Farm Lake House
1938 newspaper clipping showing Farm Lake House (top), with visitors on the lawn.
Known Name(s)
Farm Lake House
Address
Greenwood Lake, NY (Primary) (1963, 1964, 1966)(Off Route 17A and Nelson Rd, Sterling Forest State Park Warwick, NY) (Modern Address)
Establishment Type(s)
Resort
Physical Status
Demolished
Description
The structure was part of a community of 70+ residential buildings in a rural residential district. The entirety of this community was referred to as Sterling Forest Farms, more colloquially known as “The Colony.” A photograph published in the Amsterdam News in 1938 provides limited evidence of the building, which appears to be a large two-story structure. Residential in design, the scale of the Farm House would have made it stand out from typical farmhouses in New York State.
Detailed History
Sterling Forest Farms (also known as Greenwood Forest Farms and colloquially, “The Colony”) was founded in 1919 by the Sterling Forest Farms Corporation, which was headed by a group Black Brooklynites, who initially met as part of a Foreign Trade Study Club in the Carlton Avenue (Brooklyn) YMCA. The group of nine initially were interested in conducting an import and export business with emerging South American republics, but World War I made this type of foreign trade impossible. As five additional investors joined the initial nine men, the focus of the group shifted to creating a vacation site that was different than those they had previously visited— a site that would not place any racial restrictions on Black vacationers.
Upon its founding, lots at the site were offered to the public at a price range between $150 and $300. The property initially consisted of 143 acres of land in the Ramapo Mountains. The New York Amsterdam News reported on The Colony as early as 1933, with the paper’s “Brooklyn Society” column informing readers of the visitors to the site. For example, in 1933, the Amsterdam News reported that Mrs. Walter Taylor hosted Mrs. Willard J. Price and her daughters, and that the guest party of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Webster drove from Baltimore, MD to vacation at The Colony. A large number of socialites from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts were early residents of The Colony. The Colony became popular with Black vacationers very quickly, with nearly 200 guests visiting just for July 4th weekend in 1938. In 1938, the exclusive summer colony contained 28 residences. By 1971, this number was up to 75. Some of the buildings on site, such as “Justice House” (owned by Harlemite Robert W. Justice) were built to accommodate up to sixty guests at a time. The Colony advertised its proximity to forests, high mountains, and other of “nature’s gifts,” along with a private lake that cost $5,000 to construct during the Great Depression and stabled horses for vacationers to ride. The private lake had to be constructed because African Americans were barred from recreational use of nearby Greenwood Lake.
The Colony would later feature live music, dances, poetry readings, swimming, boating, tennis, billiards, and a nurser school called The Beehive. Commercial businesses were banned from operating on the site, with milk, baked goods, ice, and vegetable vendors delivering their products to the site. According to the Amsterdam News, The Colony was a steady source of employment for both “Negro men handy with tools” and “native whites” from nearby Greenwood Lake. Prominent visitors to The Colony include: Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Douglas, Lanston Hughes, J. Rosamond Johnson, James Farmer, the Honorable Myles Paige, Cecil McPherson, Dr. Gertrude Curtis, Robert J. Elzy, and Harold W. Cruise. The community began to decline in the 1960s as younger descendants of regular residents vacationed elsewhere or moved away from the region. A historical marker was installed in 2006, and the site was designated as a protected part of Sterling Forest State Park on January 11, 2022.
Farm Lake House: The management of The Colony opened a club house and community center called the “Farm House,” where vacationers could rent rooms, enjoy live music, and eat. The Farm House was one of only three locations at the time of its construction that vacationers could rent— the rest of the site was occupied by vacationers who owned cottages there. By 1938, over 1,400 guests were documented as having stayed at the Farm House. The Farm House was built in the second half of the 19th century and had been remodeled to accommodate short-term guests to The Colony. Amenities included a large porch for “after-dinner parties and dancing” and meals provided to guests so that guests would not have to worry about cooking during their stay. In 1941, the Farm House was available for $15 per week and $4 for the weekend, with a car shuttle leaving Harlem on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. On July 18, 1971, the Farm House burned to the ground under what the New York Amsterdam News labelled “suspicious circumstances.”
