Highlanders Supporting Steep Rock's Efforts to Restore Hidden Holiday House Garden

Between 1893 and 1918, Holiday House served as a summer retreat, welcoming young, unmarried women from New York City. All that remains of the site today is the stone foundation, which for years has been shrouded in mystery, according to Steep Rock. The goal of the restoration project is to remove invasive species, clear trees threatening the foundation, and create a Ruins Garden with native plants, picnic tables, and interpretive signs that will invite birds, pollinators, and people alike. The project is being led by Merlin Ennis, Steep Rock’s Trails & Preserves Manager, and Chris Koppel, a botanist and Steep Rock Association Trustee.

According to Nick DePreter, Director of Gunn Outdoors, Gunn students began working on the Ruins Garden project in fall 2024 as part of the Highlander X co-curricular program. Their efforts were continued in earnest throughout the Spring Term, led by faculty member Ashley Taylor, and resumed this fall, under the guidance of DePreter and faculty member Blaire Farrar. DePreter estimated the students have dedicated 300-400 volunteer hours to the project to date. 

Like Steep Rock itself, the history of Holiday House is intertwined with that of the school. According to the late Paula Gibson Krimsky, who served as the school's archivist and Director of Communications for over 20 years, "the 60-bed hotel was built in 1893 by Edward Hook Van Ingen, a Washington philanthropist and textile baron, and his wife, Mary McLane Van Ingen, a former student of Judea Seminary." Their home, which we know today as Bourne Hall, was the first summer cottage in Washington, and their youngest daughter, Anne Van Ingen, was among the first trustees that Rossiter entrusted with the stewardship of Steep Rock in 1925.

Van Ingen commissioned Rossiter to design the hotel, "which included a bowling alley, a tennis court, and a croquet lawn, and had a large hall for dancing, masquerades, concerts and plays," Krimsky said in her book, "Gunnery Stories," citing Tom Hozel's 2015 monograph, "The Girls Club: Holiday House, A Charity Vacation Hotel in Washington, Connecticut." The house mother, Deaconess Ellie Taylor of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan, supervised the girls, who were members of the non-denominational St. Bartholomew’s Girls’ Club.

“The fee for a two-week stay was $8, which included a return trip RR ticket,” Hozel said, noting the Shepaug Valley Railroad had a special flag stop for the hotel, and the girls would cross the river via a pedestrian suspension bridge and hike through meadows and woods for about 10 minutes to reach the hotel. The bridge was built by the Roebling Bridge Company, which also built the Brooklyn and George Washington bridges in New York City, Hozel said. Large granite footings on either side of the river still mark the suspension bridge's original location.

According to Hozel’s monograph, the Van Ingens suffered financial losses after World War I and were unable to continue supporting Holiday House. Since it had been built as a memorial to their eldest daughter, who died of scarlet fever, they were unwilling to sell it and it was dismantled and donated to the town for scrap. One wing was moved to the public school in Washington Depot and used as classroom space, while the land was donated to Steep Rock Association.

To learn about how to support the Holiday House Ruins Garden Project, please visit the Steep Rock Association website.


Above: A period postcard of Holiday House showing the gardens in full bloom, from the Paula and George Krimsky Archives and Special Collections