The abandoned remains of the Nevele Grand Hotel, once one of the gems of the mountain resort industry, have caught fire three times in nine months. The first fire, back in March, 2024, destroyed the winter lodge. The next two fires occurred within a few days, on Saturday, January 11, and in the early morning of Wednesday the 13^th. The Wednesday fire was quite small, but the January 11 fire damaged the old entrance area of the main building.

There is a growing sense of outrage in the community about the property. “At what point is 1..2..3..fires not enough,” asked one commenter on the Journal website. “We live in the mountains surrounded by forest and wildlife, when does any of this matter enough to the powers that be, that the site needs to be secured? Failure to do this makes all of us vulnerable to fire.”

Dozens of comments on Facebook threads all said largely the same thing. “The owners,” one person posted, “should be held accountable for the security of their property.”

Chief among those owners would be Keith Rubenstein of Arrowhead LLC, who bought the property in October of last year, after it had been vacant since 2009. Rubenstein is the founder of a New York City-based real estate investment firm called Somerset Partners, who also have a hand in the redevelopment project.

“It is very difficult to keep people off that property,” Rubenstein says. “We had off-duty police and we bought an ATV for them, but it didn’t work.”

The trespass threat comes in different flavors. Some people are reported to break the fences to drive ATVs around on the old golf course. Quite a lot of damage has been done to grounds that way. Urban explorers are fascinated with the buildings and sneak in to photograph the ruined interiors. There are graffiti artists, too, busy apply fresh coats to old walls.

And then there are those who set fires. There was a fire in March last year that drew firefighters and equipment from all around the area and burned out the oldest building on the property, a beautiful three-story Winter Lodge. Ulster County Fire Coordinator Michael Gaffney said this week that the cause of all three fires is still under investigation. Neither Gaffney nor a state police spokesperson would respond to questions concerning possible criminal activity.

Talking to the Shawangunk Journal, Keith Rubenstein said that having “security on that huge site is a difficult situation. We have cameras all around the perimeter. But it’s a very large area.”

The damage from the first January fire spread to areas of the main building from the lobby, including the kitchen and dining room. A few days later fire broke out again, which county sources say began on the roof of the tower on the property.

There are, we are told, cameras on the perimeter line of the property but it’s unclear if there are any inside of the structure themselves.

Returning to the security situation, Rubenstein pointed to liability difficulties. “If we had security staff there and there were trespassers, and they confronted the security, and there was some kind of situation, and someone got hurt, then liability would be an immediate concern.”

But that doesn’t help allay fears of more fires, and the concern that volunteer firefighters will be at risk again – not to mention the people living downwind who breathe in whatever burns at the sites.

What Rubenstein really wants, and says he is working to get, is full demolition of all the buildings and their removal from the site.

“The damage from the fires just made that more difficult and dangerous,” he said. “But as soon as possible we will begin that process.”

He says that bulldozers and excavators are coming, but declined to give any kind of specific timeline. No specific reasons were given for the delay, but Rubenstein says that contractors are ready to start. All the buildings, including the iconic tower, will be taken down and removed. Until then, Rubenstein asks, “If anyone sees anything, any trespassers on the property, please call the local police or the sheriff’s office.” Then again, if anybody sees someone else trespassing at the Nevele, that person is probably trespassing at the Nevele.

Rubenstein is pursuing a complex plan for a luxury resort hotel, called Somerset Resort.

“They plan on an 80-key hotel,” Wawarsing Supervisor Terry Houck said of the project back in 2023, “together with 60 to 80 condos, 20 to 30 cottages and 45 to 50 high-end, high-design residences.”

The price tag for the project is approximately $300 million.

Arrowhead is in the midst of a multiyear-long effort at the town board in the planning process, which began before they even closed the deal on the real estate. They are now at the environmental review, when the environmental impacts of the project are calculated and reported. Most of these reports are under 10 pages. The Nevele’s environmental impact statement reportedly runs 75 pages.

Among the difficulties faced are changes in where to place the new buildings, five stream crossings that will need to be redone, and the presence of protected species like rattlesnakes and a pair of bald eagles who nest in a tree overlooking the lake in the center of the property. The DEC approval for the project notes there must be written approval from the agency for any work done between January 1 and September 30 within 660 feet of the nest site. The work must not be visible to the eagles, so that it doesn’t spook them and drive them from their nest.

The Nevele hasn’t opened its doors in sixteen years. Officials and residents alike have expressed excitement for the future of the property. Rubenstein now just has to figure out how to dispose of the past.