September 21, 2026

Callicoon Hills vs The DeBruce

Same operator, different philosophies

Callicoon Hills and The DeBruce are both run by Foster Supply Hospitality, Sims Foster's Sullivan County-based operation. Foster Supply also runs The Arnold House and Kenoza Hall — four properties total, which keeps the group inside our ≤5-property independent cutoff, barely. Same owner, same operational DNA, very different hotels.

If you've never stayed at either, the surface-level comparison looks like a tie. Both are restored historic lodges in the Western Catskills. Both have serious restaurants. Both are at a similar price point. Both are remote enough that you will drive 45 minutes for gas. But the experiences are distinct, and if you book the wrong one you'll spend the weekend wishing you'd booked the other.

Callicoon Hills: the big one

Callicoon Hills is Foster Supply's anchor property. 23 acres, 65 rooms across the main lodge plus cottages and cabins, a pool, a proper restaurant (Bar & Table), a private lake, a farmhouse building that hosts weddings, and a scale that feels — compared to the rest of Foster Supply's portfolio — almost resort-like.

This is the Foster Supply property you book when you're bringing a group. A family reunion, a friends weekend of eight couples, a wedding-weekend adjacent stay. The cottages have multiple bedrooms. The lodge rooms are unified but varied enough in size that you can mix-and-match. The restaurant can absorb a group of twelve without blinking.

It's also the most kid-friendly of the four Foster Supply properties. Not "kid-focused" — there's no kids' club, no kids' menu pablum — but functionally family-friendly in a way that Kenoza Hall, The DeBruce, and The Arnold House are not.

The design at Callicoon Hills reads as Country Estate — painted wood paneling, antique furnishings that look like they've been collected over decades, hand-printed wallpapers, deep colors. The wine list and cocktail program at Bar & Table punches above its weight for a hotel this remote.

The DeBruce: the small one

The DeBruce is the opposite of Callicoon Hills almost on every axis. It's 600 acres (versus Callicoon's 23) but has only 13 rooms. Two private mountains. An 1890 lodge above the Willowemoc — which, for non-anglers, is one of the three most storied fly-fishing streams in the Eastern United States.

The DeBruce is a hotel for people who have a specific set of interests: actual nature, actual fly fishing, actual reading-a-book-in-silence. The dining room runs a nine-course tasting menu nightly (no a la carte), which commits you to a two-and-a-half-hour dinner. Breakfast is included and is genuinely good. There is no pool. There is no kids' playroom. There is a library, a billiards room, and a dedicated fishing outfitting program.

If Callicoon Hills is the Foster Supply property you bring your parents to, The DeBruce is the one you come back to alone, or with one other person.

The actual booking decision

Book Callicoon Hills if:

You're traveling with a group of four or more
You want options during dinner hours (bar menu, full menu, quick bite)
You want a pool
Your weekend includes non-drivers (it's walkable within the property)
You're introducing someone to the Catskills for the first time

Book The DeBruce if:

You're one or two people, or two couples at most
You want a tasting-menu dinner, committed to, nightly
You fly fish, or you want to learn
You want real silence — the kind that ranges past "quiet"
You've already done a Catskills weekend and want the deeper version

The 20-minute drive between them

The two properties are about 20 minutes apart on back roads. Callicoon Hills is in Callicoon proper; The DeBruce is in Livingston Manor, near Foster's third property, The Arnold House. On a three-day weekend, a day trip from one to the other is reasonable — a bar lunch at The DeBruce followed by dinner at Bar & Table at Callicoon Hills, or the reverse.

Both have the same housekeeping and concierge team architecture. Both will coordinate transfers between properties if you're doing a multi-property weekend. (Worth asking about at booking — Foster Supply will often bundle this kind of thing if you ask.)

Where the rest of Foster Supply fits

The Arnold House is the original Foster Supply property. A former tavern on Shandelee Mountain in Livingston Manor, smaller and more rustic than either Callicoon Hills or The DeBruce. It's the property for people who want the smallest, least-polished Foster Supply experience — lived-in, cabin-centric, good porch-sitting.

Kenoza Hall is the newest and the most stylistically distinct — an 1880 boarding house overlooking a lake, 55 acres, 10 bungalows, with a whitewashed-cottage aesthetic closer to coastal Maine than Catskills lodge. It's the Foster Supply property we'd send a couple on a first trip.

The context: Foster Supply's role in the Catskills

Sims Foster and his family have been in Sullivan County hospitality for more than a decade. That's long enough that you can trace how the Foster Supply aesthetic evolved — from The Arnold House's unpretentious tavern-with-rooms energy through Callicoon Hills's Country Estate ambition to Kenoza Hall's arguably most-polished current form.

Foster Supply is the closest the Catskills has to a recognized local operator at portfolio scale. They're not Auberge. They're not Wildflower Farms. They don't manage other people's hotels. Each of their four properties is owned and operated by the same family-run team.

That's the reason we include them on our Catskills list despite the four-property footprint. They're on the independent side of the ≤5 line, and — more importantly — the operation actually reads as local when you're there.

One honest thing about peak season

Both properties sell out foliage weekends (mid-September through mid-October) by July. The DeBruce's 13-room inventory especially. If you're reading this in August planning October, start with The Arnold House or Kenoza Hall — those have slightly more slack in their calendars.

Off-peak, both properties are significantly softer bookings and the experience is, arguably, better. The DeBruce in February, with snow on the Willowemoc and the fire in the library going, is one of the best versions of a Catskills weekend available for the price.