This weekend I am taking the opportunity to visit Great Camp Sagamore in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State.
the main house at Sagamore (from the camp's website)
A dear friend of mine is teaching a college course about the history of the Adirondack Park, focusing particularly on it’s cultural significane. His class is taking a sort of field trip and he invited me to come along.
Camp Sagamore was built by William Durant around the turn of the 20th century and was owned by the Vanderbilt family until the mid 50s. Sagamore is fairly representative of the so called Great Camps of the Adirondack Park. These were elaborate camps built by the rich and famous, mostly from New York City, from the end of the Civil War to about the time of the Great Depression.
The camps were constructed to appear very harmonius with the nature that surrounded them. They were mostly of log construction and featured native stone work and decorative rustic work that incorporated twigs and branches from the surrounding forests. Far from being simple weekend hunting shacks, the camps often included their own self-sustaining farms. It wasn’t uncommon for the camps to have the usual staff of servants to prepare food, clean, look after the boats, and otherwise ensure a pleasant stay for family and guests. William Durant’s camp even had a church built on the premises so that servants and guests could worship.
Some photos of other Great Camps:
The Point, built by the Rockefellers (destination.com)
the boathouse, just the boathouse, at the Point (townandcountrytravelmag.com)
part of the farm at Camp Santanoni (adkimage.com)
Church of the Good Shepherd, built for the visitors and servants at Camp Pine Knot (sthubertsisle.com)
Camp Pine Knot (greatcamps.com)
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September 25, 2009 at 12:38 pm
John Warren
“Camp Sagamore was built by the Vanderbilt family”
I hadn’t realized that the family were both industrialists and pretty good carpenters and masons.
I think what you meant is that the Vanderbilt family had Camp Sagamore built by local people for them.
September 25, 2009 at 2:04 pm
rjr
Thank you Mr. Warren for making sure that adequate credit was given to the local craftsman who no doubt did the actual construction of the camp. In case any of my readers thought a millionaire was actually chopping down trees and hammering nails, please let me disabuse you of that notion. My usage of the term “built” was intentional and was intended to indicate the design, choice of materials, purchase and overall management of the entire project. In other words, the sort of genius behind the project. However, I had a much larger problem with my post. In fact the main house was built by Mr. William Durant, who also designed Pine Knot. The camp was almost immediately sold to the Vanderbilt family who made other additions to the property.
September 25, 2009 at 2:11 pm
John Warren
Also, I believe there is some dispute as to who created the rustic style, rich vacationers or locals.
September 25, 2009 at 2:35 pm
rjr
Valid point. I think if one is talking about the style as style, we probably have to give credit to people like Durant. Durant’s “vacations” included wintering in the ADKs in a tent. By all accounts he was a man of many talents, and, like many rich men of his era, knew more than how to balance a ledger.
But, it’s true. He probably wasn’t the first person in the ADKs to make a table from unmilled pine. Most architectural styles borrow from a variety of sources and create something we might generally refer to as a “style”.
September 26, 2009 at 8:28 am
Barbara
Where’s Topridge? And its newest owners bought it for less than a million dollars in the 90′s and are trying to sell it for over $8 million 15 years later – during a recession!
September 27, 2009 at 8:24 am
rjr
I have to admit, I’m not familiar with Topridge. I’m planning to write a longer series of posts about the camps and I’ll be sure to include it. 8 million?
October 16, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Sue
A slight correction….Topridge is not for sale. Not sure where that rumor was started but I know for sure it is not for sale.