Once Upon A Time When People Were Naked

[Davin]

Naked people once frolicked on these rolling 50 acres near Fair Grove.
I stand near a chained gate that blocks the gravel drive to a house on the far side. I don't see any naked people. They are long gone.
And try as you might, you could never see them from the road anyway
http://www.news-leader.com/story/new...ked/100457170/

[FireProf]

Fun story! Probably many more, like this one, of nudist venues of long ago, no longer there or no longer nudist.

[usuallylurk]

There are MANY nudist venues of long ago - here in New England, there was one in Gray, Maine, and I don't know what its name was; the predecessor to Cedar Waters was a small park known as Fernglades, near Ware, Massachusetts. The owners acquired a different parcel of land in New Hampshire, and the lake in the middle of it and that became Cedar Waters;

In Pennsylvania - Ivy Lodge was in the far western portion of the state. Some of the club's members uprooted, acquired a parcel of land up the road - and that is now the cooperatively held White Thorn Lodge.

There was also a good-sized nudist campground called Timber Trails near Harrisburg, PA. We stayed there once in our travels, and noted it was an NNC (not ASA\AANR) affiliated park, when the NNC was a major nudist organization.

In Vermont - there is a road called "Nudist Camp Road" - in Chester, but I have no idea what nudist park was there, or when, if any.

Another nudist park that is gone, here in Massachusetts - Stony Acres, in Assonet. There was also one called Burgoyne Trail on Cape Cod.

Probably the most famous parks - to go "extinct" - one was rather large and a lot of photos from the era remain = Samagatuma, near San Diego. This closed in the 1980s (went textile).
There also was another = Elysium/Olympic Fields/McConville/Mystic Oaks - which, I think ran from 1934-2000.

Ah - the home site of "Blaze Starr Goes Nudist" - Sunny Palms Lodge, Homestead, FL. Now gone but some members relocated to a new place they built - Sunnier Palms.

There no doubt are many, many others.

I know of two Canadian sites - one was Four Seasons, in Freelton, Ontario - which was rather nice in its day, but went textile. There also was Vallee Rustique, in Frelisghburg, QC.

Most recently another Ontario park went textile, but I don't know the details.

If you ever get the chance to visit the American Nudist Research Library - which is on the grounds of Cypress Cove in Florida - you can browse nudist magazines, some which go back to the 1920s - most of them have some kind of nudist park directory pages. A lot of history found in them that exists nowhere else.

The library is now in the process of "digitizing" everything, for future preservation. Due to bandwidth and copyright situations, they're not able to put those online, but if you go there when the library's open, you can browse and read ANYTHING in there.

http://anrl.org

Also NEF has a library in Oshkosh, and there's one at Glen Eden in California.

[Adler]

My experience is that most nudist are "commodity buyers" meaning that they see their patronage of established nudist venue as a transaction for value in the here and now. Their concern for the long term well being of nudist venues is no different than their concern for the supermarket, department store or any other place of commerce that they patronize. This is not a judgement; their actions are rational. Attendance at a nudest venue is a business transaction with immediate satisfaction expected. Concern for the long term viability of the venue is not of immediate concern to them. Nudist venues that rely on a membership model for viability are experiencing the same challenges as many other membership organizations. Generations X, Y, and now Z are not joiners like the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers were. As the older generations who invested in and managed fixed facility nudist venues pass on there are fewer Gen X, Y or Z'er willing to fill their shoes. It take work to run a facility and it doesn't pay much; there is much more money to be made sitting at a keyboard shuffling data. With monies earned they reason that they can buy their nudist experience whenever they want. They believe that the opportunities will always be there for them to consume at will.

[riptidenj]

Here in Central NJ there was Sunny Heights Lodge, it closed in 1985 or so. Only 3 landed clubs in NJ at present.