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If you were staying at a hotel for a weekend and multiple murders took place, you would most likely not return for a repeat visit. That, however, is the odd phenomenon that takes place every year at Mohonk Mountain House where their annual Mystery Weekends have been attracting repeat visitors for almost half a century. In fact, the hotel is widely known as the birthplace of the “murder mystery” getaway concept, with a small group of New Yorkers having developed the concept back in the mid-70s. This year, the famous hotel (and one of the best weekend getaways from NYC) is gearing up to host its 50th anniversary Mystery Weekend which promises to be its biggest (and deadliest?) outing yet.
A few months ago, I drove up to experience a truncated version of a Mystery Weekend before the upcoming anniversary event. With the recent popularity of reality shows like The Traitors and miniseries like The Perfect Couple, murder mysteries have never been hotter, so it was interesting to take part in one that has been happening since Jimmy Carter was president. Hugging one side of a small glacial lake on an isolated mountain, the sprawling Victorian lodge consists of multiple imposing stone and wooden structures. With the long, winding drive to the mountain top and its forested surroundings, it’s a picture perfect setting for a murder mystery. When I arrived, the entire property was even covered in a very on-theme layer of dense fog. (Cue thunder.)
In a throwback to the original event, the weekend’s theme was “Talked to Death”—a 70s-inspired take focused on the taping of a “live talk show” from the resort’s parlor. Before we were introduced to the sequin-clad suspects, however, the hotel’s resident historian gave a short lecture on the history of Mystery Weekends at Mohonk, from its 20th century origins to the present day. The lecture took place next to a crackling fire in the hotel’s Winter Library, where an illustrated program is framed on the wall. (Our first clue, you might say.) The small program featured cover art by the famous illustrator Edward Gorey and detailed the events that took place during the resort’s first Mystery Weekend in 1977.
During the economic slump of the Great Depression, Mohonk Mountain House needed to bring in more guests, so the resort began to host themed weekends. These weekends focused on many of the activities that you might expect: gardening, hiking, birding, etc. But by the 1970s, they were looking to cast an even wider net, so the resort’s head of marketing began developing a new concept with the owner of Murder Inc., a mystery bookstore located on the Upper West Side. The concept? An interactive mystery weekend hosted by a famous lineup of authors and artists including Edward Gorey, Isaac Asimov, Phyllis Whitney, Christ Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler.
In not the greatest show of confidence, the first Mystery Weekend was scheduled for the resort’s slowest time of year (the middle of January) and was appropriately themed “The Dead of Winter.” A charter bus was arranged to take New Yorkers straight from the bookstore on 87th street to the resort for four days of deadly surprises, unexpected clues, film screenings, ghost hunts and puzzles. Unexpectedly, the weekend was such a hit that the event immediately became an annual occurrence with mystery writers including Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark participating over the years. Throughout that time, the formula stayed more or less the same: guests would arrive, meet the weekend’s suspects, take part in interactive scenes around the resort and find out who committed the murder at the end. By 1989, the event was well known enough that Neiman Marcus ran a national giveaway for a stay at Mohonk during Mystery Weekend. In 1992, Donald and Abby Westlake took over operations followed by the current operators: Murder Café.
“At Mohonk, people take the time, they take notes and they’re extremely invested,” says Murder Café’s owner-operator Frank Marquette. “We have to add a lot of red herrings because it throws them off a bit.”
That afternoon, I began to experience quite a few of those red herrings during the weekend’s first themed event: an (ominous) afternoon tea. The casual event, hosted in the resort’s lake lounge, was soon infiltrated by our suspects: the cast and creators of the fictional “Very Late Show with Les Hope.” The cast, which had allegedly arrived at the resort to set up for that night’s live taping, interacted with guests throughout the hour, dropping clues about their feelings for other characters, handing out tickets to that night’s taping and creating an overall zany, late-70s vibe. Almost all of the characters quickly shared with me their general dislike for their colleagues which didn’t help me narrow down my suspect list in the least.
Later that night, after a themed dinner with dishes including decomposed steak tartare, buried beef short rib and (naturally) death by chocolate, we poured into the resort’s parlor to attend the show’s taping. Without giving away too many spoilers, multiple murders soon took place, unexpected guests made sudden appearances and the weekend’s killer was dramatically unveiled. (Full disclosure: Not only did I not correctly guess the killer’s identity, I also successfully convinced my husband to submit a wrong guess as well.) After that, a 70s disco took place in the lake lounge, murderous memories forgotten.
“Usually, if about 10 percent of the audience guess correctly, I know it’s a good one,” Marquette says to me at brunch the next day. (That made me feel a bit better.)
Frank Marquette writes new scripts every year for Mohonk’s Mystery Weekends and this year he’s decided to go in a meta direction for the event’s 50th anniversary celebration. Taking place from February 27 through March 1, the anniversary outing focuses on a group of mystery writers who are converging on Mohonk Mountain House to come up with novel ideas for murders. (It’s safe to say that at least one of the writers will probably not make it to Sunday.) Marquette is quick to add, however, that aside from all of the mystery writers, production artists and committed performers, the Mystery Weekend’s most powerful players are the guest participants.
“They’re just the actors that did not rehearse with us,” he says.
You can find out more information about how to attend Mohonk Mountain House’s 50th Anniversary Mystery Weekend, “Murder by the Book,” along with pricing, timing and additional thrills planned for the milestone event, at Mohonk.com. The event runs from February 27–March 1.