The Three Meredith Inns
The first Meredith Inn, complete with tennis court, stood on the north side of the Turnpike--near the present Town Hall--from 1913 until 1922.
The original Meredith Inn was established in 1913 by Francis W. Ayer, the founder of Meridale Farms. It was on the north side of the Turnpike in Meredith Square. He used the inn to accommodate guests from his hometown, Philadelphia. In 1922 it was destroyed by fire.
This is the cover of a brochure advertising the first Meredith Inn about a year before it burned in 1922.
The second Meredith Inn was established in 1923 in Ayer’s summer home, Ayrmont, across the road on the south side of the Turnpike. Until 1945 the guests--many of them business associates of the Ayer family--enjoyed golf, tennis, basketball and croquet. Among the rich and famous who visited the Meredith Inn was Franklin D. Roosevelt, before he became President of the United States.
The second Inn had a wide front porch with rocking chairs. The dining room was widely known for its good food. A rustic log cabin behind the inn was used for recreation. There also was a magnificent horse barn that housed the carriages, including the Tally Ho, sometimes used for bringing guests from the railroad station in Delhi.
The second Meredith Inn was established on the south side of the Turnpike in 1923--occupying Ayrmont, the former country home of Francis W. Ayer, founder of Meridale Farms.
In 1927, guests filled the elegant dining room of the second Meredith Inn.
This Meredith Inn burned down in 1953, leaving only the kitchen. Only six months earlier the Inn had been purchased by a partnership including Andy Mokay, who had moved to Delhi from the Albany area with his three brothers to run a grocery store in Delhi. Delhi was dry, and Mokay saw a new business opportunity across the town line in Meredith. He told the Daily Star: “I opened in the mansion with 33 rooms, the bar and the restaurant, but I was only in business six months when the place burned.”
After the fire, Mokay moved his tavern business into the old log cabin. Later, it too burned, leaving only the twin stone chimneys, which still stand today.
The rustic log cabin near the second Meredith Inn was used for recreation. Its stone fireplaces and chimneys survived a fire in 1953 and still stand today.
Mokay then remodeled the nearby horse barn and relocated the tavern there. He kept the name in his new location--this was the third Meredith Inn--and operated it for more than a half century.
Sue Bailey conducted the following interview with Andy Mokay at his home next to the Meredith Inn on November 30, 2006.
Q - Andy, here’s a copy of an article about you that was in the Daily Star on January 10, 2003. Would you mind taking a look at it and telling me if everything in it is accurate?
[Andy put it on the kitchen table and read it silently, touching each line with his finger as he read. It took him a long time. Finally he looked up.]
Q - Did she get it right? All of the names and dates?
A - Yes.
Q - The article says you have been in business here since 1952. Does that make you the person who has owned a business in Meredith longer than anyone else?
A - Nobody has been in business longer than me. The last one was Joe Swantak. He lived up there in the Ouleout. He sold Badger barn cleaners and mats. He died, and his son’s running chimneys. You could call one of the O’Dell boys. He married his sister.
Q - How about the farmers? Are any of them still in business?
A - They’re all dead. Chris Fleger, Fritz Meyer, Killian Eckert, Karl Guntert. And the one who had a road named after him, moved up to Ouleout in a trailer. I can’t think of his name. He lived by Fritz Meyer. The Jongren family, they all used to come here. The farmers were my first customers. The Goodes are dead.
I’m trying to think of that farmer. He was in charge of the men’s club, in Meridale. I used to belong to that. He was the last farm where 10 swings around. It wasn’t Miner. It was a little short fat guy. The road’s named after him.
Q - So the farmers were your first customers.
A - The farmers came early in the morning, 8 o’clock in the morning. I told them, “I don’t care about dirt. Dirt is dirt. I can sweep it up.” They could keep their boots on.
Q - Who else used to come here?
A - I remember the Ogburn boys, and the O’Dell boys, in Meridale.
I went by Meyerhoff’s place the other day. People are taking off the tin roof. I know the old man died. When I was in the hospital, he was in there with me.
Frank Grimm was the farmer who came here a lot. Grimm. Had a road named after him. She got sick, he couldn’t work. He’s dead, he died first, then she died. Killian Eckert. They were all Germans. Arnold Fleger, Chris Meyer.
Q - Do any of the farmers’ children come to the Meredith Inn now?
