Great Gorge!

If you've never pictured New Jersey as the setting for a mountain-country resort, you have a surprise coming on your first visit to the state's biggest and most lavish new hostelry, the Playboy Club-Hotel at Great Gorge in northwest Jersey's Sussex County, just over 50 miles from New York City. It's a total recreation-and-relaxation complex located in a district of smogless skies and great natural beauty—green, rolling woodlands, clear-water lakes, unusual rock formations—offering a multitude of indoor and outdoor activities that includes, in winter, access to some of the best skiing on the Eastern Seaboard.

Nine flags, emblematic of Playboy and some of the states and countries in which it has established outposts, flutter over the entrance to the 567-acre property, off State Highway 94. As you drive in, you stop at the gatehouse to present your Playboy Key-Card; only key holders and their guests are admitted to the resort, although special packages often include a Key-Card (text continued on page 124) as part of the price. At the main building—which you actually enter on the third-floor level, the structure being nestled into a hillside—you're met by a bellman who takes your luggage and an attendant who parks your car. Pause inside the lobby for a bit of gaping; everybody does. From the ceiling, five stories above you, hang massive, redwood-boxed light fixtures. Greenery spills over roughhewn terraces; and dominating one side of the imposing foyer is a huge burnished-brass-and-bronze fireplace. If you've been to the Playboy Club-Hotel at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the setting will be familiar—in mirror image and macrocosm. Great Gorge is twice as big and what's on your left in Lake Geneva is on your right here.

Check into one of the Club-Hotel's 700 rooms; all the accommodations are on the outside and each boasts a private balcony. Then sit down and relax. A standard double room has two oversized beds, a huge closet, color television, game table, marble bath, thick-pile carpeting that runs up one wall and, in some of the two-bedroom suites, refrigerator bars. Everything first-class. You're beginning to see why the place cost nearly $30,000,000.

Probable first step, after freshening up, is a quick reconnaissance of the main building itself. Your room will be in a wing of the eight-story building, which sprawls in a kind of elongated S shape from north to south. The principal wining, dining and recreational facilities are in the five-story-high central core: health clubs for men and women, meeting rooms, beauty and barber shops and indoor-pool entrance on the first floor; lobby, Bunny Hutch discothèque, Sidewalk Café, Oyster Bar, Man at Leisure Bar, Game Room, Living Room, shopping arcade. Playmate Bar and 24-hour delicatessen on the third floor; VIP Room, Penthouse showroom, Duke of York ballroom and additional meeting rooms on the fifth floor. Ceilings in all these areas are so high that there isn't room for second or fourth floors. Across the drive from the main entrance is the Convention Center, a separate building reachable by underground tunnel; it's used not only for large exhibits such as golf shows or auto-sales conferences but also as the site of three indoor tennis courts.

Outside, you're surrounded by a 27-hole golf layout—with another nine holes now in the planning stages. There are also practice greens, open-air tennis courts, horse and pony stables, an outdoor swimming pool with 700 lounge chairs on the terrace, where poolside Bunnies stand ready to take your refreshment orders. And just across a narrow valley to the east is the Great Gorge Ski Area, under separate management but linked to the Club-Hotel by shuttle bus and close cooperation. During the season, down its 24 runs—all lighted and reached by eight double chair lifts and two rope tows—overnight and weekend fugitives from Manhattan enjoy what Skiing magazine has called "an unqualified Good Thing." It's summer now and, of course, the ski area is quiet; for conventions and other big meetings, however, the Playboy Activities Director can arrange 30-minute scenic rides to the summit on the chair lifts, running at half speed. On a clear day, you can see—if not forever—at least to the Catskills, 90 miles away.

Foremost among one's expectations for a Playboy operation are good food, hearty drinks—and Bunnies. All these are available in superabundance at Great Gorge, where the Bunny contingent, at full strength of 120, is the largest in the Playboy empire. Bunny Mother Sandra Schiffer is virtually besieged, in fact, with applicants for cottontail jobs: "I only interview about once a month, and each time from 70 to 100 girls call to ask for an appointment. We don't advertise or anything; the girls just hear, by word of mouth, that it's a good place to work."

Sandy has picked an outstanding crop, too; Great Gorge Bunny of the Year Waren Smith, for example, is working on her master's degree in mass communications at Montclair State College, teaching full time in a public school—and Bunny hopping on weekends. Bunnies Saundra Tkacs and Bea Edelstein already have master's degrees, and several girls are juggling undergraduate studies with Club-Hotel working schedules.

The one eating spot in the Hotel where you won't find Bunnies is the Deli, where some fourscore caricatures of noteworthy personalities from Redd Foxx to Henry Kissinger cover the walls. It's open 24 hours a day, serving everything from the Outdoor Sportsman Breakfast (ham steak and eggs, glazed banana, pineapple slice and hash browns) through luncheon (eggs, appetizers, hot and cold sandwiches, desserts), dinner (chicken in a pot, English steak) and middle-of-the-night noshes (bagels, lox and cream cheese). Whenever hunger pangs strike, the Deli can provide. (So can room service, which also operates around the clock.)

