Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-16
AN IDEAL BOHEMIA.
Pretty 0nteora High Up on the Side
of Catskill Mountain.
ARTISTS DWELL THERE IN PEACE.
Founded by Those Who Fear the Summer
Girl and Her Escort.
AS NEAR TO NATURE AS POSSIBLE
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE D1spArcH.l

for the benefit OF suffering humanity. She
has founded schools of art needlework; she
has stirred up capitalists to build a hotel
for girl bachelors; and she is the inventor
of Onteora. This last would entit1e her to
proud place on Fame's eternal bead roll
if she had never done anything else, for it
Is an ideal Bohemia
I may write explicitly about it because It
is not a public resort. No stranger is ad-
mitted, no meals or lodgings are on sale to
outsiders, and no exploitation can benefit
it. The way it came about was this: Mrs.
Wheeler, I may say in parenthesis. was
born in Delhi, not in the Delhi of 'tIndia's
coral strands" but in cool little town in
the Catskills bearing that hot little name.
Her nativity and her love of pure air and
picturesque scenery gave her fondness for
the Catskill Mountains, and after she mar
ried Mr.. Wheeler-she was Miss Thurber
in her youth-she and her husband, with q
party of young artists, now gray-bearded
Academicians, would spend their summers
among the Catskill Mountains.
ARTISTS SLEEPING ON HAY.
The Catskills had not at that time become,
as they have now, the prey of the summer
boarder. Only people who had been born
among these mountains and a few artists
knew of or appreciated the beauties of this
earthly paradise,at their very doors When
the Wheelers and their artist friends spent
their summers there they lived in a farm
house where the Mountain House is now
situated. 1t was a small house, for farming
On the rocky mountain sides was not a
profitable business, and when more artists
came up from the hot city than the place
could accommodate, they slept on the hay
In the barn and bathed in the brook that
bounded over the stones only few feet
away.
Time makes great changes among the
mountain tops as well as on the plains, and
it was not many years before the ubiquitous
tourist discovered the beauties of the Cat
skills, and the artists of the Wheeler party
could not set up their easels in front of
splashing waterfall or beside a rocky glen
without being surrounded by bevy of
young women in red hats and young men in
striped "blazers" who peeped over their
shoulders and criticised their work with
charming frankness and accentuated their
criticisms with dangerous hourishes of their
alpenstocks.
WANTED TO BE MORE PRIVATE
So the Wheelers and the artists put their
heads together and decided that it was time
for them to move on" and leave their old
haunts to new corners. Mrs. Wheeler and
her brother, F. B. Thu-ber, knowing their
Catskills well, chose spot high up on the
mountain side, $500 feet above the sea
level, which commanded q view that swept
over a valley seven miles broad, bounded
by range of mountains from the center of
which High Peak and Round Top raised
their pine-capped heads. If, by the way,
you have any difficulty in knowing (which
is which" of these mountains you may set
yourself right by remembering that High
Peak has the round top and Round Top has
the high peak, which shows the perversity
of nature, human or otherwise.
On this mountain was plateau with an
unobstructed view of miles in extent.
Eureka" exclaimed Mrs. Wheeler. "Seek
no further" replied Mr.. Thurber, OF words
to that effect. They went to work at once
to build them homes on this beautiful spot.
Their cottages stand about 800 feet apart.
That of Mr.. Thurber was designed by his
wife, Mrs. Jeanette NJ. Thurber, founder
of the National Conservatory of Music. It
is built of logs with the bark peeled of, so
that time has given them q silver hue that
is very effective and very lovely.
A DELIGHTFUL COUNTRY HoUsH
proved so that it now has big music
room, besides a drawing room, q living
room, endless bedrooms, piazzas and every
thing to make a country house delightful.
The Wheeler house is built of clapboards
painted a dull red. A wide piazza faces the
mountain range beyond the valley, and you
enter from this at once the principal room
of the house. This is drawing room, library,
dining room and everything combined.
Opposite the door wood fire crackles in
the big chimney-place, unexpected win
dows let in the sunlight aronnd the wall,
and expectant lounges invite you from
quiet corners to rest and enjoy yourself
On the walls, which are pale terra Gotta
color, Miss Dora Wheeler, now Mrs. Boudi-
not Keith, painted the portraits of friends
who have visited "Penny-Royal," for that
is the modest name of the place. There is
the head of handsome matron, and here is
the strong face of Mark Twain. Growing
plants and wild flowers adorn the room and
mingle their perfume with that of the burn
ing pine boughs. Around the corner of the
house, Just beyond an enormous bed of
ferns, is the studio that Mrs. Wheeler built
for her daughter. Its great glory is its fire.
place. The chimney is built Of rough stones,
and the fireplace is wide enough to take
in huge logs four or five feet long.
AND THE OTHERS FOLLOWED
Here the Wheelers and the Thurbers
lived for several years alone; that is, there
were no houses near them. Alone, without
guests, they never were, for the artists who
had camped in the farmhouse barns came
I'D the mountain side and stayed under their |
nospitable roofs. Their cottages were al |
ways full, and finally their friends began to |
ask why they couldn't buy and build there,
100.
eve should like to summer in the Cats
Kills if we could only get. away from the
regular summer boarder-the girl in the red
e1t hat and the young man in the yellow
triped blazer. Why won't you let us come
lp here?"
After talking the matter over the Wheel
RS and the Thurbers decided to found a sum-
ner village, over which they should have
,ontrol-so they could choose their fellow
Tillagers and not be crowded to the wall by
Tom, Dick and Harry. The name Onteora,
which means "Hills of the sky" was given
o the settlement, and then the merry ring
# the woodman's axe and the carpenters
hammer was heard from among the trees and
cottages sprang up on every side. To-day
here are % of these cottages
DEN OF AN EDITREss.
Among the pioneers was Mrs. Mary
dapes Dodge, the editor of St. Nicholas
Magazine Mrs. Dodge's cottage, like all
he cottages along the thoroughfare, backs
Ipon the road and faces the view. In
)nteora they do things unoonventionally
nd nationally. Mrs. Dodge's cottage is
title more pretentious-that is not the
yord exactly, but 1 can think of none other
t the moment-than most of the others in
is fittings up, but then she occupies it for
i've months of the year. Its walls are
,lastered and tinted, and low bookcases
lied with choice books and laden with brio
.Iau Il |