The land was a working farm with a farmhouse on the Salmon River and 1,500 feet of waterfront. Locals figured the city couple had paid twice what it was worth. In 1930 the state took ten acres for Route 151, leaving the 22 acres that would be Donnellan's Riveredge for the next six decades.

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Arthur was born in that farmhouse, and he would spend nearly his whole life within sight of the spot.

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In 1929 lightning hit a transformer and sent 4,400 volts through the house. The lights popped and the radio caught fire. Arthur's mother threw the main switch and saved the place, for the moment. The scorched wiring was never properly replaced, and five months later it burned the house down in the night. The family rebuilt farther up the hill. A recreation hall went up where the farmhouse had stood.

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Those were the heyday years. Moodus was a small Borscht Belt, with thirty-some resorts serving families fleeing the heat of New York and New Jersey. Some came by car, "an eight-hour trip from New York, and at least two flat tires," Arthur recalled. Others took the night boat to Goodspeed's Landing, or the train to Old Saybrook, where resort buses waited.

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At Riveredge, $16 a week bought a cabin and 21 meals. The first cabins had running water, from a cold tap on the porch. There were no televisions, radios or telephones in the rooms. Entertainment was homemade: sing-alongs, corn roasts, ball games, volleyball, wiener roasts. "We kept them going with activities until 11 o'clock at night," Arthur said.

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The resorts of that era also sorted their guests, and said so in their brochures. A Jewish resort advertised its cuisine. A Christian one mentioned the churches nearby. "Everybody did it," Arthur said.

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Arthur grew up in the business, washing pots, organizing dances, calling ballgames. During World War II he was still a bachelor, and one summer 85 single women were staying at Riveredge with no other unattached men on the property. "It was bedlam," he said, and left it there.

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He met Olga, an East Hampton girl, at a square dance at the high school there. They married around 1946, and together they took over the resort. They added hot running water, private toilets and a swimming pool, and closed in the porch so guests could sit out year-round. At the peak they served three meals a day to as many as 85 guests, with a staff of about a dozen. Arthur did all the maintenance himself. Each spring he started painting the cottages at one end and worked his way around. By the time he finished, it was time to start again. Raking the lawn took four or five weeks.

Guests came back for generations. Once, four generations of one family stayed at the same time. George Riehemann of Chester, Vermont, came as a child with his parents, worked there as a teenager and later brought his own kids. "It never changed," he said. "It never commercialized."

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But the guests did change. In the 1960s, families who had spent whole summers began staying a month. By the '70s it was a week. By the early '80s it was a night or two. "It became just a glorified motel," Arthur said. "People are bouncing all over."

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In 1985 the Donnellans stopped taking overnight guests and put the place on the market. With their Christmas cards that December they sent nearly 500 notices telling guests the resort was done. "One of the toughest things for me," Arthur said.

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It took almost three years to find a buyer. In October 1987 they sold to Philip Klinck and partners for $775,000, and Riveredge reopened the following spring as the Salmon River Club, a health and country club.

Art and Olga moved to Town Street in Hadlyme, near enough to keep an eye on things. "We're going to get a twang every time we go by," Olga said.

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Eight months after the sale, Arthur sat at a picnic table beside his woodpile and a Chevy camper, looking pleased. "Now I've got just one building," he said. "Isn't it wonderful?"

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As for the three Moodus resorts still in business, he wished them well. But he wasn't betting on them. "Let's face it," he said. "That's the handwriting on the wall."