The Great Camps of the Adirondack Mountains are often grandiose family compounds of cabins that were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century on lakes in the Adirondacks. The camps were summer homes for the wealthy, sites for more or less lavish entertainment, with some featuring bowling alleys or movie theatres. The style of the remotely situated Great Camps was influenced by the BritishArts and Crafts Movement and the related American Craftsman style as well as by Swisschalet design, albeit with indigenous stone and heavy use of logs in vernacular architectural usage. William West Durant was an early developer of great camps.
The Adirondack region was one of the last areas of the northeastern United States to be explored by settlers; the headwaters of the Hudson River near Lake Tear of the Clouds on the slopes of Mount Marcy were not discovered until more than fifty years after the discovery of the headwaters of the Columbia River in the Canadian Rockies. Although a few sportsmen had shown some interest earlier, the publication of William H. H. Murray's Adventures in the Wilderness; Or Camp-Life in the Adirondacks in 1869 started a flood of tourists to the area, leading to a rash of hotel building and the development of stage coach lines. Thomas Clark Durant, who had helped to build the Union Pacific railroad, acquired a large tract of central Adirondack land and built the Adirondack Railway from fashionable Saratoga Springs to North Creek, New York. By 1875 there were more than two hundred hotels in the Adirondacks, some of them with several hundred rooms; the most famous was Paul Smith's Hotel.
The early Great Camps started life as simple tent camps, often on land initially leased from hotel owners, as hotel guests sought a more authentic wilderness experience. The tent camps evolved into tent platforms or lean-tos and then into compounds of rustic cabins. Even in the early stages, some of these camps became quite elaborate. In 1883 one of the first families on Upper St. Regis Lake, that of the wealthy merchant Anson Phelps Stokes, would arrive in a "special parlour horse car direct from 42nd street to Ausable for $100." One party consisted of ten family members and an equal number of servants, "three horses, two dogs, one carriage, five large boxes of tents, three cases of wine, two packages of stovepipe, two stoves, one bale of china, one iron pot, four washstands, one barrel of hardware, four bundles of poles, seventeen cots and seventeen mattresses, four canvas packages, one buckboard, [...], twenty-five trunks, thirteen small boxes, one boat, one hamper", all of which was then transferred to wagons for the 36mile ride to Paul Smiths, and thence by boat to their island campsite.[1]
As the region's hotels became more civilized and elaborate (Paul Smith's started without indoor plumbing), so too did the camps. But the use of rustic, native materials and craftsmen remained, as did a tendency to use separate buildings for separate functions, from dining to sleeping cabins, bowling alleys to dance pavilions, all connected by covered walkways as features of a distinctive Adirondack Architecture.
The largest and most luxurious camps were generally built on large landholdings; Adirondack land was cheap and the buyers were extraordinarily wealthy. Many of them were Jewish families excluded from the traditional Adirondack resorts.[2] For example, the rules of the Lake Placid Club specifically excluded anyone "against whom there is any reasonable physical, moral, social or race objection ... This invariable rule is rigidly enforced: it is found impracticable to make exceptions to Jews or others excluded...."[3] Wealthy Jews such as Otto Kahn, Alfred Lewisohn, Daniel Guggenheim, and Evelyn Lehman Ehrich and Harriet Lehman (daughters of one of the founders of brokerage firm Lehman Brothers) purchased land and constructed Great Camps when they found it impossible to join the established Adirondack clubs.[4]
The Great Camp tradition has analogues in the western United States, especially in the Rocky Mountains. Closely tied to the dude ranch tradition, elaborate private lodges and cabins owned by groups of wealthy Easterners were constructed in the wilderness. Often families originated from New York or Chicago and traveled by train to spend long periods in summer in the high country. Some lodges in the West were built by railroad interests, who were able to pick the best land while surveying potential railroad routes.
Preservation
The term "great camp" was used as early as 1916, although it was not until the late twentieth century, when preservation of these historic properties became a widely shared concern, that the term was given academic currency.[5] By 1921, in A History of the Adirondacks, Alfred Lee Donaldson was writing that "Among Adirondack terms calling for exact definition is the word 'camp.'... If you chance to know a millionaire, you may be housed in a cobblestone castle, tread on Persian rugs, bathe in a marble tub, and retire by electric light--and still your host may call his mountain home a 'camp.'"[6]
The realization that the camps were vulnerable came when, in 1975, Syracuse University announced plans to sell Sagamore Camp, which had been a gift to the university from Margaret Emerson. As Craig Gilborn, Director of the Adirondack Museum put it "If a college or university, regarded as the best societal steward of cultural properties, could now treat them as part of an investment portfolio, then the camps were in real jeopardy."[7] Particularly worrisome was the fact that, under the Forever Wild provision of the New York State Constitution, if the camp were acquired by the state as part of the Forest Preserve, the buildings would have to be destroyed.[citation needed][how?]