A - The sons and daughters don’t come. Most of them moved away. The O’Dell boys quit drinking. Jurjens’ son Jimmie, he comes over.
Q - Who else comes now?
A - Most of my business is still local. Once in a while the ones who used to come from the college, they come in to see me and take pictures and make fun of me because I used to have a lot of hair.
Q - Andy, how old are you now?
A - I’m 80 now.
Q - Do you miss the old days?
A - It was better then, business wise, and I knew everyone. Now I don’t know who they are.
Q - I know that you and your brothers came from the Albany area. How did you end up in Delhi?
A - They [someone in Delhi] came to Menands [in Albany] to buy stuff from me. Truck loads of produce. I’d bring it to Delhi. We all came up here November 1, 1949. Then I met somebody, Tuffy Clark, and we put on a clambake in Meridale Farms. So Tuffy Clark and I opened it. Emmet was his first name.
Q - So you bought it with Tuffy Clark?
A - We bought it for $25,000. It was a lot of money in those days. Five years later I bought out Tuffy Clark and I have run it by myself since then.
Q - When you bought it, why was it for sale?
A - The people who bought Meridale Farms, they didn’t make out. Miss Horowitz, they owned it. She bought the Inn part here and Werblud bought the big farms.
Q - I’ve read that the original Meredith Inn, the one where Franklin D. Roosevelt visited, burned down. Did you own it when it burned?
A - It burned after I’d owned it for three months.
Q - Did you ever find out how the fire started?
A - I think, I can’t prove it, [name deleted], he used to come and sleep here. He’d break in through the dining room. [Andy motioned toward where the dining room had been.] There were big windows. He was in there with some girl, I hear. He fell asleep on the couch with a cigarette. It was Sunday night. We always closed on Sunday nights. He broke in, and fell asleep on the couch. That’s what I think. He never admitted it. Nobody did.
Q - Was any of the Inn left after the fire?
A - Just the kitchen was left. This kitchen was part of the Inn. This was the kitchen, where we’re sitting now. The Inn went out that way. The big dining room seated 350 people.
Q - Who built the rest of this house after the Inn burned?
A - My brother Pete built the rest of the house. He did everything. He built the two long bars and the house.
Q - What was it like during those three months before the original Inn burned?
A - We had a lot of banquets in there, in the big dining room. Every night when we first opened. If someone came at 8 o’clock they couldn’t get in.
You couldn’t even get to the bar. We had five waitresses just to get the beer from the bar to the dining room because the bar was so small. We were going to add on 16 feet to the bar room when it burned. That’s why I made such a big bar down here. [Andy motioned toward the current Meredith Inn.] Thirty foot. It paid off.
Q - Did you and your brothers all live together in Delhi before you moved out to Meredith?
A - In Delhi we bought the Star, the market, and there were two rooms upstairs and three on the third floor. We all lived up there. We bought it from Aitkens, the mayor of the town. Aitkens’ Market.
Q - I remember that some members of your family returned to Albany for a wedding, in an Orthodox Church there.
A - It’s a Greek Orthodox Church. [Andy pulled a photo off the refrigerator, a photo of the interior of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church.] My mother was a Pollack, my father was Russian. Greek/Russian Orthodox. They’ve got one started in Oneonta, right there by Subaru, Volkswagen, someplace near there. Pete used to go there all the time. John went to the Catholic Church in Delhi.
Q - What kind of shape was the Meredith Inn in when you bought it?
A - The Meredith Inn was pretty well run down. Louie Quint was a plasterer. We hired him, and he put up over two tons of plaster. We just got going good when it burned.
Q - What was the response of the community when it burned?
A - The ones I knew good said they were sorry.
Q - What did you do about your business when the Inn burned?
A - We went to the cabin, for not even a year, and then it burned, too. [Note: Other sources indicate that the cabin actually burned about ten years later.] We had a party for college kids the night the cabin burned. Kirby had just fixed the back edge of the cabin’s porch and put a lot of creosote on it. A log fell off the fire onto the floor and that was it. Four o-clock in the morning. It was an accident.
Q - What was the cabin like?
A - The cabin was one big open room. [Andy motioned to the chimneys still standing near the house.]
Q - What did you do after the cabin burned?
A - We moved to the barn, in ‘53.
Q - Did it look about like it does now?
