Built in the early 1880’s by the Fleischmanns Yeast family, who were an extraordinary example of the sprawling, brilliantly-big visioned ambition of the Industrial Revolution, Spillian was part of a 160 acre compound with half a dozen or more mansions. Each of the five siblings from the first generation of Fleischmanns, immigrants from Eastern Europe by way of Austria, had a summer “cottage” here, as did two of the oldest sons.

When the Fleischmanns arrived in the Catskills to build this property, they had a major national company and were making a point about creating their own elegant rustic mountain experience during an era of heavy anti-Semitism. Their arrival ushered in what became the first “Borscht Belt” of the Catskills, with over 500 hotels between Fleischmanns and neighboring Pine Hill, many serving middle class and wealthy Eastern European Jewish immigrant communities.