From the 1920s through the early 1970s, the Borscht Belt was the preeminent summer resort destination for hundreds of thousands of predominantly East Coast American Jews, as exclusion from existing establishments in the 1920s drove Jewish entrepreneurs to create more than 500 resorts, 50,000 bungalows, and 1,000 rooming houses in Sullivan County and parts of Ulster County. In its heyday, Monticello had about 65 hotels and 133 bungalow colonies. Kutscher's Country Club was known for sports and entertainment, hosted Muhammad Ali, trained additional boxers at other hotels, employed Wilt Chamberlain as a bellhop while he played on the hotel's basketball team before rising to NBA fame, and presented entertainers including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Crystal, and Joan Rivers. Kutscher's was the longest-running resort in the Borscht Belt and closed in 2013. The Laurels Hotel and Country Club was for a time the largest hotel in Sullivan County, was popular with singles, held the world's record for the largest steel swimming pool, and was operated by the Novack family, who also built the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. Other notable Monticello destinations included Esther Manor, Lewinters Bungalow Colony, and the Delano Hotel. The Borscht Belt provided a sense of community for working and vacationing Jews, strongly influenced American culture in entertainment, music, and sports, and began a gradual decline around 1960 because of factors including the growth of suburbia, inexpensive airfare, and generational changes.