History of Our Upstate New York Inn

In the latter part of the 19th century, Thomas Hunt Talmage, a businessman from Brooklyn, built a summer retreat on Lake St Dominic in Sullivan County's Catskill Mountains, complete with 2,000 acres of wilderness.

However, just prior to the completion of the Talmage House, Thomas passed away. A few years later, a group of Dominican Sisters from Long Island were looking for property as a new retreat. With a horse and carriage, they accidentally turned onto a secluded road and came across the Talmage House. Mrs. Talmage sold the estate to the sisters and became a close friend and supporter of the order.

The Dominican Sisters established a convent and summer retreat for the Sisters of the Dominican Order. The name changed from Lake Dominic to Lake St. Josephs. They developed a self-contained retreat, which included farming facilities, a boarding and day school, children's camps, a post office and a TB sanitarium. Later it supported a drug rehabilitation center. The addition of guesthouses and cottages made Lake St. Josephs a major family vacation destination. As time went on, the Talmage House became the vacation retreat of Cardinals Hayes, Spellman and Cooke. The main house hosted many international dignitaries and celebrities over the years and became known as the Cardinal House. They continued with more than 80 years of service.

After which a developer bought the property, but his plans did not come to fruition.

Then in the early 1980s, two lost Sunday drivers, Ivan and Monique, turned down a secluded road to seek directions back to the main highway. There stood the Talmage House waiting to be rediscovered, a bit ruffled but in reasonably good condition. They immediately envisioned the dwelling as a fine country inn and went to work on restoring it to its former glory, carrying over the traditions and tranquility of the past into the present. The couple welcomed their first guests to the inn in 1984. After Monique's passing in the mid eighties, Ivan remarried and innkeepers Ivan and Rue proudly welcomed visitors.