A Connecticut hillside, a family with a dream, and eighty years of summers.
In 1946, the Pivnick family stood on a hillside of their Moodus dairy farm and saw more than pasture. They saw a place where city families could trade the noise and heat of the city for fresh country air. That vision became The Grandview Resort and Day Camp.
They built a hotel, a playhouse, cottages, and a swimming pool. For the next thirty years, city folks flocked to the Moodus countryside every summer — dancing, swimming, and falling in love under the stars.
“It was just like the movie.”
If you’ve seen Dirty Dancing, you already know the feeling: a summer resort alive with music, poolside afternoons, and evenings that ended with dancing. That was Moodus in its heyday, and Grandview was right in the middle of it.
By 1975, cheaper air travel, cruises, and RV camping pulled vacationers elsewhere, and the grand resorts of Moodus slipped into memory. Grandview spent time as a basketball camp and later the home of a heritage learning retreat, before the years took their toll.
Don & Valarie Bergeron have lived across the road from Grandview for sixty years — long enough to remember it at its best, and to watch it fall on hard times. Remembering the Grandview she loved, she and her late husband Don set out to bring it back to life.
The old hotel had deteriorated beyond saving and came down in 2014, but the couple restored what they could and carved modern campsites and facilities into the hillside. When Don passed, Valarie kept going, committed to the dream they shared.
Today Grandview is a clean, safe, affordable campground where families, camping clubs, reunions, and old friends come back season after season — many of them calling it their special place.
“In the 1950s, vacation meant camping at the beach all summer — an old trailer, water fetched in a bucket, no electricity, and an outhouse. We had it all! Later we camped in tents, trailers, and our favorite, great big RVs, staying at some of the best and some of the worst campgrounds across the country.
Little did we know we were quietly picking out all the things that would make our own campground special: a clean, safe, affordable place where folks can simply enjoy being together. I keep the vision Don and I shared, and my hope is that your first stay at Grandview will be the first of many.”
In 2026, Grandview was purchased by the Kelsey family — a family with a long history of completing the visions of the campground founders who came before them.
It started in 2002, when the Kelseys purchased Windy Acres Campground in Westhampton, MA. Built by the Witherell family in the late 1960s and later sold, the campground had fallen into disrepair over the years. The Kelseys immediately set to work restoring it to the vision Merril Witherell had when he began. In 2008 it joined the KOA system, and the Northampton / Springfield KOA was born. In 2017, second-oldest son Michael began his journey as a campground manager after graduating from Johnson & Wales University with a degree in hospitality and working at Marriott’s premier JW Marriott property in Arizona. The family continues to improve the campground every year with the Witherells’ vision in mind, and it remains an award-winning KOA to this day.
In 2015 they purchased the Adirondack 1000 Islands Campground in Natural Bridge, NY — originally built by the Farr family in the early 1970s as the Natural Bridge KOA. After the Farrs sold it, this campground too fell into disrepair and was removed from the KOA system. Over the next six years the Kelseys returned it to its original name and its original glory. Oldest son Brian and his wife Amber began their careers as campground managers there.
In 2017 they purchased Camp Niantic by the Atlantic in Niantic, CT, originally built by the Rice family in the early 1970s. It had struggled through the 2000s and came close to closing in 2016. This would be the Kelseys’ biggest project yet, and work began immediately after the sale. Following a major cleanup in 2017, they brought the campground into the KOA system as the Niantic KOA. Eight years later, it has finally reached the vision the Rice family had for it almost fifty years ago.
In 2021 the family sold the Natural Bridge KOA so that Brian, Amber, and their son Landon could move back to Massachusetts and take over management of the Northampton KOA, while Michael moved to Connecticut to manage the Niantic KOA with his sister Ashley as assistant manager. The youngest member of the Kelsey family, Brysin, now works in Niantic alongside his brother and sister.
The Bergeron family built the modern Grandview campground in 2014 and have continued improving it to this day. We intend to grow their vision while respecting the property’s rich history. The Kelseys’ son Matthew, who has been integral in maintaining the family’s two campgrounds, will lead the team on this journey. The Kelseys’ daughter Nicole is the only member of the family not involved in the family business — her calling was nursing, and she works in Western Massachusetts.
Book online in a snap, or call and let’s find you the perfect site.