The Nyack Villager

If the brown stone walls of Sky Island Lodge could talk they might tell you a thousand and one tales of courage, mystery and secrets. This month’s column reveals a mystery that surrounds another baffling character: Pierre A. “Doc” Bernard. Bernard never owned Sky Island Lodge, but he sure was involved with those who did! The story this month is but a tidbit of the legends surrounding the Secret Order of Tantriks.

Sky Island Lodge is a thirty room mansion located on the sharp curve of South Highland Avenue and Upland Drive in South Nyack. This beautiful house, now part of Nyack College, sits on property originally part of the Clarkstown Country Club owned by Pierre A. Bernard. He sold the nine acre property in 1930 to Mrs. Emma Stem Wertheim, widow of Jacob Wertheim. Jacob was a very wealthy retail merchant and cigar manufacturer from Frankfort, Germany, where he was active in politics and a number of philanthropies. Mrs. Wertheim, who fled the growing Nazi menace along with her daughters, Diana and Viola, envisioned her country estate as a family compound and matriarchal gathering place. The mansion with ten baths and powder rooms, was completed in 1932. When Emma died in 1937 her two daughters, now married, inherited the mansion, but they were occupied with their own families and careers. Viola Wertheim married Thomas Bernard, allegedly the nephew of Pierre Bernard. She kept in touch with the Clarkstown Country Club owner and he persuaded her to turn the estate over to the Foreign Service section of the American Friends Society.

In January 1941, Percival Whittlesey, who until late 1940 held several executive positions at the CCC, was living in Sky Island with his family. Whittlesey was a director of a maritime hardware firm and the state bank of Pearl River along with Bernard. He was also active in raising funds for the Anti-Nazi Council of America. After a recommendation from Bernard, Whittlesey hired eighteen year-old Walter Gottlieb Groebli Jr. as his houseboy. The decision turned out to be almost fatal for Whittlesey. On the morning of January 20, increasingly upset with his employer’s fervent anti-Nazi activities, Groebli lured his employer to the basement of Sky Island where he ambushed him with a 32-caliber automatic handgun, shooting him five times. Whittlesey, bleeding from wounds to his face, neck and chest was able to exit the house and was found staggering along Upland Drive by Norman Lewis, who worked at the Missionary Training Institute. Whittlesey was rushed to Nyack Hospital by my father while Groebli darted out the back door and climbed the icy, rocky hillside carrying his gun.

Police speculated Groebli was under orders of the German Bund to assassinate Whittlesey because of his activity and prominence in founding the Anti-Nazi Council of America. Whittlesey wrote in his statement to South Nyack Police Chief George F. Weeks: Evidently he had orders to toss me off … the shooting was deliberate. He came to my door in the morning, knocking loudly and shouting it was time for my coffee. He ran downstairs and yelled, ‘Come see what’s wrong with the furnace.’ He fired at me as I entered the furnace room and then again from the head of the stairs, this time right in my face.

An 8-state alarm for the arrest of Groebli proved futile and he eluded capture. It was reported in The Nyack Journal a few days later, a resident of Pearl River told police a young boy resembling Groebli’s description stopped at his house seeking money to reach New York City. Whittlesey recovered from his wounds and his release from Nyack Hospital in March was reported in The Nyack Journal.

After the war Groebli was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia and brought back to Rockland County, where he pleaded guilty to second degree armed assault and was sentenced to prison. There was no trial, no witnesses and Groebli gave no explanation of why he shot Whittlesey. Who was Groebli? Was the astute Pierre Bernard duped by a Nazi agent? You can imagine the rumors around town; the most salacious one fit in with the free love reputation surrounding Bernard’s Tantric yoga, suggesting a personal relationship between the men went bad. However that is pure speculation on the part of the town gossips; in reality the mystery of Sky Island Lodge will probably never be solved.

And what happened to Sky Island? From 1939 to 1945, the mansion was used for people displaced by the war in Germany. More than 600 refugees had their first glimpse of the USA from Sky Island.

Refugees came for an average stay of one month. They rested, attended Americanization classes, learning English; then were placed in jobs around the country. The relief efforts closed in August 1946 and Sky Island became the home of Dr. Viola Wertheim-Bernard.

The Nyack Villager thanks Jim Leiner for helping us all ‘Remember the Days .’