have been kidnapped by the fairies herself, Gavin must dig beneath the myth and legend to uncover an all-too-real occult threat that looms over Europe in the aftermath of the Great War.

Meet the Author
Erica Obey pursued an academic career specializing in 19th-century women folklorists before she decided she’d rather be writing the stories herself. She is the author of five novels — including the award-winning The Curse of the Braddock Brides and Dazzlepaint. Erica currently serves as the President of the MWA-NY chapter.

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