Yama Farms Inn: A Home in the Mountains

 

The Guests

The Inn’s main draw and the source of its renown, was its many famous guests. They came to Napanoch by private railway car, in their own chauffer driven automobiles, or by yacht up the Hudson to Rondout, where the Inn’s car and driver met them. Those of more moderate means were met at the train station by the Inn’s antique horse drawn coach. Once they arrived, whatever their social status, Frank encouraged them to view Yama Farms as their private club. For a time, the Inn even boasted its own portraitist-in-residence, Mopsy Shoumatoff.



Although many of the guests’ names are recognizable today, others are not. But even the most superficial research is enough to establish that these men and women were among the most influential people of their time. They were bound together by overlapping personal and professional networks—ties perhaps initiated and strengthened during their stays at the Inn. Foremost among these circles was a group known as The Famous Four, which included Burroughs, inventor Thomas Edison, and industrialists Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone. Numerous photographs of the Famous Four survive, chronicling their visits to Yama Farms as well as the camping and road trips they shared well into old age. Other guests associated with the worlds of industry and finance were George Eastman, H.H. Westinghouse, Vincent Astor, Alfred Irenee duPont, Coleman T. duPont, Sidney M. Colgate, W.W. Fuller, Ralph Wurlitzer, and John D. Rockefeller. Recalling Yama Farms years later, Mopsy Shoumatoff remarked: “If you were introduced to a Mr. Waterman, it would be the fountain pen; Mr. Colgate, the soap; Mr. Eastman, the Kodak.” Mingling with the industrialists were educators, men and women in the arts, newspapermen, publishers, scientists, explorers, and politicians.



Industrialists and financiers were favored guests. The larger photo is of the National Industrial Conference Board, which held some of its first meetings here beginning in 1916. In the photo on the right, Henry Ford (second from left) chatting with companions on the steps of the Inn.

The Famous Four visiting the Inn. From left to right, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Inn’s owner Frank Seaman, John Burroughs, and Harvey Firestone.

Guests arriving at the lower gateway by antique stage coach.

Interesting and accomplished women also figured in the Inn’s history.  In the top row from left to right are Dr. Clara Barrus, who was John Burroughs’ companion and biographer, as well as a professor of psychiatry; Mary du Caurroy, Duchess of Bedford, a pioneer aviator; and Rosie O’Neill, a well known commercial illustrator and creator of the Kewpie doll. At left in the bottom row is Osa Martin, author of the best selling I Married Adventure, who along with her husband Martin, was famous as an explorer and photographer/filmmaker. At right is the Chippewa performance artist and author, Te Ata. She made appearances on the New York stage and at the White House.

Frank Seaman hovering over four of the era’s most distinguished naturalists/explorers. Seated from left to right are Roy Chapman Andrews, Carl Lumholtz, Raymond Ditmars, and Carl Akeley. They are remembered today for their founding roles in the Bronx Zoo and the American Museum of Natural History.

From left to right are Baron Roman Romanovitch Rosen, who served as the Russian ambassador to the United States and to Japan; Sir Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian poet-philosopher and winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature; and Arthur Hamerschlag, first president of the Carnagie Mellon Institute of Technology.  

Many guests were associated with the arts, journalism, and publishing. Visitors included the sculptor Frederick Remington; conductor Leopold Stokowski; the founder of the American Arts and Crafts movement, Gustav Stickley; and Charles Lang Freer, art collector and founder of the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C.. In the photograph above, novelist/playwright/journalist, Alexander Black, is seated in the passenger seat next to the driver. He served for a number of years as the editor for Frank Seaman’s advertising agency. The flamboyant attire of his two standing companions suggests that they too may be involved in the arts or in journalism.

John Burroughs takes aim while Henry Ford and others look on. Photograph Courtesy of the Sojourner Truth Library, Special Collections, SUNY New Paltz.