Catskill Game Farm site sells for nearly $2M
Catskill The wildlife-themed inn and glamping sites on the grounds of the old Catskill Game Farm have changed hands, and the new owners plan to add a menagerie of new activities. There also are plans to eventually bring back a few animals, such as retired race horses, to what was once one of the country’s largest privately run zoos.
Now known as The Old Game Farm, the combination inn and camping site sold for nearly $2 million in November to Yonkers businessman Sidney Blauner and a group of investors.
He purchased it from Ben and Cathy Ballone, who took over the farm in 2012 and turned it into an inn/campsite that opened in 2019.
The actual zoo, which dates to the 1930s, closed in 2006.
The Ballones turned the old zebra barn into the five-room
Long Neck Inn in 2019 and set up glamping, or luxury tent sites maintained by the TENTRR group, which operates glamping sites nationally.
Guests have been staying at the inn and two of four open tents sites this winter, said Kristin Forster, the property’s administrator.
“It’s been a pretty smooth transition,” Forster said of the change in ownership.
Blauner is looking to provide
mountain biking, archery and other activities as well as the existing hiking and cross country ski trails nearby.
The operation also reflects a growing interest in the Catskills as a vacation destination as well as a second home area as more and more Covid-19-weary denizens of New York City are looking for places to get away.