Sagamore was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. In the early 1980s staff of the Adirondack Museum recognized the Great Camps as a historic resource of the region and undertook some documentation. Gilborn, on learning that Sagamore Camp was threatened with demolition, contacted Paul Malo at Syracuse University, knowing the professor to be an architectural historian interested in regional landmarks. Professor Malo induced the Preservation League of New York State to become active in saving Camp Sagamore. Professor Malo represented the organization in negotiating with the State of New York to spare the Sagamore buildings. As president of the organization he subsequently led the Preservation League's campaign to amend the New York State Constitution in order to save the service complex buildings at Camp Sagamore, adding them to the landmark complex. The Preservation League also conducted an extensive survey of the region, identifying more than thirty properties that might be considered "Great Camps of the Adirondacks."
At the same time, Harvey Kaiser, a vice-president of Syracuse University, interviewed owners and others familiar with these historic properties, photographing the buildings in their settings. He wrote and illustrated an important 1982 book, "Great Camps of the Adirondacks," which popularized the term, stimulating wider public concern for preservation of these landmark buildings.
Shortly after demolition of the historic buildings at Sagamore Camp was averted, nearby Camp Uncas was similarly threatened. The same couple who saved Sagamore Camp, Howard Kirschenbaum and Barbara Glaser, negotiated with the State of New York, acquiring these buildings to save them.
Howard Kirschenbaum then founded Adirondack Architectural Heritage, a regional preservation organization that undertook a long, eventually successful campaign to save the historic buildings of the Santanoni Preserve.
In July 1986, a multiple property submission for registration of 10 great camps on the National Register was completed. It was certified in September 1986 by the State Historic Preservation Officer.[8] The 10 camps covered were:
Since the early preservation crises, appreciation of the Great Camps of the Adirondacks has increased, so that fewer seem to be in jeopardy at this time (2006), though the properties are large and costly to maintain.
Donaldson, Alfred Lee, A History of the Adirondacks. New York: The Century Co., 1921.
Engel, Robert; Howard Kirschenbaum; Paul Malo. Santanoni: From Japanese Temple to Life at an Adirondack Great Camp. Keesville, NY: Adirondack Architectural Heritage, 2000.
Gilborn, Craig. Adirondack Camps: Homes Away from Home, 1850-1950. Blue Mountain Lake, NY: Adirondack Museum; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
Gilborn, Craig. Durant: Fortunes and Woodland Camps of a Family in the Adirondacks. Utica, NY: North Country Books, 1981.
Hooker, Mildred Phelps Stokes, Camp Chronicles, Blue Mountain Lake, NY: Adirondack Museum, 1964. ISBN0-910020-16-7.
Kaiser, Harvey. Great Camps of the Adirondacks. Boston: David R. Godine, 1982. Google preview
Kirschenbaum, Howard. Story of Sagamore. Utica, NY: North Country Books, 2001.
Morgan, Bret. Rustic: Country Houses, Rural Dwellings, Wooded Retreats. New York, NY: Rizzoli International Publications, 2009.
Schneider, Paul. The Adirondacks: a History of America's First Wilderness. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1997.
The Adirondack Park is a park in northeastern New York protecting the Adirondack Mountains. The park was established in 1892 for "the free use of all the people for their health and pleasure", and for watershed protection. At 6.1 million acres, it is the largest park in the contiguous United States.
Great Camp Sagamore is one of several historic Great Camps located in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York State.
Raquette Lake is the source of the Raquette River in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. It is near the community of Raquette Lake, New York. The lake has 99 miles (159 km) of shoreline with pines and mountains bordering the lake. It is located in the towns of Long Lake and Arietta, both in Hamilton County.
Big Moose Lake, at the head of the Moose River, is a large lake about five miles (8 km) north of Fourth Lake in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. The lake is within both Herkimer and Hamilton counties, and covers portions of the towns of Webb and Long Lake. Located southwest of the lake is the hamlet of Big Moose.
National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture.
The Santanoni Preserve was once a private estate of approximately 13,000 acres (53 km2) in the Adirondack Mountains, and now is the property of the State of New York, at Newcomb, New York.
