Casa Susanna

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Casa Susanna (actually Chevalier D'Eon Resort ) was a popular, rural, remote, weekend meeting place for cross-dressers and trans women in Jewett ( Hunter district ) in the state of New York ( USA ) in the early 1960s .

possession

The sprawling property belonged to Susanna Valenti and her second wife, Marie, who ran a wig business in Manhattan . Susanna Valenti (real name Tito Valenti and works as a court interpreter in New York ) migrated from Cuba to the USA in the mid-1940s . She wrote several articles for Transvestia magazine , which was published between 1960 and 1980 by transgender activist Virginia Prince . She met her second wife Marie while looking for a wig. Marie also supplied travesty artists ( female impersonator , as they were called in the USA at the time. In German, for example: female impersonators) and through this work she was close to Susanna's obsession.

Marie's wig business was very successful and with the profits she bought a 600,000 m² property in the Catskill Mountains in the mid-1950s . The couple initially named it Chevalier D'Eon Resort in reference to le Chevalier d'Éon (1728-1810), a French diplomat , soldier , writer and sword fencer , who lived as a woman for most of his life. It consisted of 60 hectares of land with a main house built in 1884, a barn and some cozy but unheated bungalows .

business

Hidden in the rural area of ​​the Catskill Mountains , Casa Susanna was a private refuge for men who could live out their womanhood undisturbed here. Also, since the public wearing of opposite-sex clothing (for men) was a criminal offense at the time, a closed private environment was all the more important. Nonetheless, the “ladies” occasionally went to local shops and met with mixed reactions. Some were negative. So people whispered in the local inn that it was "wrong" and that no one would be disappointed if the property burned down. But many didn't care and some business owners saw them as good customers and quiet neighbors.

The Valenti couple took 25 dollars each from their guests for the weekend (this would correspond to 180 euros today), including full board and make-up advice. Casa Susanna was a haven for men who wanted to let out "the woman inside" without being laughed at, criticized or attacked. Only there they could freely develop and move. This included eating together, scrabbling rounds or gardening, which they literally celebrated in their elegant clothes and high heels . Most of the guests at Casa Susanna were married and viewed themselves as straight men who just wanted to live out their desire for cross-dressing . However, several others later saw themselves as transsexual and also lived publicly as women, including Virginia Prince and Susanna Valenti.

The photographs

Taking photographs for transvestites was dangerous in the 1950s. It could be that employees of the photo shop, which films with related content were given for development, called the police on. Fortunately, there was a photographer among the illustrious group of Casa Susanna, who photographed her companions in the Casa and also developed the films at home: Andrea Susan (Jack Mallick).

Even if instant cameras , here the Polaroid , were very popular in the house for developing snapshots quickly and viewing them straight away, it didn't seem enough to Andrea. However, their camera equipment was not enough. A wealthy member of the circle named Gail (David Wilde) bought a Rolleiflex camera for $ 1,000 (around € 7,000 today) , which Andrea was allowed to use on condition that she learned how to use color film. She also asked for a copy of every recording, which she then kept in neat albums.

In the late 1990s, David Wilde (Gail) planned to move to Scarsdale with his wife, Joan . His wife knew his past as “Gail”, but refused to take his collection of photos with “men in women's clothes”. For his wife's sake, he wanted to throw them away, but instead of throwing them away in the trash, he carefully placed the box with the albums on the dustbin. So they found their way to a flea market in Manhattan in the mid-2000s. A dealer named Robert Swope discovered it and together with his partner Michael Hurst he published it in an illustrated book in 2005. The publication, 50 years after the events around Casa Susanna, prompted some of the visitors who were still alive at the time, including the photographer, whose identity was not known up to that point, to tell her story and so the story of this special place could also be shared for the To be documented for posterity.

The Tony Award- nominated play Casa Valentina by Harvey Fierstein was inspired by the events surrounding Casa Susanna. The photographer Andrea Susan (and her daughter) received an invitation to the premiere in 2014.

Susanna's date and place of death is unknown; She last appeared in the last issue (No. 100) of Transvestia in 1979.

The property was for sale in 2015. Due to the successful play Casa Valentina, which had just been performed in nearby New York, it was again the focus of increased interest.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Penelope Last: A Safe House for the Girl Within. In: The New York Times . September 7, 2006, accessed October 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Zagria: Susanna Valenti (192? -?) Translator, broadcaster, activist. In: A Gender Variance Who's Who. February 1, 2012, accessed October 3, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Jay Blotcher: Queens of the Catskills. In: Chronogram Magazine. Retrieved October 3, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Casa Susanna: Photographs From a 1950s Transvestite Hideaway. In: TIME. April 14, 2014, accessed October 3, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b c Dallas Denny: The Historical Roots of Casa Valentina. In: dallasdenny.com (Chrysalis Quarterly). Retrieved October 3, 2017 (American English).
  6. ^ History of the photo albums
  7. ↑ “Casa Susanna” For Sale in Hunter, $ 99,000 New York Culture Magazine, with pictures of the current state (as of 2015)

Coordinates: 42 ° 15 '4.4 "  N , 74 ° 14' 34.1"  W.