Adjacent to the Deli is the Playmate Bar, open for lunch, dinner and after-show snacks, as well as cocktails. Luncheon here features sandwiches, salads and a chef's special, Turkey Leonardi in casserole; dinner might be fried chicken with corn on the cob or filet mignon with Béarnaise sauce. (Available any time: high-rise cheesecake.) Farther along the main corridor is the Living Room, scene of the lavish Italian Fiesta Buffet, which has to be seen to be believed: antipasto, pasta, main courses—veal parmigiana, shrimp alia marinara, chicken cacciatore—cheeses, breads, fruits, desserts and open casks of wine. "Overwhelming" was the verdict of visitor Russel Cozic of Garfield, New Jersey, as he viewed the spread. Carrying out the Italian theme, one entire 104-foot wall is covered with what artist Le Roy Neiman considers one of his more important works—a mural, Harlequin's Entry into Venice, based on a classic tapestry depicting the principal characters of the commedia dell'arte: Harlequin, Punchinello, Pierrot and Columbine. Neiman's paintings and sketches, in fact, appear throughout the Club-Hotel, but his most unusual assignment unquestionably came just before its December 1971 opening, when a state liquor inspector raised his eyebrows and lowered his thumb at the illuminated transparencies of centerfold nudes in the Playmate Bar. Bare skin and strong spirits don't mix in the New Jersey legal code, the official informed the management. So Neiman, a guest for the inaugural festivities, was hastily pressed into service—painting bikinis on the gatefold girls. (Since that time, the original photos have been replaced with more discreetly posed Playmates.)

Farther along is the Sidewalk Café, which manages a genuinely outdoorsy mood with its three-story waterfall, goldfish ponds and 34-foot-high hickory tree soaring toward upper-floor balconies. The fare is casual—hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, draft beer. Within this area are the newly opened Oyster Bar (fresh seafood, chilled wines) and the cocktails-only Man at Leisure Bar.

Upstairs, on the fifth floor, is the VIP Room, specializing in fine wines and Continental cuisine (escargots, Dover sole, lobster Newburg, rack of lamb persille, baba au rhum). Here everything is in blue and silver; the flicker of candles and soft strains from the piano heighten the mood of quiet luxury. Down the hall is the Penthouse, which draws the biggest names in show business to entertain capacity houses of 700. Sight lines are excellent; there literally is not a bad seat in the house. "I was really impressed," said guest Stella Corbells of coastal Barnegat, New Jersey. "Most night-dub showrooms at big resorts are drafty and barn like, but despite its size, the Penthouse is still intimate. We could almost reach out and shake hands with Frank Gorshin on stage." Dining in the Penthouse? Choose from brook trout, prime rib of beef or filet mignon.

Besides the headliners in the main showroom, the indoor entertainment in—dudes a pop group at the Playmate Bar, disco dancing to a light show in the Bunny Hutch, movies for adults and children, a battery of electronic and other amusement devices in the never-closed Game Room, swimming, table tennis, lectures. And for restorative purposes, visit the men's or women's health club, with complete exercise facilities, saunas, a steam room and the first 20-person whirlpool bath ever built by Jacuzzi.

Outdoor types find golf the name of the game for three seasons of the year. The course at Great Gorge, designed by architect George Fazio with Doug Sanders consulting, can be just as exacting as the player cares to make it; multiple tees allow for gradations of difficulty. Ruler of the greens is affable pro Pat Schwab, three times state golfing champion and president of the New Jersey section of the Professional Golf Association. Schwab is unabashedly proud of his course and is planning to expand it. "We can handle around 360 golfers a day now, with 27 holes," he explained, "but with nine more holes we'll be in a much more comfortable situation." What's the best feature of the present setup? "We have a course here that gives you a chance to use just about every dub in your bag," Schwab says. "It's got varied terrain, 28 acres of water hazards, some spectacular scenery. Three holes were actually carved through an old limestone quarry."

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With expansion of the layout, Schwab is looking forward to booking major golf events. One is already scheduled for this August: the Garden State Pro-Am Celebrity Arts Center Fund Tournament, in which the state's top professionals will pair off with amateurs for the benefit of free cultural programs given throughout the year. Duffers or more seasoned golfers interested in improving their technique may sign up for private or group lessons with Schwab and his staff. The ultimate refinement: a closed-circuit video tape of your lesson (at a $25 additional charge).

Golf is but one of several sports in which tutoring is available at Great Gorge. If you're so inclined, you can learn about riding, swimming, diving, ice skating, skiing, karate and tennis, the last-named from resident pro Bob Kurlander, who has been seeded among the top 30 players in the Professional Lawn Tennis Association. One Pennsylvania key-holder, in fact, flies in every two weeks in his private plane to brush up on his strokes with the pro. Kurlander takes a back seat to no one in his enthusiasm for the sport—and for the setup on which to play it at Great Gorge.