Adirondack Architecture refers to the rugged architectural style generally associated with the Great Camps within the Adirondack Mountains area in New York. The builders of these camps used native building materials and sited their buildings within an irregular wooded landscape. These camps for the wealthy were built to provide a primitive, rustic appearance while avoiding the problems of in-shipping materials from elsewhere.
Gore Mountain is an alpine ski resort on Gore Mountain in the Adirondack Mountains, located in North Creek, New York. The mountain is a popular winter destination, attracting skiers from all over the east. It is the largest ski area in New York and is located about one hour from the Capital District (Albany) metro area.
Adirondack Hotel is a hotel in Long Lake, New York, located on New York State Route 30. It was built in the 1850s but it burnt down, and was rebuilt in 1900. The hotel has two verandas with a view of 14 miles of Long Lake.
Camp Pine Knot, also known as Huntington Memorial Camp, on Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, was built by William West Durant. Begun in 1877, it was the first of the "Adirondack Great Camps" and epitomizes the "Great Camp" architectural style. Elements of that style include log and native stonework construction, decorative rustic items of branches and twigs, and layout as a compound of separated structures. It is located on the southwest tip of Long Point, a two-mile long point extending into Raquette Lake, in the Town of Long Lake in Hamilton County, New York.
William West Durant (1850–1934) was a designer and developer of camps in the Adirondack Great Camp style, including Camp Uncas, Camp Pine Knot and Great Camp Sagamore which are National Historic Landmarks. He was the son of Thomas C. Durant, the financier and railroad promoter who was behind the Crédit Mobilier scandal.
Camp Uncas is an Adirondack Great Camp, the second built by William West Durant for his own use. It lies on the shore of 110-acre (45 ha) Lake Mohegan, near Great Camp Sagamore, and was completed in two years.
Begun in 1882, Camp Wild Air was the first permanent camp on Upper Saint Regis Lake, in the town of Brighton, Franklin County in New York's Adirondacks. The camp was built by New York Herald Tribune publisher Whitelaw Reid on a 29-acre (12 ha) peninsula accessible only by water. It presently consists of 12 buildings, 10 of which were built before 1931.
William Lincoln Coulter (1865–1907) was an American architect who came to Saranac Lake, New York, in the spring of 1896 in an effort to cure his tuberculosis, and stayed to design some of the finest Adirondack Great Camps and Cure Cottages in the area. Among the camps he designed were Knollwood Club, Camp Eagle Island and Prospect Point Camp; Camp Eagle Island has been designated a US National Historic Landmark. In Saranac Lake, in 1903, he designed a house at 147 Park Avenue for Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, that wits dubbed "The Porcupine" because it had so many fine points and belonged to a "quill pusher". He also designed the Coulter Cottage, built between 1897 and 1899.
Adirondack Experience, located on NY-30 in the hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake in Hamilton County, New York, is a museum dedicated to preserving the history of the Adirondacks. The museum is located on the site of an historic summer resort hotel, the Blue Mountain House, built high above Blue Mountain Lake in 1876 by Miles Tyler Merwin, that operated until the late 1940s. The museum consists of 23 buildings, 121 acres, and 60,000 square feet of exhibition space. The opening of a brand new 19,000 square foot exhibition, Life in the Adirondacks, took place July 2017.
William G. Distin (1884–1970), an architect of Saranac Lake, New York, was an early associate of Great Camp designer William L. Coulter who went on to design a number of Adirondack Great Camps.
Rustic furniture is furniture employing sticks, twigs or logs for a natural look. The term "rustic" is derived from Latin rusticus. The style is rooted in Romantic tradition. In the US it is almost synonymous with the National Park Service rustic style of architecture. Many companies, artists and craftspeople make rustic furniture in a variety of styles and with a variety of historical and contemporary influences.
Joseph O.A. Bryere, was a guide in the Adirondacks and a noted woodworking artist whose style played a significant role in creating the rustic, “Adirondack look” we know today. Along with Ernest Stowe, Seth Pierce, George Wilson and other master craftsmen, Bryere helped create the rustic aura so desired in the Adirondack great camps of the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Rustic architecture is a style of architecture in the United States used in rural government and private structures and their landscape interior design. It was influenced by the American Craftsman style.
Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) is a private nonprofit, membership organization dedicated to the preservation of the historic architecture of New York State's Adirondack Park. Their offices are located in the historic Ausable Horse Nail Company office building in Keeseville, New York.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
