Kutz Camp purchase has historical interest for Town of Warwick

As reported in last week’s Warwick Advertiser, the Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday, Feb. 13, at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall.

The purpose is to consider the purchase of 85 acres of land and the buildings of the former Kutz Camp for $6.5 million under its Community Preservation Plan, which is funded through real estate transfer taxes.

The property consists of a lake, two pools, tennis courts, outdoor and indoor event/art spaces, multiple cabins, a central waste water system, multiple wells and a trail system.

Jackie Robinson and 'Camp Utopia'

In December 1961, at famed baseball player Jackie Robinson’s suggestion, Chock Full O’ Nuts paid $300,000 to purchase the camp, which had been Grossman's Dude Ranch, for its employees. Some old timers, by the way, remember it as RoLyn Lake Ranch and the lake is still called RoLyn.

That resort, named “Camp Utopia,” by the employees and where Robinson and his wife, Rachel, sent their own children became the site of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Kutz Camp on Bowen Road.

Robinson, an American Major League Baseball second baseman, became the first African American to play in the major leagues when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

After leaving baseball, Robinson found a new challenge when in 1957 he retired from baseball and shortly afterwards joined Chock Full O’ Nuts, becoming the first black vice president of an American corporation.

More than 80 per cent of his employees at that time were African American. However, according to a 1962 New York Times article: "Warwick residents, almost exclusively white, drop in on Saturday nights."

Camp Utopia, however, was short lived and it failed after several years.

The property was then purchased with a gift from the Milton and Hattie Kutz Foundation of Wilmington, Delaware. And since 1965 and until 2019, Kutz Camp has been the summer home of NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth), the youth movement of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Town to solicit ideas from the public

“At this point,” said Town of Warwick Supervisor, “there are no fixed plans but many ideas, which we do want to solicit from the public. We know that the Union for Reform Judaism owners already rent space for group and business retreats that generates income. One could envision the town hiring a third party to manage the facility so that our residents have access as well as visitors to our area. The key is to ensure it operates without a tax burden for residents and in such a way as it protects the critical environmental nature of the site which is one of the prime reasons for the Town acquiring it along with arts, recreation and protection of resources as outlined in the Town’s Community Preservation Plan.”

The clear need for a plan

Town of Warwick Historian Dr. Richard Hull expressed some caution.

“I’ve not given enough thought yet to the proposed acquisition,” He said. “The price might place too much of a capital drain on the Community Preservation Fund. We need to see if the plan is to sell or lease the buildings and immediate surrounds to generate some revenue for further acquisitions and stewardship of what we have conserved already.”