On Monday, September 27, 2010, preservation enthusiasts from around the Adirondack Park gathered at the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid to honor and celebrate the Fifteenth Annual AARCH Awards.
Six awardees, all summer camp owners, shared their stories of challenge and success, passion and purpose with a lively and engaged group of advocates and supporters.
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Howard and Ora Smith For stewardship of Camp Carolina Lake Placid, Essex County |
Situated on the eastern shore of Lake Placid, across from Moose Island, Camp Carolina originally sat on 125 acres of land and, until recently, was accessible only by water. Camp Carolina was built in 1913 for Caesar Cone (1859-1917) of Blowing Rock, N.C. Cone was the founder (1895) and president of Proximity Manufacturing Co., which operated three denim mills around Greensboro, N.C. In 1913, his Proximity Print Works was the first plant in the south to engage in the process of color (fabric) printing. Also prior to World War I, Cone and his brother Moses helped to consolidate the cotton trade into a single selling organization.
Camp Carolina was designed by M. H. (Max) Westoff of New York City (Westoff had been a partner with William Coulter, a prolific Saranac Lake architect, who died in 1907). Its construction was supervised by George J. Bola for Arthur & Hayes. The camp is dominated by a main building, which is an elongated two-story shingled lodge with 18 rooms.
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James and Anne Schoff For stewardship, Wenonah Lodge Upper Saranac Lake, Franklin County |
Wenonah Lodge on Upper Saranac Lake was built for Jules S. Bache (1861-1944), a Wall Street banker, philanthropist, and art patron. He took over his uncle's brokerage business and built it - J.S. Bache & Company - into one of the premier financial services firms in the early decades of the twentieth century.
The turn-of-the-century camp includes a main lodge, game room, guest cabins, a boathouse, dining building, tennis shelter, teahouse, and support buildings. Unifying exterior features include "brainstorm" siding, red shingled roofs, decorative wooden screens, broad porches, and connecting covered walkways. The teahouse has a strong Japanese influence. The major interior rooms have large stone fireplaces, bark and peeled log decorated surfaces, and wrought iron hardware and lighting fixtures. While the architect of the original complex is not known, William Distin of Saranac Lake is known to have designed later additions and alterations.
Between the late 1950s and the mid 1980s the camp was operated as a public resort. In the early 1990s, the camp was sensitively subdivided and is now in multiple ownership.
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Carlotta Prahl For long-term stewardship of Mountain Meadows Paradox, Essex County |
This late 19th-century camp, Mountain Meadows, has been in the Prahl family for a number of years; during WWII it was used as a boarding house for Jewish refugees, and there are still menus on the walls listing meal times.
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The Nichols Family For long-term stewardship of the The N House Pottersville, Warren County |
The main house (1898) was built by the Nichols family, and is currently owned by Terry Nichols, who runs it as a summer resort. Several generations of families have come back year after year to spend their summers here.
Overlooking a private lake, the property includes several other structures, including: a carriage house, a mechanic's garage (relocated to the property), and chicken coop that are all now used as summer cabins. All of the structures on this part of the property date from the late 19th to early 20th-centuries.
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Dick and Helen Armstrong For long-term stewardship, Bearhurst Speculator, Hamilton County |
Built in 1894 for Herman Meyrowitz, Bearhurst incorporates a variety of rustic elements, such as a mix of horizontal and vertical unpeeled log construction. Meyrowitz made his fortune in optical glass, and his profession is reflected in the elaborate windows in the camp. As one of the first developers in the area, he accumulated a significant tract of land including all of Speculator Mountain.
In 1953 Bearhurst was purchased by William and Frieda Funfschilling. By this time most of the original furniture had been sold off, but a number of the replacement pieces came from the Grand Hotel in Saratoga Springs. The Funfschillings let rooms in the lodge and operated the camp as an inn of sorts for a few years, but soon decided to retain the main building for family use only. The business idea took hold, however, and they began converting the numerous outbuildings to rental cottages. William and Frieda's daughter, Helen, and her husband Dick Armstrong, took over the business around 1983 and continue the tradition. The Armstongs have been admirable stewards, taking care to maintain the original character of the place.
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Phebe Thorne For long-term stewardship of The Uplands Keene Valley, Essex County |
The Uplands was construction began c.1907-1908 and was completed by the 1910 season. No documentation has been found on the architect, although the work suggests a hand of considerable talent. The complex was built for Joseph Tilden Alling around the time he assumed the presidency of Alling & Cory, a paper manufacturing firm based in Rochester, with additional plants in five other cities. Given the extensive timbering undertaken in the region for paper companies at this time, Alling may have first come to know Keene Valley through his business. Like many industrialists of his generation, he also took a prominent role in municipal reform, institutional development, and charitable initiatives in the community he called home.
Samuel Thorne, Jr., a prominent New York attorney, purchased the house in 1925, adding the southernmost buildings. These appendages are treated in a nearly identical vein to earlier work, without strong hierarchical distinctions. The ensemble thus reads as a unified whole, its character unassuming in materials and detail, its presence formidable in size and configuration. The house continues to be lovingly maintained by Phebe Thorne.