"We have four fine outdoor courts and the best indoor facility of any hotel in the United States," he says. "Tennis is becoming more and more popular all the time; it's an easy game to get into—doesn't require a lot of investment, country-club membership or anything like that—and now that so many tournaments are being televised, the players are becoming celebrities." Kurlander visualizes televised competition in the near future at Great Gorge: "We could put up bleachers right here, around the indoor courts, and accommodate as many as 4000 spectators for a major tournament."

The indoor courts make tennis, of course, a year-round sport for guests at the resort. During the colder months, however, winter pastimes take over—headed by skiing at Great Gorge North and South, on Hamburg Mountain, just across Vernon Valley from the Club-Hotel. Jack Kurlander (brother of Bob) and his associates pioneered the development of this area, starting in 1965, and have plowed the resultant profits back into expanded ski trails, lifts, topflight instruction (the Great Gorge Ski School staff of 25 is headed by Austrian expert Luis Schaff linger) and one of the world's largest snow-making systems, powered by a Curtiss-Wright J-65 jet engine.

Other winter activities at the Playboy resort include cross-country skiing, snow-mobiling, tobogganing, sleigh riding and ice skating—on the nation's first outdoor swimming pool to be successfully converted into an ice rink. It utilizes a device called Icemat, which floats refrigerant tubes across the surface of the water, freezing it to a depth of 14 inches. Instructor Jack. McDonough, a professional skater for 25 years (both in hockey and with the Holiday on Ice show), came to Playboy intrigued by the challenge of freezing the first outdoor pool and stayed to teach and to supervise the rink. (One as yet unachieved ambition: to coach a Bunny hockey team.)

Most large hotels these days cater to the convention and sales-meeting trade, and Playboy's Great Gorge operation is no exception. The Club-Hotel houses 19 meeting areas flexible enough to accommodate groups of 25 to 2500 persons; a 91/2' x 22' freight elevator transports large-sized exhibits. Projection equipment and built-in sound systems are installed in several areas, and the Convention Center building has a capacity of 180 booths and 2500 persons. And full-time catering and activities personnel are on duty to arrange special events: banquets, picnics, cocktail parties, hay rides, fondue feasts, poolside luaus and—for visiting wives of conventioneers—a Bunny Beauty Workshop staffed by a cottontail cosmetologist; jazz, modern-dance and rock lessons; side trips to such nearby attractions as Warner Bros.' Jungle Habitat; and, most popular of all, a lecture by the Bunny Mother on the life of her charges.

The place to have a party is the $200-a-night Hugh M. Hefner Suite, available only by special arrangement with the Hotel management. It boasts two bedrooms, a living room, three baths, a black-marble Jacuzzi bath, a fireplace, a fully stocked bar and a panoramic view of the countryside from the Club-Hotel's topmost floor.

The countryside, Playboy executives have realized from the beginning, is the foremost reason people escape the city to Great Gorge. So they're doing everything they can to preserve it. The financial boost to the surrounding area has been tremendous; with the building of the Club-Hotel and other developments, such as the ski slopes, property values have gone from $200 an acre to a reported $5000. Playboy's payroll of 800 is of considerable significance in a township where the population used to hover around 200. With all of this, the Club-Hotel is working to assure a positive ecological as well as economic impact. Playboy has constructed a completely self-contained community, with its own extensive water-and air-purification systems and sewage-treatment plant to reclaim used water for golf-course irrigation. Resorts like Playboy's, Jules W. Marion, Sr.—director of Sussex County's Department of Planning. Conservation and Economic Development—told a New York Times correspondent, are "helping to keep the homeowners' tax burden down. They're industry without smokestacks."

Recognizing this, the New Jersey Manufacturers' Association presented the Club-Hotel with one of its nine New Good Neighbor Awards in 1972, in honor of the beauty of the buildings and grounds, the complex' economic contribution to the area and its outstanding community relations.

Monty Beers and his wife, Tommie, from nearby Warwick, see the Club-Hotel's arrival on a personal level: "Playboy's coming to Great Gorge is the best thing that ever happened to us. We don't have to run into Manhattan now for big-time nights."

Summing up the establishment from a visitor's viewpoint, it's not surprising that travel writer Horace Sutton, after a stay at Great Gorge in 1972, included it in his list of best places of the year—describing it as being located "in the New Jersey Alps, 52 miles from New York, 126 miles from Philadelphia, 243 from Boston, and an ace away from sybarite's heaven." Nor that John Jerome, writing in Skiing's February 1973 issue, said: "The Playboy Club-Hotel at Great Gorge is a full-service hotel in every sense of the term. ... If you can think of a luxury service (at least one that is legal) that they aren't offering at the Great Gorge Playboy, you've got a career ahead of you in hotel management."

The Playboy Club-Hotel at Great Gorge, which is open only to Playboy Club key holders, their families and their guests, is now accepting reservations for summer, fall and winter. For information or reservations, write to the Playboy Club-Hotel at Great Gorge, P. O. Box 637, McAfee, New Jersey 07428. Organizations may inquire about convention and group facilities from Director of Sales John Faherty at the same address.