Rediscovering NYPenns
A long-vanished nudist club, two abandoned camps, and the photos that brought their history back into view
When Lake Como historian Lee St. Mary and I were digging through the Lake Como archive last year in preparation for our book Nude County USA—about the history of naturism in Pasco County, Florida—I came across a ratty old notebook of photos.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“Oh, twenty years ago, someone had died and abandoned their stuff in a trailer. They were going to burn it.”
Inside was a huge collection of photos with “NYPENNS” written on some of the signs. I had never heard of NYPenns. We also found other treasures: photos of the 1977–1978 rebuilding of Sunny Palms in Florida, a thousand Berkshire Vista photos from Massachusetts, and even a few Sunshower shots. I scanned some of them, but got busy with the material we actually needed for the historical presentation Lee and I were planning to give at Como.
When Paul LeValley from the American Nudist Research Library (ANRL) came to the presentation, we told him, “Hey, Paul, we’re making a donation before these get lost.” We carried the notebook to his yellow truck. I planned to give my digitized copies to the Naturist Education Foundation Research Library in Oshkosh, since I’m never sure where photos from different regions should end up.
Then, a couple weeks ago, I came into possession of another stash of photos — mostly Lake Como scenes, but others were clearly taken at unidentified nudist camps. It was like a mystery novel. I identified shots from Fernglades in Massachusetts and PennSylvan in Pennsylvania by spotting the same naked woman in both pools. Then there were three photos by a lake with naturists on a diving board.
Last weekend while visiting ANRL, I came across that same old notebook again. The one I gave Paul last year. With no major research projects on my plate, I decided to dig into it. I even identified the lake: it was the lake at NYPenns’ last nudist camp location.
A brief history of NYPenns
I would now like to present the history of NYPenns—a camp no one has thought about for sixty years—and share some of the photos we rescued from the trash.
NYPenns was organized around 1952 by a couple from Breesport, New York, along with ten other couples. Shortly thereafter, one group based around Binghamton/Elmira and another in Pennsylvania came together to form NYPenns. They had great difficulty finding a place to meet, since nudist camps were illegal in New York during the 1950s. They often gathered at a member’s farm in Cortland, New York. By 1955, the club had ten adult members and ten children. They met in the summer at Sunny Rest in Pennsylvania and in the winter at someone’s home.
In 1957, existing members formed NYPenns, Inc. The club leased a 135-acre property in Great Bend, Pennsylvania, but the facilities were not ideal. They deepened the farm pond, dug a well, and built a small clubhouse. Membership cost $18 a year. They built five tent cabins and banned alcohol, but never fenced the property. They wanted a lake and more land than they had. By 1959, membership was 65 people from seven couples. In 1962, they offered to buy the property, but the owner refused, so they began preparing to move.
In 1963, NYPenns purchased another property — a seemingly perfect 225-acre parcel — for $23,000. Although the club had only thirty couples at the time, they believed it would soon grow into a 400-member camp and become the largest nudist camp east of the Mississippi. To get there, they had to start from scratch. The property already had a 20-acre Indian Lake with a forty-foot dam and a waterfall. They drew up plans for a playground, swimming pool, and housing. The group was stretched thin that year, and when their big August 1963 gathering arrived, a sudden wet cold snap hit the hills. One can almost feel the melancholy among those cold, tired naked bodies.
Financially stressed, the group sold the property to Alfred Antone, a Binghamton hair salon magnate (Antoine of Saks Fifth Avenue and Paris). He connected it to a 500-acre wildlife tract he owned, and NYPenns, Inc. leased it. But during the winter, for reasons that remain unclear, the club folded — likely from financial strain. Despite not being a nudist, Antone decided to continue and develop the land as both a textile and nudist camp, renaming it Indian Lakes Estates.
Trivia question: hunting what animal led to the closing of a nudist camp?
In the summer of 1964, Clayton Freese of the Stonehenge Travel Club, based north of Albany, took over management of the nudist area. Membership was 448. After learning that Antone intended to hunt beavers on the property that fall, Freese left in a huff. He was sanctimonious about it, saying, “I want to manage a property where people can go nude and dogs and horses are treated as equals.” You can’t make some of this stuff up.
Antone continued from 1965 to 1968 with hired managers, adding facilities and allowing drinking. He built an indoor pool, and according to him, it became one of the few venues where nudists and non-nudists camped together. He thought it would give him a marketing edge. But since the ASA did not allow drinking or mixing nude and textile crowds at the time, the camp lost its affiliation. Membership dropped, and it was delisted from nudist magazines. After attempting to host a clothing-optional music festival in 1969 that ran afoul of local ordinances, the Dimick, Pennsylvania location closed as a nudist camp. Antone eventually sold the property for a corporate retreat and housing development in the mid-1970s.
In 1982, the dam on Indian Lake was condemned due to neglect and the state forced the owner to drop the water level significantly. Today, the lake is half of the size it was sixty years ago. The road out front of the old nudist resort is still called Bare Valley Road, sadly, few that drive it realize what used to be there.
NYPenns’ history was short. They had big plans, but something in the group never quite gelled. They kept starting over and eventually gave up and moved on. I was lucky to help save these photos and this story. I encourage anyone with a stash of historical material to contact me at storolaf@yahoo.com and I can advise on what to do with it. These things should not be tossed—we need to preserve our history. 🪐
Notes:
“Nudism the essence is simple, Elmiran says,” Star-Gazette, Elmira NY, August 25, 1963.
McIntosh, Ronald, “New area nudist retreat uncovered,” The Times-Tribune, Scranton PA, Nov 3, 1968.
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Great article! Thanks for preserving this history!
Very interesting, thank you.