The Adirondack region evolved over years from vast, impassable wilderness to a land of logging camps, tanneries, sawmills, and small settlements. By the end of the 19th century, the area grew again, becoming a tourist destination famed for its great hotels, quaint inns, cottages, and rustic cabins. The hotels and inns spread throughout the Adirondacks, beginning after the Civil War and continuing during the Gilded Age between World Wars I and II. The region drew the rich and famous, as well as workers and families escaping the polluted cities. This volume contains 200 vintage images of those famed accommodations that catered to years of Adirondack visitors. Most of the buildings seen in this book no longer exist, having been destroyed by fires, the wrecking ball, or simply forgotten over time. Adirondack Hotels and Inns provides a timeless look at the vacation retreats of the past.
The Adirondack region evolved over years from vast, impassable wilderness to a land of logging camps, tanneries, sawmills, and small settlements. By the end of the 19th century, the area grew again, becoming a tourist destination famed for its great hotels, quaint inns, cottages, and rustic cabins. The hotels and inns spread throughout the Adirondacks, beginning after the Civil War and continuing during the Gilded Age between World Wars I and II. The region drew the rich and famous, as well as workers and families escaping the polluted cities. This volume contains 200 vintage images of those famed accommodations that catered to years of Adirondack visitors. Most of the buildings seen in this book no longer exist, having been destroyed by fires, the wrecking ball, or simply forgotten over time. Adirondack Hotels and Inns provides a timeless look at the vacation retreats of the past.
From 1859 to the present, the name Paul Smiths has meant different things to visitors and residents of the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York. In the 19th century, the name was synonymous with a grand hotel on the shores of Lower St. Regis Lake and the wilderness guide who was its founder. In the early 20th century, the hotel business expanded to include land sales, a railroad, a telephone company, and the Paul Smiths Electric Power and Light Company, which became the first electric provider in the region. After World War II, Paul Smiths College was founded to provide quality liberal arts and technical associate-level degrees to returning veterans and recent high school graduates. Today Paul Smiths College attracts students from across America to the only baccalaureate-degree-granting institution in the six-million-acre Adirondack Park.
Who minds sleeping under a mosquito net when it's royally draped over the bed in a lush Kenyan, open-walled hut, fashioned from tree trunks and shielded from the sun by a sumptuous thatched roof? This selection of the most-splendid getaway havens nestled throughout the African continent is sure to please even the most finicky would-be voyagers. Photos.
This is the definitive book on the style, architecture, design, and natural beauty of the Adirondack Great Camps. The Adirondack Great Camps as well as their furnishings are some of the most iconic of American architecture and design. Harkening back to nineteenth-century tycoons and continuing today, this style is driven by the call to a simpler life in harmony with these mountains. Approximately forty of these camps both historic and contemporary and their glorious environments represent this celebration of one of America's true regional treasures. An afterword by a curator of The Adirondack Museum highlights the craft tradition of the Great Camps. The wild beauty and serenity of the Adirondacks have always attracted those who sought a simpler life and a connection to nature. This is a land of spectacular beauty, with iconic elements such as the sugar maple and white birch; bobcat, beaver, and moose; majestic loon and great blue heron. It should come as no surprise then, that the robber barons and business tycoons of the 1800s turned to this leafy haven to escape the urban jungle. They constructed compounds in and around Raquette Lake as rustic getaways, and these grand structures became known as the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. Each Great Camp was more beautiful than the next. The rough-hewn, timber exteriors contrasted the elegant interiors, which included complex stonework and hand-carved furniture. Natural elements such as tree roots, fungi, twigs, and bark, often played an integral part in the décor--the simple yet elegant Adirondack chair has become an international symbol of leisure. Today, approximately 40 Great Camps have survived, including 10 that are National Historic Landmarks. Some are open to the public as landmarks and lodges, while others remain in private hands. These structures echo the greatness of their past and enhance the natural beauty of the region, while providing us with a link to our nation's rich history of environmental preservation balanced with economic growth. Just the list of camp names reads like a history of the Adirondacks: Sagamore, Hedges, Pine Knot, Waldheim, The Point, Santanoni, Top Ridge, White Pine, Clear Lake, Prospect Point, Northbrook, Whiteface Lodge, Carolina, Regis/Applejack, Gull Rock, Huntington, Pritz, Three Star, Wononah, Wellscroft, Birch Point, Pinebrook, Hemlock Ledge, North Point, Bluff Point at Raquette Lake, Lake Placid Lodge, Moss Ledge, Wildair, Winnetaska, Boulder Isle, Sekon, Kildare, Uplands, Minnowbrook, Uncas, Covewood, Big Moose Chapel, Potluck, Albedor, and Paownyc.