The cabin: Last
November I was commissioned by Peter Leitner--- a Catskill Fly Tyers Guild member and
active participant at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum--- to
do a landscape of a cabin that had ties to his family, and Catskill flyfishers
alike. About the same time, I learned I
had cancer, changing my life on a dime.
While undergoing treatment, I was finally able to paint again, something
I truly enjoy, painting the landscape below. Its background history was first told to readers of the March 2022 Gazette, newsletter of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild, and now is retold below for readers of this blog.
Pete
and his family have deep Catskill fly-fishing roots, embedded along Willowemoc
Creek. Pete’s grandfather, Bert Leitner
was a member of the Beaverkill Trout Club prior to 1959. In the 1920’s, he
purchased property in DeBruce along the Willowemoc next to Charlie Ward that
included Anvil Rock and Sheeleys’. Then
in 1959, he along with the late Bucky Sterns’ older brother Dick, and other
anglers from Rockland County, started the DeBruce Fly Fishing Club (DFFC.)
In
the early 50’s, Bert sold his original Willowemoc holding, which eventually
became part of the DFFC water, and purchased a cabin on the south side of
Willowemoc Creek at the Conklin Hill Bridge --- Bendo Covered Bridge. Pete’s grandfather owned the cabin until 1968
when he passed. Recent investigation, plus input from one of the Catskill “old-timers”,
suggest that Roy Steenrod at least stayed at the cabin while teaching fly tying
at DEC’s Camp DeBruce conservation camp. It is not known yet whether Roy
in-fact owned the cabin and sold it to Bert. That is what a recent tip to Pete indicates.
A future visit to the county land records is planned this spring to confirm, or
deny that information.
At
age five in 1962, Pete recalls catching his first trout under the Bendo Covered
Bridge. And he informed readers that the
previous owner (Steenrod’s?) called their cabin “Cliff Dale”, while his
grandfather renamed it the “Royal Coachman” in ’52 when he bought it. On the
property there was a little spring fed pond along the cabin where sometimes a
few DFFC hatchery brown trout found their way until being released into the
Willowemoc early autumn.
New
York State eventually acquired this parcel, assimilating the property into
their Forest Preserve. Then the historic cabin was in complete disrepair as it
painfully sank into the ground.
The cabin (sold):