A - Yes, it had horse stalls on one side, and the big dining room was where he put the wagons. The kitchen was the harness room. We took everything out and remodeled it. Curry’s lumber company in Delhi, he did most of the work in there. My brother Pete did a lot. Pete built the bar. He built two bars--the one that burned and the new one.
Q - What had the barn been used for?
A - The barn was never used for dairy, just for horses, for the Inn. Do you remember Doc Irvin, the horse doctor? He’d tell me the stories about what was going on around here. About Meridale Farms. He’d tell me about the owners, years ago.
Q - What kind of work did you have to do to the barn to turn it into the new Meredith Inn?
A - We didn’t have to do anything to the foundation. It was good, built-up stone. The outside was all stone. There’s two feet underneath the floor. The floor is heavy planks, two-inch boards, two foot wide boards under everything. We put plywood on top of the heavy planks and then tile.
Q - How about the walls?
A - In the whole inside of the Inn it’s all wainscoting. The horses had wainscoting in their stalls and it’s the same wainscoting that was there. There were 15 stalls and two box stalls. The bar is where the box stalls were. The dining room is where they kept the carriages.
Q - Did you have to put in windows?
A - The windows were there. The big windows on the left, they came out of the old Inn. The rest came with the building.
Q - How about the upstairs?
A - They kept hay upstairs. We store stuff up there. Beer steins, everything. Stairs go up. There’s one bedroom, above the kitchen.
Q - When you opened the new Meredith Inn, was it only a bar or did you serve food?
A - I sold beer and food. Everything was good. The room to the right was the banquet room. I didn’t rent it. I just put on parties and dinners. I started sending cards, $2 for a meal. $2 specials and all you could eat. Pay for your own drinks. We had 100 or 250 people. I’d set the tables up for your party. After they all ate we’d clean it up, and then dance for the rest of the night.
Q - Did people ever get into fights?
A - If somebody in the bar got into a fight I’d break it up. Everybody helped break it up. I get along with everybody.
Q - Who are some of the people who worked for you over the years?
A - Roy Adams was the first guy I hired. He lived in Delhi, a school bus driver. I hired him for cleanup man. He’d tend bar and clean up in the morning. He worked for me 17 or 18 years. He’s still alive.
I hired waitresses, bartenders and a chef. I had nine working for me at one time. Then when I found out they were making more money than me, I fired them all. I got smart too late. They robbed me blind. They’d buy a six pack and take a case. I’d catch the waitress and bartenders working in cliques. They’d split the $20. I caught a lot of them in the act. Now I hire just one person and she does it all.
Q - Do you ever think about selling the Inn?
A - I want to sell the Inn and stay here in the house until I die. If I sell it, I’ll just wait here for God to take me.
Q - Have you had any offers?
A - I have a guy who really wants to buy it, wants to buy it for his son. I had another guy who wanted to buy it and make a house out of it.
I’d like for the Historical Society to get it. It’s six acres altogether, the house and the Inn. It would be like Hanford Mills. It’s the last good building left in Meridale Farms. Somebody’s going to talk to me, from the Historical Society. They looked at one house at East Meredith, and Bisbee’s old barn in Meridale.
Q - So you’re interested in the history of Meredith?
A - Will Jurjens... I’ve got a book, and I’m going to give it, from 1922. They had the sale of stuff, and Willie took a lot of pictures out of there and made a film out of it. I’m going to give my book to the Historical Society. Mine was in perfect shape. Meridale Farms wrote it. Bisbee’s name is in that. I’m going to give that to the Historical Society too.
Q - I see that you have difficulty walking. How’s your health?
A - My legs hurt, from being on concrete. The back of the bar is all concrete. I have VAD, poor circulation. They gave me a new vein in my chest, but that didn’t do it. I haven’t tried nothing else. They took a vein out of my arm and put it in my chest. I feel good from here up.
Q - Do you go over to the Inn sometimes?
A - I can walk to the Inn just fine, but walking back I have to stop ten times. I use a cane most of the time.
So I don’t go to the Inn now. I do all the books up here. The girl who runs it brings the books up to me. She’s a good girl. Connie works someplace in Oneonta, on River Street. I don’t think Connie could run the Inn. It’s too hard.
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Andy Mokay died about three weeks after this interview, at home, on December 20, 2006.